Mediterranean Captivity through Arab Eyes, 1517-1798 9789004440258, 2020035819, 2020035820, 9789004440241

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Mediterranean Captivity through Arab Eyes, 1517–1798

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Islamic History and Civilization Studies and Texts

Editorial Board Hinrich Biesterfeldt Sebastian Günther

Honorary Editor Wadad Kadi

volume 176

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/ihc

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Mediterranean Captivity through Arab Eyes, 1517–1798 By

Nabil Matar

LEIDEN | BOSTON

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Cover illustration: Monumento dei Quattro Mori in Livorno by Pietro Tacca, completed 1626. Photo by Sailko (Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)). Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Matar, N. I. (Nabil I.), 1949- author. Title: Mediterranean captivity through Arab eyes, 1517-1798 / by Nabil Matar. Description: Leiden ; Boston : Brill, 2020. | Series: Islamic history and civilization, 0929-2403 ; volume 176 | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2020035819 (print) | LCCN 2020035820 (ebook) | ISBN 9789004440241 (hardback) | ISBN 9789004440258 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Slavery–Mediterranean Region–History. | Slavery–Africa, North– History. | Captivity narratives–Mediterranean Region–History. | Captivity narratives–Africa, North–History. | Piracy–Mediterranean Region–History. | Piracy–Africa, North–History. | Arabs–Mediterranean Region–History. | Arabs–Africa, North–History. | Africa, North–History–1517-1882 Classification: LCC HT1345 .M38 2020 (print) | LCC HT1345 (ebook) | DDC 306.3/62091822–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035819 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020035820

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill‑typeface. ISSN 0929-2403 ISBN 978-90-04-44024-1 (hardback) ISBN 978-90-04-44025-8 (e-book) Copyright 2021 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi, Brill Sense, Hotei Publishing, mentis Verlag, Verlag Ferdinand Schöningh and Wilhelm Fink Verlag. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Requests for re-use and/or translations must be addressed to Koninklijke Brill NV via brill.com or copyright.com. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

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For Amy Who danced in the cave of the Cyclops

∵

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Contents Acknowledgements Illustrations xi

ix

Prologue: 21 June 2019 1 Introduction: Mediterranean Captivities 4 1 Writing Captivity in Arabic 4 2 Between the Lands of the Christians and the Lands of Islam, Bilād al-Naṣārā and Bilād al-Islām 24 1 Qiṣaṣ al-Asrā, or Stories of the Captives 43 1 ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qaysī (fl. 1485) 44 2 Aḥmad ibn al-Qāḍī (1553–1616) 50 3 Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbaktī (1556–1627) 59 4 Taʿlīqāt Muṣṭafā ibn Jamāl al-Dīn ibn Karāma (9 July 1606) 63 5 Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib al-Tafilātī al-Mālikī (al-Ḥanafī al-Maghribī) 67 6 Sayyid ʿAlī ibn al-Sayyid Aḥmad (1713) 72 7 Faṭma (1798) 81 8 Ibrāhīm Librīs (1802) 87 9 Conclusion 91 2 Letters 94 Conclusion 120 3 Divine Intervention: Christian and Islamic 123 1 Christian 123 2 Muslim 131 2.1 ʿĀisha bint [daughter of ] Aḥmad al-Idrīsiyya 2.2 ʿAlī Ḥmamūsh 137 2.3 Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh, Tunis 139 2.4 Shaykh Abū al-Qāsim ibn Khalaf 142 2.5 Conclusion 144

136

4 Conversion and Resistance 147 1 Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā al-Zwāwī al-Yūsifī (1630s) 156 2 Muḥammad al-Tāzī and Bil-Ghayth al-Drāwī (1656–1667)

162

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viii 3 4

contents

Imam Ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣaʿīdī (1718) Conclusion 185

180

5 Ransom and Return 188 1 Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Mahdī al-Ghazzāl (1766) 2 Ibn ʿUthmān al-Miknāsī (1779–1783) 206 3 Conclusion 212

193

6 Captivity of Books 215 Epilogue: Esclaves turcs in European Sculpture 229 Postscript: How Should the Sculptures Be Treated?

253

Bibliography 257 Index of Captives 283 General Index 286

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Acknowledgements This book is about the other side of the captivity coin. It started in earnest after I finished British captives in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, 1563–1760 (2014). Since then, I have incurred many debts. I wish to thank the numerous colleagues who invited me to give talks at their universities: Dr. Hasan Bakhtir, Erciyes University; Prof. Mario Klarer, University of Innsbruck; Prof. Mohammad Shaheen, University of Jordan; Prof. Khalid Bekkaoui, Sidi Mohamed Ben Abdallah University; Professor Erica HeinsenRoach, University of South Florida; Professor Anouar Majid, University of New England; Professor Adrian Grima, University of Malta; and Professor Amy Remensnyder, Brown University. At the same time, I wish to thank two friends who have helped me for decades—during visits or by emails: Wadad Kadi, an inspiring mentor since our days at the American University of Beirut, who remains ever my dear friend, and Mohammad Shaheen, a prodigious scholar since our graduate days at Cambridge. To them I always remain thankful. I also wish to thank Gillian Weiss, Simon Ditchfield, Giancarlo Cassale, John Watkins, Gerald MacLean, Robert Spindler, Jeanne Kilde, Katrien Vanpee, Michelle Hamilton, and John Tolan for their various emails, lectures, and discussions over the years. I am particularly grateful to Dr. Khalid El Abdaoui of the University of Innsbruck for his meticulous transcription of the Arabic documents at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. I wish to thank Professor Martin M. Morales, Head of Archives at the university, and his research collaborators for their assistance during my visit. I also wish to thank Simon Ditchfield for putting me in contact with Stefania Tutino and Lorenzo Mancini who helped me with the sources. I am thankful to Lorenzo for sending me scans of the documents. To all, I am deeply indebted. I also want to thank Dr. Afaf Hamzaoui at the University of Ibn Zohr, Agadir, and her father, for their assistance with Moroccan calligraphy and history. At the University of Minnesota, and on various occasions, I have taught a course on captivity (“From North Africa to North America”). I learned a lot from my students, especially Dr. Katie Sisneros in her PhD dissertation on “Turk” ballads (2016), and Dr. Joanne Jahnke-Wegner in her PhD dissertation on “Captive economies” (2020). I also wish to thank the many members of staff at the libraries where I conducted research: the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome; the Bilad al-Sham Center at the University of Jordan; the Franciscan Library in Valletta; the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris; The National Archives in London; the National

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List of Illustrations Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

The Algiers Inn (Baltimore, Ireland). Photo by Nabil Matar 2 Murat Rais, Baltimore Castle (Baltimore, Ireland). Photo by Nabil Matar 2 Entrance of the Church of the Order of the Holy Trinity—Santissima Trinita degli Spagnoli (Rome). Photo by Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com 235 Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno). By Sailko, attribution 3.0 unported (CC BY 3.0) 237 Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno). Photo by by Sailko, attribution 3.0 unported (CC BY 3.0) 238 Battle of Ostia by Raphael (Vatican). Photo by Nabil Matar 240 Fontana dei Quattro Mori (Marino, Italy). Photo by Nabil Matar 241 Fanal de Galère, Paris Maritime Museum (Paris). Photo by Nabil Matar 242 Bound Corsair, by Giovanni Baratta; Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein (Berlin). Photo by Nabil Matar 244 Mausoleum of Pietro Galleti, Church of St Agatha (Catania, Sicily). Photo by Nabil Matar 245 Detail of mausoleum of Pietro Galleti, Church of St Agatha (Catania, Sicily). Photo by Nabil Matar 246 Statue of St. Stephen, St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Vienna). Photo by Shutterstock 247 Base of equestrian statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy, Josef Rona, National Gallery (Budapest). Photo by Adobe Stock 248 Celebration of victory of Lepanto, 1571, Palazzo dei Conservatori (Rome). Photo by Nabil Matar 249 Turkish prisoner in chains, c. 1700, Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin). Photo by Nabil Matar 250

Map 1

Portuguese: Ceuta 1415; Al-Qasr al-Saghir 1458; Tangier 1464; Anfa 1467; Asila 1471; Agadir 1501; Bureiga 1502; Asfi 1506; Azammur 1508; Mahdiyya 1515. Spanish: Melilla 1497; Bona 1463; Marsa al-Kabir 1505; Oran 1509; Bayjayah 1509; Tripoli 1510; Tunis 1535; Badis 1564 29

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prologue

21 June 2019 With Amy, I arrived in Baltimore, Ireland, and went straight to the “Baltimore Castle & Pirate Exhibition.” I had long wanted to visit the site where Algerian pirates had landed on 21 June 1631 and abducted 107 English/Protestant men, women, and children to Algiers in what the brochure described as the “Sack of Baltimore.” Across from the entrance to the castle stands the “Algiers Inn,” established in 1892. The castle had been in ruins until it was restored between 1997 and 2005 by Bernie and Patrick McCarthy, where they have lived since 2005. Bernie studied history (M Phil, History, University College, Cork) and wrote two informative books: a short book about the Pirates of Baltimore and a longer one about the history of Baltimore. She graciously welcomes guests, responds to questions, and describes the various books on exhibit (without, modestly, mentioning that she is the author of two of them—something that I discovered later). “For Young Pirates,” a sheet with ten questions is given to children, asking about the castle’s Irish name, the color of the parrot’s tail in the hall, and the origin of the pirates who attacked Baltimore. By answering them, the respondent acquires a “Pirate Membership.” A number of children were eagerly writing their answers as I walked around. I gravitated to the exhibit about piracy. There were various objects: “Slave chain, as worn by slaves in Algiers, designed to restrict movement and prevent escape,” and a “North African curved sword, used by the Barbary pirates during the ‘Sack of Baltimore’ in 1631. This type of sword was ideally suited for close combat on board their galleys.” There were “Pieces of Eight” and “Wooden lock and its metal key from the north African coast as would have been used to prevent the escape of captured Christian slaves.” Very colorful was the figure of Murat Rais who had led the attack, a Dutchman who had renounced Christianity, adopted Islam, and then joined “the Salé Rovers.” With his men, continued the brief description of Murat Rais, he “must have made a ferocious spectacle dressed in red turban and embroidered red waistcoat.” Near these objects were posters that furnished information about the attack on the port city. One of the illustrations, belonging to the nineteenth century, had a woman in a cruciform position with dark-skinned men fighting over her. Another showed a hanging. “The pirate party must have made a terrible and frightening sight.” The exhibit continues with the story of the attack on Baltimore, which Ms. McCarthy recalls in her book dedication: “To the memory

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figure 1

prologue

The Algiers Inn (Baltimore, Ireland) Photo by Nabil Matar

figure 2 Murat Rais, Baltimore Castle (Baltimore, Ireland) Photo by Nabil Matar

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21 june 2019

3

of all those Baltimore villagers who were forcibly taken from their homes by Algerian pirates on 21st June 1631 and sold into the slave markets of Algiers.” The castle and the exhibit ensure that the captives of the Algerians, their names and their grim stories, are never forgotten. And they have not. Sean O’Riordan reported in the Irish Examiner on 24 April 2017 the following: “Algerians return 4 centuries after village raid.” Happily, the visitors met with warm welcome from the Baltimore community. Back in Dublin a few days later, we hailed a taxi at the train station. And small world that it is, the driver happened to be “Lutfi,” the name on the dashboard, an Algerian married to an Irish woman and living in Dublin. Familiar with the history of the pirates, he humorously proclaimed that he was a descendent of an Algerian pirate and an Irish captive. After all, he added, he had grown up in the Murat Rais neighborhood in Algiers … and loved Guinness.

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introduction

Mediterranean Captivities From the general silence on the subject [piracy and captivity], one might assume that Christian Europe has had a collective feeling of guilt about the activity of its corsairs for some two hundred years.1

∵ 1

Writing Captivity in Arabic

Soon after a British colony was established in Tangier in 1661, bagnios for Muslim captives were built there, at the same time that other Muslims were sent off to England as slaves.2 With the British becoming active in the seizure and purchase of North African slaves, the Moroccan ruler Mulay Ismāʿīl (reg. 1672– 1727) wrote in 1682 to the governor of Tangier demanding the release of the Muslim captives. In return, Colonel Percival Kirke (1646–1691) demanded the release of Britons who were held by Ismāʿīl. The Moroccan retorted: “How can we with a quiet mind consent to the going in of a hundred and fiftie Christians to Tanger leaving the building of our house, carried on by the hands of those Slaves, unfinished, and at the same time see four hundred captive Moors working at the gates of Tanger and carrying stone and morter to the Mole.”3 So, Kirke searched for Muslim captives, many of whom were held in private hands in the colony, but when he prepared “A list of the Mahumetan Slaves bought on his Maties account of severall Inhabitants in Tanger,” he included a mere one-tenth of the total—all men and not a single woman:

1 Earle, Corsairs 10–11. 2 CSPD Charles II, January to November, 1671, 11:352 (June?). In 1673, “Mr. Blundell” took some of them “prisoners” to England, CSPD Charles II, October, 1672, to February, 1673, 474 (24 January 1673). See also CSPD Charles II, October 1668 to December 1669, 9: 180 and 234 (15 March and 2 February 1619), and CSPD Charles II, 1670, With Addenda, 1660–1670, 10:348 (28 July 1670) for further evidence of British dealing in Muslim slaves. 3 The National Archives, London (henceforth TNA), Colonial Office (henceforth CO) 270/30/ 369.

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mediterranean captivities

p[ieces] of eight [Spanish dollar] Norlo 112 Hamet Ali 112 Ali Cason 112

Belonging to Daniel Vansesterfleet, James Waring, & Robt. Cuthbert

Mahamed Sin Joseph Ali Mesot Mortegett Hamet Benali Jeragile Ali Hamet Genduz Mustafa Mahomet Ali Bensily Baram Ali Mahamed Ali Berecquet Negro Shaban Benkalifa Hamet Benhamet Oran Bacicha

112 112 112 112 112 112 112 112 100 100 100 100 112 150

Mahamed de Shezrell Jetta Secola Ali de Santa Cruz Oran de Tunis Hamet de Cabilla Rahall de Birkey Cassim de [?]

100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Belonging to Robt. Cuthbert

Aldraman Granado

100

Belonging to Capt. Giles

Mahamed Ben Mus Ali Zensana Hamet Cara Hamet Stombly Belle Mahamed de Smyrna Haretta Mahamed

100 100 100 100 100 100

Mahamad Bebeck

100

Mahamad Bebeck

100

Belonging to Capt. Collier

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introduction

Mahamad Hessen Hamet Hessen Joseph

100 100 100

Oran de Tripoli Absalom de Misery Mahamed de Saley

100 100 100

Belonging to Major Hope

Ali Benhamet

100

Belonging to Capt. Beverley

Hamet de Argier

1004

Those captives were among the thousands of Muslims in the early modern period who were seized to the slave markets of Spain (Cadiz, Cartagena, and Alicante) and its colonies in North Africa (Ceuta, Melilla, and Oran), France (Provence, Lánguedoc, Marseille, and Roussillon), Italy (Genoa, Naples, Livorno, Palermo, Messina, and Catania), in the galleys of Malta, and in the gaols of England and, until 1684, of Tangier.5 From the Ottoman conquest of the whole eastern and southern basin of the Mediterranean from 1517 to 1520 (Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria), except Morocco, to the Napoleonic invasion of Egypt in 1798 that began the transformation of the Middle East, Muslim captives were bought and sold, ransomed and exchanged, converted, escaped, or died throughout the Mediterranean world and beyond.6 However, from the numerous sixteenth-century European accounts of captivity in the Ottoman Empire to Edmund Spenser’s “captiues to redeeme with price of bras,/From Turkes and Sarazins” (Fairie queene, 1:10.40), to the “cautivo” plays by Cervantes and Lope de Vega on the Spanish stage in its golden age, to the various memoirs of German captives, to Robinson Crusoe’s stint among

4 TNA CO 279/30/328. On the verso side, the following names were added: Ali Benabdala, 100 pieces of eight; Melud Benahamed, 100; Bercais, 100; Ali, 150; and Musa Issa (no price). In a letter by Kirke in 1681, he had mentioned 47 captives, CO 279/28/398. 5 According to Fontenay, the only place in the West where slavery/captivity was not practiced was Venice, L’ Esclave galérien 117. 6 Captivity was temporary while slavery was permanent. Many captives, however, spent all their lives and died before they were ransomed. For a discussion of these terms, see Fontenay, Esclaves et/ou captifs, and Ghazali, Boubaker, and Maziane, Introduction, paragraph 6. In Arabic sources, the term used for a European or an Arab captive was asīr, and very rarely ʿabd, or slave, which term was used for Africans, as in ʿabīd al-Sūdān, or the slaves of the Lands of the Blacks.

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mediterranean captivities

7

the “Moors” (1719), to the American Royall Tyler and his The Algerine captive (1797), all the way to Lambert Playfair’s diatribe in The scourge of Christendom (1884) and twentieth-century cinematic representations of White women in Muslim harems,7 the imaginative and scholarly emphasis has been on the plight of European and American captives in the Islamic Mediterranean. Popular and academic writings about captivity, covering regions from the Middle East to Western Europe and the Atlantic, have focused on the numbers and conditions of “Christian slaves” as they were brutalized by North African “Muslim masters.”8 As the Algerian scholar Moulay Belhamissi observed: Western scholarship has associated captivity exclusively with Muslims,9 even though the English and the Dunkirkers, the French and the Spaniards, the Maltese and the Tuscans, at various periods in their naval history, were as active and brutal in piracy as the North Africans. As, of course, were the Genoese in the medieval period. The classic work by Godfrey Fisher, Barbary legend (1957), was the first book to show the universal nature of piracy in the early modern Mediterranean: Muslims were not the only miscreants. Mephistopholes spoke for all pirates in the Mediterranean when he proclaimed in Goethe’s Faust II, “War, trade, and piracy, allow, /As three in one, no separation” (scene ii). Still, the discourse on North African captivity of Europeans has been, and continues to be, religiously framed against Muslims. In the past few decades, journalists and historians joined the islamophobic chorus and started recalling early modern “Barbary captivity” in the context of the Stalinist gulags,10 the hostage crisis in Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s, the September 2001 attacks in the United States, and the Somali piracies in the Indian Ocean.11 In a 2003

7 8 9 10 11

Bekkaoui, White women captives 42–45. Nevertheless, see Shakespeare’s inversion of Prospero and his brutalization of Caliban, son of the Algerian Sycorax, The tempest (1611). Belhamissi, Course et contre-course en méditerranée. Clissold, The Barbary slaves. Tinniswood, Pirates of Barbary, suggested that the history of fighting Barbary corsairing and captivity could serve as a roadmap for fighting modern Somali pirates. See also London, who explained that the “jihad” of modern Muslim terrorists was the same as that of the ‘Barbary corsairs’, Victory in Tripoli 24–29. There have been numerous publications in this strain, but also cogent criticisms: see Edwards, Disorienting captivity; the survey by Larson, John Foss’s Journal, the introduction; and the excellent essay by MacLean, Slavery and sensibility. In 1918, at the end of WWI, the British historian de Montmorency claimed that throughout the early modern period, “until 1816 the Barbary States carried on, with a thoroughness that Germany might envy, the highly organised business of piracy,” The Barbary States in international law 87.

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introduction

film about the Algerian raid on Iceland in 1627, the makers described that act of piracy as “Atlantic Jihad” (http://vimeo.com/31207401).12 This “terrorism” and “jihad” of the North African pirates in the early modern period, what the German magazine GeoEpoche described in 2013 as “the Muslim piratical terror of the Barbary States,”13 has been used to confirm an uninterrupted history of violence against European “Christians” by “Muslims,” thereby embedding that violence into the Western religious and historical identity. As a result, the study of early modern captivity has completely ignored the history of Arab and Muslim captives, even though the trade in Muslim slaves flourished during the age of the emergent European empires, from the Portuguese in India and the Dutch in the Maldives,14 to the English pirates in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea,15 and to Estebánico the Black in captivity to conquistador Cabeza de Vaca in the American southwest. Historians Bernard Lewis and Linda Colley have claimed that there was very little “indigenous information” about the Mediterranean captivity experience by non-Europeans,16 thereby adumbrating an imbalance in scholarship and public coverage that has resulted in the total disregard of non-European voices. That is why there is a need to disrupt the normative European narrative that tells of Christian captives exclusively and to examine the history of the captivities inflicted on Arabs/Arabic-speakers from the Ottoman Levant and North Africa by early

12

13

14 15

16

The film was directed by Þorsteinn Helgason, who also wrote the script, but it is not clear why the title included “Turkish” rather than Algerian. In his later and extensive study of this raid, The corsairs’ longest voyage, Helgason tried to modify his use of “jihad”: “no religious justifications of this specific action are known” to exist (presumably) in the Islamic sources 172. [T]errorisieren muslimische Piraten aus den Berberstädten in GeoEpoche 61. See also the use of the term “terrorism” by Colley, Captives 46, and the excellent rebuttal by Parker, Reading “Barbary” in early modern England. For the history of Dutch warring in the Maldives, see Tāj al-Dīn, Muḥibb al-Dīn, and Sirāj al-Dīn, The Islamic history of the Maldive islands; for captivity by the Dutch i, 26. From the last-quarter of the sixteenth century, the English were active in piracy, especially against Catholics. The Italian priest Girolamo Dandini, sailing to Mount Lebanon on a papal mission, was nearly seized by the English: A voyage to Mount Libanus, 72. See also the play by Thomas Heywood, The fair maid of the west part I (c. 1597), which celebrates English piracy against the Spanish. Colley, Captives 86. With the exception of two accounts, wrote Lewis, “Muslim ex-prisoners returning from Europe have left virtually no record,” The Muslim discovery of Europe 90. See also Friedman: “Since the level of literacy in North Africa was generally much lower than in Western Europe, it was unlikely that a Muslim slave would write his memoirs,” Christian captives 628.

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Imam Ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣaʿīdī (1718) Conclusion 185

180

5 Ransom and Return 188 1 Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn Mahdī al-Ghazzāl (1766) 2 Ibn ʿUthmān al-Miknāsī (1779–1783) 206 3 Conclusion 212

193

6 Captivity of Books 215 Epilogue: Esclaves turcs in European Sculpture 229 Postscript: How Should the Sculptures Be Treated?

253

Bibliography 257 Index of Captives 283 General Index 286

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introduction

What is still missing is the history of early modern captivity by and about Arab captives in their own language and expression—using the term “Arab” culturally and linguistically, not ethnically. As the above list of Tangier captives showed, although there were Berbers, sub-Saharan Africans (“Negro”), and a Turkish Pasha/government official, the largest number of captives was Arab— North African and Levantine. These captives were distinguished from their Turkish counterparts in that the latter were ransomed by the governors of the North African regencies, who were Turks, while the Arab captives were ignored, precisely because they were Arabs. In May 1789, for instance, the Moroccan ruler, Sīdī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh (reg. 1757–1790), sent back to the Ottoman sultan 536 Turkish captives whom he had ransomed from Malta, a gift that he hoped would embarrass the Ottoman sultan into doing the same for Arab captives.21 It is captives like these, who spoke Arabic, but may not have been ethnically Arab, who will be the focus of this monograph.22 After all, the language of nearly two-thirds of the Mediterranean basin, both among Berbers and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, Moroccans and Syrians, from Tangier to Alexandretta, was Arabic, with some Syriac and lingua franca. Although there was no print culture in the Islamic Mediterranean, there was a vast oral culture. In Europe, publishing captivity accounts became lucrative and led to a growing and popular industry, but in the Arabic context, the stories appeared as episodes in biographies, regional histories, correspondence, and fatawa—and they remained part of public memory to be told and retold for centuries.23 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, for instance, the

21

22

23

Ofqir, and Malika Ofqir (with Michel Fitusi, coauthor), who were held captive at the orders of the king of Morocco, Hasan II. See also the writings of Palestinians in Israeli captivity: Sindāḥa, Mudhakkirāt; and Mudhakkirāt al-asrā. Ibn Zaydān, Itḥāf aʿlām al-nās iii, 307. For the negotiations about these captives, see Arribas Palau, Un rescate de 600 Musulmanes cautivos. See also for Arab-Turkish differences, Haarmann, Ideology and history esp. ch. 8. Gaid, l’Algerie sous les Turcs, shows the history of the racial and judicial separation between Arabs and Turks in Algeria in the early modern period. As he noted, the Turks assumed the top governmental and administrative positions, and never allowed their daughters to marry from among the local population. The Turks had their own Hanafi court, overseen by the agha, and separated from the Maliki court of the local communites. The Berber/Amazigh constituted a sizeable part of the North African population and were instrumental in bringing to power many Moroccan dynasties. By the early modern period, however, the term “Berbers” had lost its ethnic meaning in European documents and was replaced by “Moors”: de la Véronne, Distinction entre Arabes et Berbères. In Arabic sources, “ʿArab wa Barber” frequently appears, but without a reference to a different language. As Étienne Hubert wrote to Joseph Scaliger in 1608, “The whole Berber country speaks Arabic,” in Palabiyik, The last letter 130. After all, captivity of Muslims went on until the nineteenth century: Gozalo, Esclaves musulmans 12, writing about Spain. See n. 111, p. 86 below.

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Andalusian historian and chronicler Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Maqqarī (d. 1632) recalled the captivity of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Aḥmad Muḥammad al-Azdī—five centuries earlier: “He sailed on his way to perform the pilgrimage but was captured and died a martyr at sea, killed by the Rūm in the port of Tunis, along with other Muslims, on the morning of Sunday in the middle of Rabiʿ II 576 AH” (AD 1181).24 Captivity remained embedded in Arab communal memory for generations as captives recalled their ordeals to kith and kin, in Sufi lodges, and in the courts of their rulers. But their qiṣaṣ were always brief, with no elaborations about suffering and humiliation, dislocation, and servitude. In his preamble to his book about cannons and firearms, Kitāb al-ʿizz wa-l-rifʿa, the Andalusian writer Aḥmad ibn Ghānim (writing in the 1630s but describing events in 1610, during the reign of ʿUthmān Dey in Tunis), mentioned his captivity among the Spaniards in the following words: “While we were off the city of Malaga, which lies on the edge of the Baḥr al-Ṣaghīr [Mediterranean] we came upon eleven galleys. A terrific battle ensued in which many died on both sides. We were closely pursued until only a handful of us remained. We were captured after I was wounded … After seven years, God released me from captivity, and I made for Tunis.”25 Seven years of captivity in a few lines. Like other captives, Ibn Ghānim did not turn his memories into extended memoirs or adventures, nor was there romanticization of captivity, which is why allusions remained factual and episodic without the lengthy—and sometimes exaggerated—descriptions that appear in Western accounts. There was an Arabic reticence about captivity, not unlike the situation in Spanish America in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries where only a handful of accounts were recorded, even though there had been thousands of captives taken by the Indians.26 In this respect, to construct the Arabic narrative of captivity is to work from an archive of fragments dispersed in captives’ memories and letters, rulers’ correspondence, and ambassadorial reports. One reason why the sources of captivity are dispersed is the absence in the early modern Arabic literary tradition of the divisions of genre that existed in Europe, one subgenre of which was captivity writing. An Arabic book on travel, for instance, could combine local history, stories of the prophets, legal decisions, Sufi ecstasies, diplomatic letters, miracles of holy men, and captivity episodes. Orally, captives told their stories and recalled their ordeals, as did other captives all over the Mediterranean basin and beyond, but Arab captives 24 25 26

Al-Maqqarī, Azhār al-riyāḍ iii, 15. Ibn Ghānim, Kitāb al-ʿIzz wa-l-rifʿa 5v. See the translation of part of this treatise by James, The “manual de Artilleria” 251. See also ʿAnnān, Min turāth al-adab al-Andalusī al-mūrisqī. See the discussion by Operé, Indian captivity in Spanish America.

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did not view their experiences as substance for literary works or for large-scale autobiographies. In the Arabic tradition, biography, along with autobiography, was not a self-indulgent pouring out of emotions and memories telling “detailed accounts of love and sex,” as in the Western tradition; rather, it was “successive ‘blocks’ dealing with knowledge.” For Arab writers and narrators, the story of captivity, if it were to be told, would celebrate a “block” in the life of a Muslim—an episode or a phase, which would and should ultimately serve in praising God, and the ruler if he was involved in their liberation.27 In the period under study, when the number of captives was high and the ability to free them curtailed by European military power, the qiṣaṣ of captivity and liberation were told and recorded only when they could serve as exempla manifesting God’s mercy to the captive. The narratives appeared as specific “blocks” in the history of divine intervention and royal support. The two massive biographical dictionaries written at the end of the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries by Muḥammad al-Amīn al-Muḥibbī (d. 1699) and Muḥammad Khalīl al-Murādī (d. 1791), continuing the rich medieval tradition of this genre, contain only one account of captivity among the 4,000 or so entries. This general absence of captivity accounts from the biographical dictionaries can be credited to the fact that these dictionaries, in the words of Wadad al-Qādī, served as “an alternative history of the Muslim community, one that complement[ed] the chroniclers’ history of the Muslim state.”28 Whether the dictionaries focused on inhabitants of specific cities (Damascus, Baghdad, Jerusalem, or others) or on professions (physicians, jurists, poets, or others), the goal was not to present a chronological account of the events in the life of each person but to focus on particular actions (“blocks”) that distinguished the life of that person and inspired moral or ethical emulation—or condemnation. The lives in the dictionaries celebrated the world of Islam in its historical and geographical diversity: there was no place for a dictionary of suffering Muslims to challenge the mercy of God and show His failure to protect His own from the ordeals of captivity. Given the absence of long, written accounts in the Arabic tradition, the only way to present the master narrative of Arab Mediterranean captivity in the early modern period is to gather information from various sources and assemble them into a linear narrative.29 In this book, I will build the master narrative by focusing on case studies from the Arab regions of the Ottoman Empire 27 28 29

Kadi, In the footsteps of Arabic biographical literature. Al-Qādī, Biographical dictionaries as the scholars’ alternative history; see also al-Qādī, Biographical dictionaries: Inner structures. While I have been using the term “early modern,” it is important to note that in its Euro-

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and Morocco in the first three centuries after the Ottoman conquest. Chapter one examines biographies and chronicles; chapter two, letters that captives exchanged with ransomers, kith and kin, or captors; chapter three, miracles told about liberation; chapter four, captive conversion to Christianity and resistance to conversion; chapter five, accounts by ransomers who wrote about the captives in Spain, Malta, and the Kingdom of Naples. Chapter six focuses on the history of the Arabic books/manuscripts that were “captured” to European libraries at the beginning of the seventeenth century. As there are no images of the captives in Arabic sources, the conclusion will examine some examples of captives as they appear in European sculpture. In English or Spanish drama, French novella, or Continental sculpture, Muslim captives were silenced so as not to tell about their ordeals. Zoraida the Moor in Cervantes’ Don Quixote was kept silent except for one sentence (unlike the garrulousness of the Spanish galley slaves in chapter 22), and the slave “devil in a trough” in The adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668–1669) uttered one sentence only.30 But in their own environments and among their communities, Arab captives were not silent and “spoke” (per Spivak), telling their stories in verse and prose after which they were put down in writing. Their stories were Islamically motivated and without the glamor or fantasies that inform much of the Western corpus on captivity. From one end of the Mediterranean to the other, the captives and ransomers—largely Muslim but with a few Christians, largely men but with a few women—spoke. They were not silent. Another reason for the limitedness of Arabic accounts of captivity in contrast to the dozens of long accounts by Europeans is the religious-Islamic understanding of captivity. Imtuḥina (passive) bi-l-asr, or he was made to submit to captivity (by God), are the words that are often used about captivity, recalling the numerous miḥan, or tribulations, in Islamic history. The choice of this specific word by Arab writers is significant: captivity was as much a personal miḥna as that of Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad’s, for instance, or Marwān ibn ʿĪsā’s, or Muḥammad ibn Muslama’s, “the companion of the Prophet,” or dozens of others who had suffered miḥan that were recorded in the various Islamic histories of miḥan.31 Captivity was not just an ordeal of the individual who was seized, but also of Islam and its history of trials, confrontations, and dangers. And so, since captivity, like other historical miḥan, was a test by God, the cap-

30 31

pean meaning, the term does not apply to Arabic historiography before the eighteenth century. I am adopting the view of Stone about narrative, The revival of narrative. Von Grimmelshausen, The adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus 123–125. See Kitāb al-miḥan by al-Temīmī (d. 333AH/AD 945). I am grateful to Professor Wadad Kadi for this reference.

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tive was to submit to his fate without making too much of a fuss about it. Of course, such submission did not prevent captives from describing their ordeals in appeals to rulers and relatives hoping to elicit support. On many occasions, the deys and pashas in Algiers complained to their French correspondents that letters received from captured subjects told of torture and extreme violence;32 the servant of Murād Bey of Tunis was so beaten during the single day of his captivity that he could never forget his captors.33 But, there was no place for captives to write and bare their souls and expose the personal and the private to outside readers. Physical captivity did not reflect spiritual captivity to sin, as it did in the Christian tradition of captivity writing. That is why liberation from captivity did not have in Arabic the New Testament implication that the word “redemption” in England had—or in the name of the “Prieurs de la Rédemption” in France. In Arabic, the word is fikāk, from fakka: the fakkāk, or ransomer, untied the ropes that bound the captive (the noun became alfaqueque in Spanish).34 God, of course, intervened via the fakkāk or via the donor or the ruler who paid the ransom, which is why there was no need for further information about the ordeal of the captive. Even when captives managed to escape, they did not write about heroic flights.35 For captivity, like liberation, was through the mysterious intervention of God, and of people sent by God, as in the account about Ibrāhīm al-Zwārī: after he was taken captive, he used to sleep on the roof of his captor’s house. One night three men appeared: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qāḍīr, Shaykh Abū al-ʿAbbās, and Shaykh Aḥmad al-Badawī, who said that they had come to free him from “the land of the infidels.” He told them that he needed to inform his captor

32 33 34

35

See for instance, Plantet, Correspondance des deys d’Alger i, 370–382 (24 March 1692), the letter of Ḥājj Shaʿbān to Comte de Pontchartrain, Chancellor of France from 1699 to 1714. Al-Wazīr al-Sarrāj, al-Ḥulal al-sundusiyya ii, 283. The term appears in Q 90:12–18. See how it was used in the medieval period in al-Maqṣad al-maḥmūd by al-Ghazīrī (d. 1189) 177–178. The wording of the template for leaving money to ransom a captive mentions that money is left for the fikāk, or liberation, of a captive and for bringing him (male pronoun) back to the land of Islam; and should the captive die or escape, the fakkāk has to repay the ransom money to the donor. The ransomers demanded an additional sum to cover road expenses and taxes. See also a letter of 7 August 1486 in Documentos Arábigo-Granadinos 100. It is interesting that the Arabic word khallaṣa can be associated with divine action, although not in the Christian sense: • :‫ضلال‬ ّ َ ‫خ َل ّصه الله من ال‬ ‫هداه‬. For a brief survey of Algerian escapees, see Belhamissi, Les captifs ch. 12. The exception— of a captive telling of his escape—is Ishmael Bashaw, a “Turk” who converted to Christianity in England in 1789 (his account was published in 1797) and described his escape from a Madrid prison, The Turkish refugee.

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(?), who replied, “May God be with you. We shall meet again in His presence.” The captor, who was a qissīs, or priest, was actually a Muslim, but he was hiding his Islamic religion. Then the three men rafaʿū (lifted) Ibrāhīm and took him to Tunis.36 As a man of karāmāt (miracles), Ibrāhīm lived to be 136 years old; the fact that he mentioned the names of the men indicated that his experience was verifiable and not a piece of fiction.37 Similarly, in the case of captives released by the military action of their coreligionists—as when Moroccan warriors attacked Melilla in 1687 and saved “eight Muslim captives, each warrior carrying a captive on his horse.”38 For those warriors had been acting by God’s authority, and so, only God should be praised. Still, escape was not always possible: a mass attempt at revolt and escape by Muslim captives in Malta occurred in 1749, but it was foiled. Nor is there record that Arab captives carried out what Portuguese captives did in Marrakesh in 1573 (in a distant precursor of the London 1605 Gunpowder Plot?). As Ibn ʿAskar (1529–1578) reported: “In the year 1573 there occurred an explosion of gunpowder in which the great cupola of the mosque of Mansoor was demolished and minaret split. This was a device of the Christian captives, who had dug a mine and filled it with powder, with the view of blowing up the mosque, when it was crowded with worshipers on the Friday. But God sheltered the Faithful from their purpose, and chance did not favour their evil design.”39 The captives did not escape. In the Arabic qiṣaṣ, the religious difference with the captor was often all that was recorded, and needed to be recorded, about captivity. Sometime during the Spanish attack on Tunis, c. 1535, Muḥammad ibn Kharūf al-Anṣārī was taken captive to Spain, where he was kept for “just under six years,” as he reported. He was ransomed by the Wattasid prince, Abū al-ʿAbbās. When he recalled his captivity, he said: “I was a captive for six years, but I kept my religion and health, thanks be to God, until God almighty saved me/khallaṣanī khalāṣan jamīlan.” While the prince paid “nearly one thousand dinars” to liberate him, it was ultimately God who saved him.40 As this case shows, and many others like it, captives described their captivity without appealing to typological parallels, as many European Christian captives did. Harking back to St. Paul’s method of interpretation, Christian captives saw an interconnectedness between the

36

37 38 39 40

The use of this verb, which appears frequently in captivity accounts, could suggest a parallel with its use in the Quran where the emphasis is on God’s action of “lifting,” Q 19:56 and 7:176. See note 49, p. 141 below. Al-Sharrāṭ, al-Rawḍ al-ʿāṭir al-anfās 277, 278. Taqāyīd, Rabat, Royal Library, MS #2. Testa, The life and times 119–127; Ibn ʿAskar, The shaikhs of Morocco 265. Al-Manūnī, Malāmiḥ min taṭawwur al-Maghrib al-ʿArabī 84.

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List of Illustrations Figures 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

The Algiers Inn (Baltimore, Ireland). Photo by Nabil Matar 2 Murat Rais, Baltimore Castle (Baltimore, Ireland). Photo by Nabil Matar 2 Entrance of the Church of the Order of the Holy Trinity—Santissima Trinita degli Spagnoli (Rome). Photo by Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com 235 Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno). By Sailko, attribution 3.0 unported (CC BY 3.0) 237 Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno). Photo by by Sailko, attribution 3.0 unported (CC BY 3.0) 238 Battle of Ostia by Raphael (Vatican). Photo by Nabil Matar 240 Fontana dei Quattro Mori (Marino, Italy). Photo by Nabil Matar 241 Fanal de Galère, Paris Maritime Museum (Paris). Photo by Nabil Matar 242 Bound Corsair, by Giovanni Baratta; Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein (Berlin). Photo by Nabil Matar 244 Mausoleum of Pietro Galleti, Church of St Agatha (Catania, Sicily). Photo by Nabil Matar 245 Detail of mausoleum of Pietro Galleti, Church of St Agatha (Catania, Sicily). Photo by Nabil Matar 246 Statue of St. Stephen, St. Stephen’s Cathedral (Vienna). Photo by Shutterstock 247 Base of equestrian statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy, Josef Rona, National Gallery (Budapest). Photo by Adobe Stock 248 Celebration of victory of Lepanto, 1571, Palazzo dei Conservatori (Rome). Photo by Nabil Matar 249 Turkish prisoner in chains, c. 1700, Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin). Photo by Nabil Matar 250

Map 1

Portuguese: Ceuta 1415; Al-Qasr al-Saghir 1458; Tangier 1464; Anfa 1467; Asila 1471; Agadir 1501; Bureiga 1502; Asfi 1506; Azammur 1508; Mahdiyya 1515. Spanish: Melilla 1497; Bona 1463; Marsa al-Kabir 1505; Oran 1509; Bayjayah 1509; Tripoli 1510; Tunis 1535; Badis 1564 29

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fondouks in Tunisia, which provided a stable residence from which diplomatic, ecclesiastical, and commercial agents could observe and describe everything that went on around them.44 These fondouks functioned as places of intelligence gathering much more so than the fondouks that were established by the Ottomans in Venice—and that did not last beyond the seventeenth century.45 There were also members of Catholic religious orders—Capuchins, Trinitarians, Jesuits, and others—who lived and ministered in Tripoli (Libya), Tunis, Algiers, where they had a number of hospitals, and in Morocco.46 Their letters to the office of the Propaganda Fide relayed information about plagues, revolts, battles, changes in local governors, and lists of names of “schiavi.” They also included names of dedicated (and not-so-dedicated) priests, converts to Islam, money needed and how previous sums were spent, escape of captives, deaths, travels, and names of “religiosi che si trovano a ‘Fessa’ e a ‘Tetouano’” (clergy in Fez and Tetouan).47 While Arab merchants from North Africa traded in Malta and southern France and Sicily,48 and visited Madrid and Paris and Naples and London,49 there is no record of a continuous, governmentally sponsored resident in any European city. Ongoing instability in the regencies and in Morocco militated against regular funding for emissaries, but during times of peace, North African rulers sent ransomers: between 1690 and 1783, three Moroccan ambassadors wrote detailed accounts about their ransom journeys to bilād al-Naṣārā (the lands of the Christians). However, other ransomers and traders did not leave

44

45 46

47 48 49

Tripolis, Jerusalem, etc.” Hakluyt, Principal navigations iii, 114, 115. By 1616, consuls representing the London merchants had been appointed, at one time or another, to Algiers, Aleppo, Alexandria, Cairo, Chios, Crete, Livorno, Patras, Tripoli of Syria, and Zante. For a study of Dutch representatives, see Heinsen-Roach, Consuls and captives esp. ch. 3. See Grandchamp, Établissement en 1692 d’une auberge, and Revault, Le fondouk du Français. After their victory over Tunis, the Spanish built, according to Sebag, “Une ville européenne à Tunis au XVI siècle.” After 1672, the Capuchins (chiefly French) established missions in Bizerte, Cap Negro, Porto-Farina, and La Goulette: ch. 5 in Anselme des Arcs, Mémoirs. For the various French, English, and Dutch “maisons” in Algiers at the beginning of the eighteenth century, see Laugier de Tassy, Histoire du royaume d’ Alger ch. 17. Calafat and Santus, Les avatars du “Turc” 503. Berbrugger, Charte des hôpiteaux chretiéns. See also Friedman, Trinitarian hospitals in Algiers. As Friedman noted, the hospitals functioned in a manner similar to that of the consulates 563. Cresti, Documenti sul Maghreb. For names of traders, see the list of around 200 Algerian traders from 1636–1830 in Ghaddās, al-Tujjār al-Jazāʾiriyyūn. Thomas Coryat (d. 1617) commented on the many turbans he saw in the streets of London in 1609, Coryats crudities 231.

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more than their names and a few letters. There are references in one ambassadorial report to lists of names and sums of money spent on ransoming captives; ambassadors mentioned the names of the ships on which they had sailed, along with the names of the captains and the captives they had freed. But these lists do not seem to have survived because there was no “modern” bureaucracy in the Arab Mediterranean capitals with all its paperwork, filing, and institutional organization.50 Europeans wrote and published dozens of captivity accounts that reflected their emerging national and racial identities, so much so that when English or French or German captives recorded their experiences, they emphasized their unique status as English Protestant or German Protestant or French Catholic, or French Protestant (captives of their Catholic compatriots), or other.51 Coincidentally, it was at the end of the sixteenth century that the subgenre of captivity writings and imaginative literature about North Africa began appearing in print in England, Spain, Germany, and France (roughly in that order),52 driven chiefly by the desire to consolidate religio-national identity. Texts always denounced Islam and concluded with praise for the monarch and defense of Protestant or Catholic Christianity. In some Protestant accounts, there was also denunciation of Catholicism—as in the accounts of the English captives Richard Hasleton in 1595 (captured by Spaniards; he wrote how he was treated better by the Muslim than by the Catholic captors), William Davies in 1614 (captured by Tuscans), and the French Jean Bion in 1708 (enslaved by his compatriots). Additionally, there was the marketing and sale of printed captivity accounts, many of which went through second editions and/or were pirated, translated, and spuriously extended into sequels, as in the account of the English captive Joseph Pitts in 1704.53 The captivity accounts were writ50

51

52

53

In Morocco, numerous kunāshāt have survived which contain sundry information, ranging from names of sailors and their pay to legal decisions: see Razzūq, Dirāsāt fī tarīkh al-Mahgrib 103, for a listing of the kunāshāt in the National Library in Rabat. None (that I have seen) included names of captives. These accounts followed in the tradition of earlier European accounts of captivity among the Ottomans in Central and Eastern Europe, and among the Indians in America, such as the accounts by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca (1490–1559) and Hans Staden (c. 1525–1576). For accounts of captivity among the Ottomans in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries, see Sabatos, The Ottoman captivity narrative. For a survey of German captivity accounts among the Ottomans, see Ruhe, L’aire du soupçon, and Ruhe, Dire et ne pas dire. The first account was in German, but it was not printed, see Klarer, Trading identities. Klarer has “compiled approximately 150” European captivity narratives (53n3): www.uibk .ac.at/projects/escape. See also his collection of selections from captivity accounts in German, in Verschleppt, Verkauft, Versklavt. See Pitts, Encountering Islam.

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ten and read in the major languages of Western Europe and became a kind of inter-European register about the dangerous “Mahumetans,” and a means for national identity formation. To prove their patriotic mettle, many European captives collected ethnographic information about the regions in which they had been held captive. Realizing that they were the first Europeans in the “age of exploration” to live in North Africa, they wrote about fauna and flora, governmental institutions (or lack thereof), natural resources, naval defenses, sea tides, and other aspects that could prove serviceable to their nation’s trading or conquering enterprise.54 From Meknes to Tunis, even as far as Arabia and the Red Sea, European captives produced for their compatriots the only firsthand descriptions of these lands and their peoples since Roman times. The 1612 Spanish account about Algeria by Antonio de Sosa furnished detailed information about the history of the city, its population, customs, and “buildings and fountains”; the Italian description of Tunisia by Thomas Ellyat in 1615 (he was an English Catholic, “Capitan Roberto Elliatta Gentilhumo Inglese”) included a geography of the main ports and cities in the country; and the English description of Algeria by Francis Knight in 1640 focused on the defenses there. He envisioned that the intelligence he had collected could facilitate conquest by the English fleet.55 Many captives returned after having learned the language—often in pidgin form—of their captors and flaunted their knowledge in the hope of gaining employment. Joseph Pitts, who converted to Islam but then escaped back to Exeter from Algiers, filled his account with transliterations of Arabic and Turkish words and phrases.56 His account was more of a description of Muslim life than of his own ordeal because he wanted, as he stated, to correct false ideas about Muslims based on his firsthand experience. It was reprinted in 1717, 1719, 1731, and 1739.

54

55 56

In 1698, Hans Sloane asked John Whitehead, who had been captive in Morocco, to write an account of the region with all the details that he remembered about the terrain, animals, and foods, see appendix 2 in my Britain and Barbary. Similar reliance on captives to furnish information about regions still unknown to Europeans also appears in South America, even as late as the mid-nineteenth century, see the account by the French captive in Patagonia, Auguste Guinnard, in 1856–1859, Operé, Indian captivity in Spanish America, 101–105. De Sosa, An early modern dialogue; Ellyat in Pignon, Un document inédit sur la Tunisie; Knight, A relation of seaven yeares slaverie. But his contemporary, Sieur Germain Moüette, who was a captive in Morocco for eleven years, became so proficient that he added a “Dictionaire Arabesque” at the end of his captivity account, Relation: “Reine—Sultana; Renegat—Lalouche; Sage—Fequer; Qui est la—Schone-hadac,” etc.

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No Arab captive became the source of logistical or geographical information about the enemy—at least not on paper.57 There is no evidence that Muslim captives were debriefed after their return to their communities: Sīdī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh welcomed the captives he had ransomed from Malta and Naples in the 1780s, but neither he nor members of his court recorded captives’ information about the captors or the foreign lands where the captives had been held. Instead, the Moroccan ruler offered the captives clothing and money and sent them home. It is not that he or members of the court were uninterested or not curious about the European world beyond their borders: he and others listened to the captives’ stories with eagerness and questioned them in great detail, but they never classified the stories into an archive for future political or military consultation. Meanwhile, in France, England, Spain, Italy, and Germany, captivity accounts, often dedicated to royalty or men in power, became sources of information about “Barbary” that were closely read by city burgesses, mayors, sea captains, merchants, clergy—even local pirates. The accounts, with their descriptions of customs and cities, also became part of the literary culture that inspired plays and novels, novellas and ballads that reached all sectors of the population.58 The European texts sometimes told heroic stories, especially of escape,59 many of which were couched in biblical imagery, and celebrating the victory of Christ over Muḥammad. This fiction-cum-reality genre of writing played a role in developing the image of the fearless and intelligent Christian in the hands of the cruel or gullible Muslim. Such an image appears in Cervantes’ “The captive’s tale” in Don Quixote (1605) where the Christian captive not only escapes but also takes with him the daughter of the mufti who converts to Christianity. A century later, the same kind of image appeared in William Chetwood’s The voyages and adventures of Robert Boyle (1726, 23 reprints thereafter) where the hero outsmarts his Irish captor, a convert to Islam, and flees with the English woman captive whom the latter had wanted to marry. Many were the novels, captivity accounts, plays, newspaper reports, memoirs, and ballads in European languages that described the ordeals and the victories of Christians among the “Turkes.” Such material, accompanied by crude illustrations showing “Mahometan” torture of Christian captives, established an indelible

57 58

59

For comparisons and contrasts between Christian and Muslim experiences of captivity, see Larquié, Captifs chrétiens et esclaves musulmans. See the seminal study about captivity as fiction by Starr, Escape from Barbary; also, Snader, Caught between worlds; Kaiser, Les mots du rachat, and other articles in that volume; Amelang, Writing chains; Zonza, Le récit de captivité; and Orsini, Récits de captivité fictifs. For English ballads about Turks and captivity, see Sisneros, The abhorred name of Turk. See Vovard, Les évasions par mer, and all the accounts in Vitkus, ed., Piracy.

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image in the European mind of the lustful, brutal captor.60 Lotfi Ben Rejeb has suggested that the “Barbary” character in European writings was an ideological prelude to the colonization of North Africa in the nineteenth century.61 To their credit, some European writers were not unwilling to admit that Christians were as culpable in the Mediterranean violence of piracy and captivity as Muslims, and that North Africans endured the horrors of captivity as much as the Europeans did. In 1724, a French diplomat in Algiers, Laugier de Tassy, wrote how the “Barbary Corsairs” committed the same heinous deeds as the French king’s subjects, and so did the Knights of Malta. Indeed, the attacks on Muslims, he continued, were nothing other than new crusades by Christians who were intent on invasion and the eradication of Islam.62 Joseph Morgan (d. c. 1750), a British member of the consulate in Algiers who also traveled and worked in Tunisia and Morocco for 20 years, stated that it was the expulsion from Spain and the destruction of Islam that drove the Moriscos and their descendants toward vengeance.63 In 1800, the American James Wilson Stephens wrote that “we are not to reprobate the Algerines alone [for practicing slavery since] the United States, emphatically called the land of Liberty, swarm with those semi-barbarians who enthrall their fellow creatures without the least remorse.”64 After the French occupation of Algiers (4 July 1830) for the alleged goal of putting an end to piracy, the French historian Mas-Latrie admitted that piracy with all its violence had been practiced by Christians as well as by Muslims. We should reject, he wrote, the historical prejudices that put all the blame on the Arabs for “les depredations des corsaires de la Méditerranée.”65

60

61 62 63

64 65

Many of the frequently reproduced illustrations in modern books about the captivity of Europeans by North Africans are taken from Father Pierre Dan’s influential Histoire de Barbarie et de ses corsaires. There is no mention, however, that these gruesome illustrations recalled images of torture during the French Wars of Religion. Ben Rejeb, Barbary’s “character” in European letters. De Tassy, Histoire, 193, V. In his 1732 account about the fall of Oran to Catholic Spain, he stated that Muslims had not attacked Europeans because of religious hostility; there had been times before the expulsion and the persecution, he explained, when relations had been amicable. How could it not have been, he continued: the two peoples had been in proximity for centuries, so much so that “the present Spanish Nation has not in its Veins Abundantly less of Gothick and old Iberian Blood, than of Arabian and Mauritanian,” A compleat history 8, 2, 15. See also Rech, Ambivalences of recognition, especially the section on “Pro-Barbary arguments in the eighteenth century,” 84–87. Stephens, An historical and geographical account 243. Quoted in Coindreau, Les corsaires de Salé 26, from Comte Louis de Mas-Latrie, Relations et commerce d’Afrique septentrionale: Ou Maghreb avec les nations chrétiennes au Moyen Âge

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The Arabic qiṣaṣ of the captives that will be examined in this book describe the “depredations” of the European corsairs on the Arabs, in the words of the victims of those depredations. Additionally, they contribute to the historiography of the early modern Mediterranean in two unique ways: First. The stories tell of the non-European captives who were as much “victims” as they were “the scourge of Christendom,” as Paul M. Bamford stated. True, the “Barbary Corsairs” were a bane to Europe, but they “did unto Christians what Christians and others had for generations done unto them.”66 They were victims of emerging European conquerors, and they and their countries suffered irreparably from the expansionism and military might of early modern “Britain, France, the Netherlands, Spain, and other European maritime powers.”67 Their qiṣaṣ, limited in length and number as they are, humanize them, giving the men, and indirectly the women and the children, a face, a story, an emotional and religious dimension, and a place in a history that was written by victors and from which they have been hitherto excluded.68 They move the narrative beyond the topos of “Barbary” cruelty to “Barbary” suffering. Second. The Arabic qiṣaṣ constitute the first record of the voice of “natives” in the encounter with European social, military, and cultural modernization. This factor takes the captivity qiṣas beyond the history of Mediterranean piracy and violence to the larger, and global, level of the encounter between Europeans and native populations at the beginning of the age of empires. When Arab captives told their stories, wrote their letters, or remembered the karāmāt of their liberators, they told something about themselves, but also about the captors and their world—their religious views, their social customs, their diets, clothes, brutality, kindness, and conversation. Captives learned about different kinds of Christians: they discovered that there were national differences among the Christians and that sometimes some Christians hated other Christians more than they hated Muslims; that some Christians would free them from their captivity on board of other Christian ships, but others would keep them indefinitely on the galleys. Actually, one of the first (the first?) uses of the term “European” in Arabic was by the Tunisian Muḥammad ibn Muṣṭafā

66 67 68

(Paris, 1886). For an excellent analysis of the reasons for the French (and the 1816 British) fleet attacks, see Hunter, Rethinking Europe’s conquest. Bamford, The Barbary pirates 17. See also Earle: “In the long run the Christians were more successful [in piracy] of the two [Christian and Muslim],” Corsairs 10. Bamford, The Barbary pirates 16. Although she just focused on the Algerian janissaries and sea captains, Loualich described their “attitudes towards family, bonds and property,” and not just toward corsairing, In the regency of Algiers 75–78.

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Between the Lands of the Christians and the Lands of Islam, Bilād al-Naṣārā and Bilād al-Islām

In the tenth century, an Arab poet found himself captive to the Rūm (Byzantines). Abū Firās al-Ḥamadānī (d. 968) composed poems in celebration of wine, al-Khamriyyāt, in which he included descriptions of his captivity: In captivity, a lover suffers in disgrace, And tears flood down his lonely face. In Byzantine land, his body must reside. Though in Syrian land his heart does still abide. A lonesome stranger and out of place! Where none with love may him embrace.70 In Arab history, there were roughly four periods of captivity by Europeans. The first captivities occurred during the wars and skirmishes between the Byzantines and the Arabs;71 there were also captivities during Umayyad-Andalusian piracies on southern France at the end of the ninth century. The next period was during the Crusades and after: Arab traders, travelers, pilgrims, and diplomats were seized, ransomed, sometimes tortured, and as in one account by the twelfth-century chronicler Usāmah ibn Munqidh (d. 1188), the captive made his escape with the help of a vision of the Prophet Muḥammad.72 In Nuzhat almushtāq fī ikhtirāq al-āfāq, the geographer al-Idrīsī (d. 1166) described a coastal city where, at the time when the Christian fleet was known to sail, “the inhabitants fled to the mounts leaving nothing behind them. In summer, only men stay there.” The same situation occurred in Jijil, Algeria: “The inhabitants fled to the mountains where they built a fortified city. In winter, they returned to their coastal harbor, but in summer, when the [Christian pirate] fleet sailed out, they carried their belongings to the fort while the men stayed with the very little they had in order to trade.”73 Ibn Jubayr (d. 1217), in his travelogue, or Riḥla, mentioned that when the ship on which he was sailing faltered, Sicilians came out to help, but he feared that “they would rob us of everything in the ship, and maybe take us slaves, for that was their usual behavior.” After all, at the begin-

70 71 72 73

See the study of Abū Firās in Hermes, The European other 139–146. Aside from al-Ḥamadānī, there is the earlier captivity of Harūn ibn Yaḥyā in the ninth century in Izzedin, Un prisonnier arabe; and Canard, Les aventures d’ un prisonnier arabe. The book of contemplation 107. For other references to captivity in Ibn Munqidh, see ʿAbbās, Fuṣūl 89–90. Al-Idrīsī, Nuzhat al-mushtāq i, 274, 268.

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ning of his journey, he had seen a group of Muslim captives taken by Sicilian pirates from the Western shores, numbering more than 19, including women.74 The third period coincided with the Spanish Reconquista when large numbers of Muslims were seized as their cities fell to Iberian armies.75 Letters, biographies, contracts, and reports by ransomers tell of ongoing captivity and of attempts by Muslims to ransom their own. After the fall of Cordoba in 1236, Yaḥyā al-Qurṭubī wrote a poem describing not only his own captivity among the infidels but also the captivity of all of Al-Andalus. Men called out for help, but none came to fight for Islam: “How many a mother and her child are now separated, like the separation of body from spirit/ And virgins whom not even the sun had touched are humiliated, led into slavery by the aʿlāj” (renegades)?76 The progress of the Reconquista was accompanied by naval attacks in the Mediterranean from islands such as Sicily, Malta, Majorca, and others: Abū Muḥammad ʿAbdallāh al-Tījānī (d. 1319) mentioned in his travelogue that in Tripoli (Libya) there was a small fort in which the locals sought shelter during pirate attacks by Ifranji, or Frankish pirates, who landed to hunt boar. There was also a fort on the seacoast, which became in the thirteenth century a haven for pirates, so much so that caravans feared it because “the Christians stole men rather than merchandise. When travelers got past it, without losing anyone, they congratulated each other.”77 Christian pirates sought out the deserted islands for their hideouts, “mooring in an unknown outpost in the land of idols” where there was a castle in which Muslim “pilgrims and others were sold to the Christians.”78 Ibn Baṭṭūṭa (d. 1380) wrote that when his ship sailed near Sardinia: “I vowed to God that if He spared us I would fast for two consecutive months, for we knew that the Sicilians were intent on following us after we leave to enslave us.”79 He was spared, and presumably, he fulfilled his vow. Toward the end of the fourteenth century, a captive wrote about his experience in (poor) verse:

74 75

76 77 78 79

Ibn Jubayr, The travels 27, 338. As van Koningsveld put it, “From the end of the eleventh century this phenomenon [of Muslim captivity] increased and numbers of Muslim slaves and captives lived in the Christian countries of the Iberian Peninsula, in Italy and the south of France as well as on Sicily and the Balearic Islands,” in Muslim slaves and captives 5. See also the reference to Muslim slaves in Taylor, Muslims in medieval Italy ch. 3; Marín and El Hour, Captives, children and conversion. The poem is in al-Khafajī (d. 1659), Hādhā kitāb 141–143. Al-Tījānī, Riḥla 210. Ibid. 209. Ibn Baṭṭūṭa, Riḥla iv, 189.

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They took me and tied my feet with ropes, and then they tied my hands; They tore off some of my clothes and then, o brother, they threw me Into the sea. I knew I would die and so I repeated the Testimony of Faith in my heart [There is no god but God, and Muḥammad is His prophet] … He came at me, having tied my hands and feet to the mast, The Christians gathered around me, looking at me and laughing, He bared my back and relentlessly lashed me Until he got tired of beating me. But I did not admit [that I had tried to escape]. I endured. They said: The Christians tell you to pay or they will shoot you with an arrow. I said to them: I have no money. Earlier, they had thrown one overboard who survived, and then they threw another who died. Then they sailed away.80 In 1440, an Andalusian diplomat recalled that pirates from as far as the island of Rhodes attacked the Granadan coast because of weakened defenses. “In this time,” he wrote, “pirates are causing great harm to Muslims … they attack in summer and in winter and are joined by all the Christian pirates, God destroy them, who are supported by the peoples of the islands where they sell their captives and the booty they pillage from the Muslims.”81 Throughout the above periods, both sides of the Mediterranean were equal in naval and military capabilities. Europeans and North Africans raided coastal towns and seized booty and captives, and as Arabs wrote about their ordeals and fears, so did Europeans.82 Piracy and corsairing were, after all, forms of war when navies were still small or nonexistent. From the sixteenth century on, however, the tide turned in favor of the imperialist ventures of the Portuguese with Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) and Alphonso the African (1432–1481). They were followed by the Spaniards, whereupon the number of North African 80

81 82

Ṭāhā, “Dawr al-ḥujjāj al-Andalusiyyīn wa-l-Maghāriba fī raṣd ḥarakāt al-tārīkh fī nihāyat al-qarn al-thāmin wa bidāyat al-qarn al-tāsiʿ al-hijrī min khilāl riḥlatayy ḥājjayn Andalusī wa Maghribī,” Majallat al-ʿuṣūr 153, quoted in Hadiyya, Qarāṣinat 232–233. Al-Ahwānī, Safāra siyāsiyya min Gharnāṭa 119, quoted in Hadiyya, Qarāṣinat 57–58. In his study of Muslims in the Mediterranean, Muʿnis, uncritically following Henri Pirenne, put the blame for the violence in the sea on the Muslims, who always viewed the Sea as “a battlefield without being able to turn it into a path for peace and commercial exchange,” Tarīkh al-Muslimīn 152.

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and Eastern Mediterranean captives grew to exceed the European counterparts in North African hands.83 Captives in this fourth and last period were of varied social and educational calibers: captives in mainland Spain, for instance, often included jurists and scribes and imams—key figures in cities that were conquered. Perhaps the most famous captivity of a jurist/scholar was that of Ḥasan al-Wazzān/Leo Africanus (1494–c. 1554) in Italy, although in his Description of Africa, he did not write about his capture.84 At sea, the vast majority of captives included sailors and fishermen, pilgrims, and small-time traders with little literary or cultural skills. In this last period, a major change occurred in the European treatment of captivity. While the seizure of men and women remained a means of making money in ransom payments, captivity now transformed into a means for securing permanent free labor, thereby turning captivity into enslavement. As the Portuguese and the Spanish, followed by the French and the British, began their imperial projects, from North and South America to North and West Africa to India, captives became indispensable for manning galleys, building roads, and performing menial labor at home or in the colonies. The dynamic of captivity changed because the function of North Africans (and captives and slaves 83

84

There has been no attempt to calculate the number of Muslim captives in European hands. Boucharab calculated the number of Moroccan captives in the sixteenth century, based on the Portuguese Inquisition archives (see note 87 below); Belhamissi included numbers of Algerian captives, Les captifs 37–39; Alezzandro Stella mentioned “huit cent mille” Africans who were brought to Iberia between 1450 and 1750, Être esclave et musulman en Espagne 463; see also Stella and Vincent, Europa, mercado de esclavos; and Hershenzon The captive sea 18. In regard to the number of European-Christian captives, there have been many unreliable calculations based on unverifiable averages, see Austen, The Mediterranean Islamic slave trade, esp. table 2; and Davis, Counting European slaves. The problem with many sources used by these and other scholars is that there was much exaggeration in the records of both Europeans and Arabs. The Algerian author, al-Zahhār, for instance, claimed that in 1770, there were 10,000 Spanish captives in Algiers among 18,000 European captives—an impossible number for that decade: al-Zahhār, Mudhakkirāt 26. Similarly, the Moroccan historian ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Zaydān claimed in 1931 that Sīdī Muḥammad of Morocco ransomed 40,000 “and more” Muslim captives in 1786, Itḥāf aʿlām al-nās iii, 226. For a discussion of the problems in relying on such and other numbers without counting the actual names of the captives, see my British captives, the introduction. Reliable numbers of European captives can be found in Weiss who was circumspect in listing the French captives: Captives and corsairs, appendix 1. See also Fodor, Piracy, ransom slavery and trade 121 and 132–133; and Fodor, Maltese pirates 234–236. Bennassar and Bennassar gave the names of French captives who converted to Islam: Les chrétiens d’Allah 477–480; but then they proposed the figure of 300,000 converts to Islam from 1550 to 1700, 174. See also Habib, Black lives, for 448 entries that include names of “Moors” and “Turks” in England. See the detailed study of his life by Davis, Trickster travels.

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of other ethnicities and races, too) changed to meet the ever-growing needs for manpower in the global projects of European expansion. From the early fifteenth century (1415), for instance, the Iberians established colonies on the North African coast, from Agadir to Ceuta to Tunis. These European bastions on African soil, or as the Ottoman Sultan Selim II (reg. 1566–1574) in a letter of 6 May 1573 described the occupants, ashrār al-kuffār al-mutawaṭṭinīn fī sawāḥil al-biḥār, or the evil and ferocious infidels who are settled near the sea coasts,85 were penal colonies from where soldiers-cum-convicts sortied to steal food and cattle (goats, camels, sheep, and cows) and to capture Muslim men, women, and children. Often, given the dire conditions in the presidios, Muslim captives were ransomed by food at the same time that the Muslim ransomers tried to retrieve their stolen camels and cattle with quantities of oats and wheat.86 Between 1495 and 1541, the Portuguese waged 26 attacks on various Moroccan outposts, netting 9,287 captives.87 These attacks so devastated North African port cities that they were subsequently deserted, as the Moroccan traveler al-Tamjrūtī observed on the coasts of Tunis half a century later.88 From the colonies that they established, European invaders spread terror as they charged inland in their “imperial” attacks.89 Ceuta was the first Portuguese colony (1415) and Bona the first Spanish colony (1463) in the Islamic Mediterranean; both remain in Spanish hands today. The expulsion and forced conversion of the Muslims from Portugal in 1496 and later from Spain in 1502, all the way to the 1609–1614 expulsion of the “Moriscos,” drove hundreds of thousands of Andalusian Muslims (and Jews) to North Africa and the Levant. They carried with them deep hostility to Christians who had expelled them just because of their religions. In retaliation, 85 86

87 88 89

Temīmī, al-Dawla al-ʿUthmāniyya 104. Ibarra, La vida en los presidios 573–574. The presidios were a “combination of citadel, garrison and penal settlement,” Driessen, On the Spanish-Moroccan frontier 18, and the whole chapter on The permeability of the frontier. For descriptions of such stealing of food supplies and capturing of locals, see the anonymous 1536 Portuguese account about Santa Cruz/Agadir where the Portuguese sometimes had the help of local Arab or Berber tribes, Tārīkh Santa-Crūz Agādir. See also Sabir, Aspects de l’ occupation portugaise. Casares and Delaigue noted that most of the captives by soldiers from the Spanish presidios were between 6 and 16 years old and were subsequently converted to Christianity, Le population 193. Boucharab, Maghāriba 28–29. See also Coleman, Of corsairs, converts and renegades, where the Iberian monarchs “encouraged licensed privateering” 168. He traveled in 1591: al-Nafḥa al-miskiyya, ch. 3. For the Portuguese spirit of imperialism, see Bataillon, Le rêve. In 1917, Corbett described the British occupation of Tangier in 1661 as reflecting “the new-born spirit of imperialism,” England and the Mediterranean 411.

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of all those Baltimore villagers who were forcibly taken from their homes by Algerian pirates on 21st June 1631 and sold into the slave markets of Algiers.” The castle and the exhibit ensure that the captives of the Algerians, their names and their grim stories, are never forgotten. And they have not. Sean O’Riordan reported in the Irish Examiner on 24 April 2017 the following: “Algerians return 4 centuries after village raid.” Happily, the visitors met with warm welcome from the Baltimore community. Back in Dublin a few days later, we hailed a taxi at the train station. And small world that it is, the driver happened to be “Lutfi,” the name on the dashboard, an Algerian married to an Irish woman and living in Dublin. Familiar with the history of the pirates, he humorously proclaimed that he was a descendent of an Algerian pirate and an Irish captive. After all, he added, he had grown up in the Murat Rais neighborhood in Algiers … and loved Guinness.

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flags, ensigns, armor, and coats of arms that prominently showed the cross in its various shapes (Maltese, St. George, and others), the Knights Hospitallers of Malta (as of 1530), the Knights of St. Stephen in Livorno (as of 1562), and others were seen by the North Africans as new invading ifranj (the name that had been used for the Crusaders).92 But in the eyes of Europeans, they were warriors for Christendom.93 Supported by the Papacy (the pope was the First Superior of the Order of the Knights of Malta), these “corsairs parading crosses”94 looted North African port cities and ships and seized Muslims. Religious difference conveniently justified violence: the memoir of Alonso de Contreras (1582–1641) at the beginning of the seventeenth century, who prided himself on sailing with the Knights of Malta, conflated piracy with the Cross in a vicious kind of Christian/Catholic piety. After a sea battle, floating corpses at sea were distinguished on the basis that the Christian/Catholic corpses looked up while the Muslim corpses looked down.95 At the same time, Muḥammad al-Qādirī noted that after the battle for Ceuta in 1721, the corpses of the Muslims showed smiles on their faces as they looked to heaven, while the corpses of the Christians showed scowls as they looked down to hell.96 In North Africa, Muslim pirates became “defenders of the faith”: thus, the use of the terms jihād, mujāhid, and ghāzī in chronicles, fatawa, and hagiographies, words that conveyed religious zeal and struggle. The words were also used in the numerous directives from the Ottoman metropolis to the regencies: whenever local governors in Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli quarreled, and when they clashed with each other or with Moroccan rulers, the letters, which the sultans sent, tried to deflect them from their squabbles by emphasizing jihād against the infidels.97 Piracy was godly warfare. Attacks from the presidios along with seaborne incursions resulted in the capture of high numbers of North Africans. As there was no Muslim equivalent to the presidios on the European side of the Mediterranean, there was no equal

92 93 94 95 96 97

See Fontenay, Corsaires de la foi. “The captains of about half the French galleys were Knights,” Bamford, Fighting ships 155. Quoted in Earle, Corsairs 106, from a Venetian source. De Contreras, The adventures 23–24. See Earle, Corsairs ch. 10 for a biography of Contreras. For a survey of Maltese sea-borne attacks, see Bono, Naval exploits and privateering. Al-Qādirī, The chronicles 54. Pignon drew parallels between the knights in Malta and the deys in Tunis: “leur Grand Maitre et leur Dey, leur Venerando Consiglio et leur Divan, leurs Chevaliers et leurs Janissaires, leur marine d’etat (les six galères de la Valette et les six galères de Bizerte), les navires de course du Grand Maître et ceux du Dey, leur ‘prigioni de’ schiavi’ et leurs bagnes,” in Aperçu 77. It is important to note that after 1711, Algiers separated from the Ottoman metropolis when Dey ʿAlī Shāwīsh took over the function of the pasha.

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p[ieces] of eight [Spanish dollar] Norlo 112 Hamet Ali 112 Ali Cason 112

Belonging to Daniel Vansesterfleet, James Waring, & Robt. Cuthbert

Mahamed Sin Joseph Ali Mesot Mortegett Hamet Benali Jeragile Ali Hamet Genduz Mustafa Mahomet Ali Bensily Baram Ali Mahamed Ali Berecquet Negro Shaban Benkalifa Hamet Benhamet Oran Bacicha

112 112 112 112 112 112 112 112 100 100 100 100 112 150

Mahamed de Shezrell Jetta Secola Ali de Santa Cruz Oran de Tunis Hamet de Cabilla Rahall de Birkey Cassim de [?]

100 100 100 100 100 100 100

Belonging to Robt. Cuthbert

Aldraman Granado

100

Belonging to Capt. Giles

Mahamed Ben Mus Ali Zensana Hamet Cara Hamet Stombly Belle Mahamed de Smyrna Haretta Mahamed

100 100 100 100 100 100

Mahamad Bebeck

100

Mahamad Bebeck

100

Belonging to Capt. Collier

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guns, North Africans still relied on galleys, and in battle, they still relied on ramming and boarding while the French used the recently invented “bomb ketches” that devastated Algiers in the 1680s “with a success no one had yet attained.”103 Muslim merchant ships did not have naval escorts to protect them from European piratical attacks until late in the eighteenth century, unlike, for instance, the English after the Navigation Act of 1651. As a result, by 1695, 24 % of the galley slaves on French ships were from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire;104 by 1732, 74% percent of the rowers-captives on the pontifical ships were North African, at the same time that the French navy, although slowly reducing its reliance on rowers, continued to buy captives.105 There were also large numbers of captives laboring in mines (where mortality was the highest), in public works (fortifications, roads, dams), and in arsenals. As Salvatore Bono stated about Italy: the number of Muslim captives in the eighteenth century was not only equal, but probably more, than the number of Italian captives among Muslims. “Et cela vaut, également, je crois, pour l’ ensemble de l’ Europe” (and I believe this applies to the rest of Europe as well).106 In 1782, the Moroccan ambassador Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Miknāsī (d. 1799) ransomed 232 Muslim captives from Genoa, 285 from Naples, and 1,395 from Malta. He spent 548,680 scudi— and that was just for half of the captives.107 Nor did the North Africans have the wealth to build and maintain large fleets. By the middle of the eighteenth century, all North African rulers—and their local opponents—relied on the English, the Dutch, the French, and other Europeans for their weapons and ammunition, and for trainers to instruct them in their use. Not only did the Ottomans not furnish their coreligionists with effective and modernized weapons,108 they also did not share with them their geographical and cartographic archives nor the elaborate maps drawn by Ḥajjī 103 104 105

106

107 108

Corbett, England in the Mediterranean 418. Panzac, La course barbaresque revisitée 31. See Boyer, La chiourme turque 54; Vincent, Achats et rachats d’ escalves musulmans, http://cdlm.revuews.org/44 (accessed: 15 November 2017); Bono, Achat d’ esclaves Turcs 88n17. Bono, Esclaves musulmans en Italie 190. See also Salzmann: “[It] should not surprise us that there is no public awareness that the number of Africans, Mediterranean and Eastern European Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox Christians who languished in bondage in Western Europe greatly outnumbers the Catholics and Protestants enslaved in the contemporary Muslim world,” Migrants in chains 391. Freller, The shining of the moon 320. The cannons in the “Place de France” in Tangier (during my visit in 2015) were cast in Europe: in Toulouse 1692; in Amsterdam 1737; “De Flander” 1639; and “Dieu et mon droit” (French?) 1722. See photographs of the cannons in Rue de Pasteur in Tangier, HeinsenRoach, Consuls and captives 160–161.

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Khalīfa (1609–1657), some of which were based on European models. In 1773, Sīdī Muḥammad of Morocco looked at maps of the globe for the first time in his life to see where Sweden was,109 and his courtier, Abū al-Qāsim al-Zayānī, still relied on the twelfth-century map of al-Idrīsī.110 As their naval strength continued to decline, the North Africans could no longer fight back: when Napoleon invaded Malta in 1798, he found 2,000 Muslim captives—whom he proceeded to liberate;111 but within a few years, other Muslims were captured to Palermo. The religious language that appears widely in captivity writings, both European and Arabic, should not overshadow the economic factor. Captivity was justified by (obliquely) appealing to God, but it was the business of Mammon.112 If piracy was a “forme inférieure de la guerre,” as Braudel wrote, ransoming was a small form of economic exchange. While religious differences were never forgotten, captivity of men, women, and children of all religions and ethnicities did not necessarily stem from irresolvable Christian-Muslim polarization. After all, by the mid-seventeenth century, the English were selling their own countrymen, imprisoned after military defeats, into North American slavery;113 and they were not unwilling to capture European Christians who were at war with them and sell them in the slave markets of the Mediterranean. In 1685, the Earl of Sunderland received a letter from the consul in Algiers: “the world cries shame on us that free Xtians [sic] should assist these people to make Xtian Prizes.”114 The Neapolitans used Protestant slaves,115 and the Portuguese captured and enslaved English seamen—some of whom were subsequently released by the Algerians.116 The French used English (Protestant) slaves on their galleys:117 it is worth noting that in 1698 there were 257 Protestant slaves on French ships, more than the 118 British captives who were in North Africa in 1695.118 Some Huguenots left detailed descriptions of their ordeals, which 109 110 111 112

113 114 115 116 117 118

Host, Histoire de l’Empereur du Maroc 72. The account was written in 1791. Ziyādeh, Taṭawwur al-nadhra al-Islāmiyya ilā Urubbā 84. Plantet, Correspondance des beys de Tunis iii, 350. But there was still North African piracy: see the Tunisian attack on Sardinia in 1798, Loth, Le pillage. Numerous scholars have argued for the preeminence of the financial factor in captivity over the religious, chief of whom is Kaiser, L’economie de la rançon, and the collection of essays edited by him in Le commerce des captifs; and Kaiser and Calafat, The economy of ransoming. See the grim fate of 70 men suspected of conspiracy against Oliver Cromwell in 1654: Adamson and Folland, Sir Harry Vane 374–375. TNA SP 71/3/f.119 (25 August 1685). Nagy, Prisonniéers protestants hongrois. TNA SP 71/2/96 (22 January 1676). TNA CO 279/29/325v. See the names of Huguenots in Arber, The torments of Protestant slaves 271–280; for the

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mirrored the ordeals of their fellow Muslim captives, thereby furnishing firsthand information about conditions on the galleys. Interestingly, the Protestant “galériens” received both sympathy and comfort from the “turcs.”119 This inter-Christian violence in Europe occurred at a time when there were large Christian populations in the Islamic Mediterranean, from Mosul in Iraq to Alexandria in Egypt, passing through Aleppo, Damascus, the northern mountains of Lebanon, and the holy regions in Palestine. Furthermore, in the early modern Islamic dominions lived the largest number of Jews in the world, spread from Marrakesh to Algiers to Istanbul all the way to Julfa.120 The Jews were employed in the North African courts, being sent as diplomatic emissaries; and a Jew serving the Moroccan ruler turned pirate and captured three Spanish ships.121 While Christian writers as far north as England fantasized in the 1660s about the Jews—how they were to seize Salé and march on Meknes, “putting all the Inhabitants to the Sword” as they hastened towards their messianic leader, Sabbatai Sevi122—in reality, the Jews, like their Muslim (and sometimes Eastern Christian) counterparts, were taken captive by Tuscan, French, English, Maltese, and other pirates.123 In “February 1668 the 25th day thereof,” wrote British Admiral Thomas Allin, “three Turks Three Jewes and two

119

120 121 122 123

English captives, see my British captives 271–272. Neau included a list in his 1699 Account in which he gave the place of origin and date when the slaves were “sent to the Galleys.” Alongside the French, there were four from “Swisserland,” one from London, Peter Toureille from Bearn, “a Proselyte,” and John James Shebert, “a Foreigner.” Arber, The torments of Protestant slaves i, 150. In the memoir of a Huguenot galley slave between 1700 and 1713, the author mentioned his friendship with a “Turk,” Memoires d’ un Protestant, trans. Marteilhe (1684–1777), The Huguenot galley-slave 144–145. Earlier in the century, the English Protestant captive of the Tuscans, William Davies, was forced (“against my will”) to participate in Catholic attacks on Muslim ports, Davies, A true relation 4. Huguenots were viciously treated, often punished in the “Turkish” manner of being subjected to bastinados: see Elias Neau’s An account 8, where there are numerous references to the “barbarity” of the French toward the Protestant captives; and Bion, An account of the torments the French Protestants endure. For the names of Protestant galley slaves on French ships, see the exhaustive list in Tournier, Les galères de France. In Algiers alone, in 1675, there were “13 thousand families,” aside from the “Christian Jewes,” according to the resident English consul, TNA SP 71/2/64v (10 June 1675). CSPD James I, 1611–1618, 9:260 (24 November 1614). From Saley in Barbary, August 16.1665, in The Jewes message to their brethren in Holland 6. That is why the Moroccan contender, al-Maʾmūn, wrote to the grand duke of Florence in October 1604 requesting assurance that his Jewish envoy, Yahuwadhā ibn Lūlū, would be protected from whatever dangers he and his companions might encounter at sea—mā yulāqūn fī-l-baḥr: al-Tāzī, al-Tārīkh al-diblumāsī viii, 228. As Benyahu noted, “more [ransom money] was always asked for a Jew than for a Moslem,” in R. Shmuel Aboab’s letters 72. As Brogini shows, the number of Jews seized into Maltese captivity between 1620 and 1645 was 67 out of a total of 189 (35.4%), Au coeur de l’ esclavage 542. See also Greene, Catholic pirates 98.

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film about the Algerian raid on Iceland in 1627, the makers described that act of piracy as “Atlantic Jihad” (http://vimeo.com/31207401).12 This “terrorism” and “jihad” of the North African pirates in the early modern period, what the German magazine GeoEpoche described in 2013 as “the Muslim piratical terror of the Barbary States,”13 has been used to confirm an uninterrupted history of violence against European “Christians” by “Muslims,” thereby embedding that violence into the Western religious and historical identity. As a result, the study of early modern captivity has completely ignored the history of Arab and Muslim captives, even though the trade in Muslim slaves flourished during the age of the emergent European empires, from the Portuguese in India and the Dutch in the Maldives,14 to the English pirates in the Mediterranean and the Red Sea,15 and to Estebánico the Black in captivity to conquistador Cabeza de Vaca in the American southwest. Historians Bernard Lewis and Linda Colley have claimed that there was very little “indigenous information” about the Mediterranean captivity experience by non-Europeans,16 thereby adumbrating an imbalance in scholarship and public coverage that has resulted in the total disregard of non-European voices. That is why there is a need to disrupt the normative European narrative that tells of Christian captives exclusively and to examine the history of the captivities inflicted on Arabs/Arabic-speakers from the Ottoman Levant and North Africa by early

12

13

14 15

16

The film was directed by Þorsteinn Helgason, who also wrote the script, but it is not clear why the title included “Turkish” rather than Algerian. In his later and extensive study of this raid, The corsairs’ longest voyage, Helgason tried to modify his use of “jihad”: “no religious justifications of this specific action are known” to exist (presumably) in the Islamic sources 172. [T]errorisieren muslimische Piraten aus den Berberstädten in GeoEpoche 61. See also the use of the term “terrorism” by Colley, Captives 46, and the excellent rebuttal by Parker, Reading “Barbary” in early modern England. For the history of Dutch warring in the Maldives, see Tāj al-Dīn, Muḥibb al-Dīn, and Sirāj al-Dīn, The Islamic history of the Maldive islands; for captivity by the Dutch i, 26. From the last-quarter of the sixteenth century, the English were active in piracy, especially against Catholics. The Italian priest Girolamo Dandini, sailing to Mount Lebanon on a papal mission, was nearly seized by the English: A voyage to Mount Libanus, 72. See also the play by Thomas Heywood, The fair maid of the west part I (c. 1597), which celebrates English piracy against the Spanish. Colley, Captives 86. With the exception of two accounts, wrote Lewis, “Muslim ex-prisoners returning from Europe have left virtually no record,” The Muslim discovery of Europe 90. See also Friedman: “Since the level of literacy in North Africa was generally much lower than in Western Europe, it was unlikely that a Muslim slave would write his memoirs,” Christian captives 628.

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of the Maltese by the name of Sālem authorized an Armenian agent to sell some property he owned in Egypt to raise the money he needed for ransom. Because there was no official method to guarantee the contractual agreement, other captives served as witnesses.130 All three religious groups were perfectly happy to have captives in their possession ransomed for large payments131— even if they were the most fearsome adversaries, as in the case of the Knights of Malta or the janissaries. Significantly, neither North Africans nor Europeans tended to kill their captives, unlike situations in North America where captured Indian men were killed and women sold into slavery.132 In North America, the killing served to empty the land, which the White Europeans were slowly conquering; in North Africa and in Europe, the captives were put to work or put up for ransom. Many captives or their families made deals with their “enemies” to free themselves or bring back their own.133 Such transactions were part of

130 131 132 133

dinia on the Spanish island of Tabarca (28 June 1662); Battista Sopardo, a Maltese 14-yearold captive girl in Tunis was exchanged with “Mahamat,” a 14-year-old boy held in Malta (24 March 1661): Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie vi, 48, 9. Maḥmūd, al-Qarṣana fī-l-Baḥr al-Mutawassiṭ 182. As Larquié emphasized, “all three religions were involved in the ransoming of captives,” in Le rachat des chrétiens 317. See, however, the killing of all passengers and crew on board a Turkish galley by the Venetian Gabriel Faro in 1563, Anderson, Naval wars in the Levant 60. Luca Liperotto, a Maltese renegade, arranged to have himself exchanged for Mohammad bin Hajji Qasim, a Moor, captive in Naples: Luca was to stay in Tunis until Mohammad, or “quelque autre lieu de Barbarie ou de Turquie” was released: Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie vi, 12. I am keeping Grandchamp’s spelling of the names. Omar bin Abdi freed Vincezo Spatteri, a Maltese, who in exchange, promised to effect with his father the freedom of Omar’s brother in Malta, Ibrahim, ibid., vi, 53; Robert Savari paid 105 piasters to free al-Qaʾid Ali, a captive in the French galleys, so that he could be exchanged with him, ibid., vi, 145; Mohammad bin Hajji Abdelafar, from Bizerte, bought the slave Anthoine Michel of Marseilles so he could exchange him with his uncle who was a galley slave in France, ibid. vi, 189; in October 1686, Giovani Bartholomeo agreed to pay 300 pieces of eight, and to free the Moorish slave Hamed Abech in Livorno in exchange for his own freedom, ibid., viii, 80; in February 1689, Philip Perin of Livorno, a slave in Tunis, promised to free the rais Abd al-Latif who was a slave in Livorno in exchange for his own freedom: “qu’Abdelatif sera libre, Perin le sera egalement,” ibid. viii, 135. In July 1704, the dey of Algiers wrote to the Comte de Pontchartrain that he had a captive, Lazare Adrian, whom he would exchange for “certain nombre d’esclaves musulmans, détenus à Marcella,” Plantet, Deys D’Alger ii, 23. Some exchanges were completed because of the coincidence of having captives held by each other’s families: Mohammad Coroli was in Malta, a captive of Francesco Scarpello, the father of Michael, who was a captive held by Mohammad’s uncle Uthman—as a result, an exchange was arranged in January 1635, Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie v, 74. Ibrahim bin Abdi, a captive in Malta, was exchanged in February 1662 for a Maltese who was a captive of his brother’s, ibid. vi, 54.

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early modern financial exchange across the Mediterranean shores, what Wolfgang Kaiser has called “the economy of ransom.”134 Geographically, Muslim captives came from all the Arab-Islamic regions of the Mediterranean, as the Tangier list above shows. (The same, of course, applies to Christian captives who came from all parts of Europe).135 A Turkish list of captives shows a large mix, reflecting the diversity and the expanse of the Ottoman Empire: the 260 captives came from Bosnia and Tunisia, Istanbul and Crete, Alexandria and Cairo, Tripoli and Gallipoli, Cyprus and Izmir, and Algiers and Rhodes.136 A list of Muslim captives in Tangier, c. 1681, recorded the place of birth of the captives, the region to which they belonged, and the location of their sale; the captives were from Constantinople and Aleppo, Smyrna and Alexandria, Tunis and Bursa, and “Demiat” and “Busnack,” and they had been bought chiefly in Livorno and Malta.137 A list of captives on the French galleys from the early eighteenth century shows them all from Morocco, perhaps because Moroccan sailors and ships ventured into the Atlantic and only rarely into the Eastern Mediterranean.138 Another list of captives from Malta in the third quarter of that century shows Tunisians as the largest group, followed by Turks, Libyans, and other North Africans.139 In their immense attentiveness to racial and ethnic demarcations, Spanish writers employed numerous designations for the captives, both racial and religious: Moro, Morisco, Berberisco, Africano, Mulato renegado, Turco, Cristiano de Turco, De nacion de moros, and others.140 All these differences, however, were folded into the term that Europeans nearly always used for North Africans-Ottomans-Muslims: “Barbary.” 134 135

136

137 138 139 140

In support of this argument, see Hershenzon, The captive sea. See for instance the list of 1,473 captives ransomed from Tunis in the second half of the seventeenth century, which included Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Flemish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Maltese, Ragusan, and Greek captives: Fontenay, Pour une géographie de l’esclavage méditerranéen 8–9. Archives nationales, henceforth, AN Marine E/B/7/220, 55–63. See Wettinger’s discussion of the size and ethnic origins of the Muslim captives in Slavery in the islands of Malta and Gozo 32–45. TNA CO 279/30/367. See the map in Weiner, Fitna, corsairs, and diplomacy 177, which shows the Atlantic range of Moroccan activity. Bouzid, Notes 19–27. Gonzales-Raymond identified 21 terms, Les esclaves maures 103. But in the Livorno records, there are three terms, “Moro,” “Arabo,” and “Turco,” see Calafat and Santus, Les avatars du “Turc” 508. See also the categories that appear in the French archive in Tunis in Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie, passim: “Tagarin,” “Maure,” “Turc,” “Andalou,” “Juive,” “Renegat,” and “Janissare.” One of the problems with these categories is translation: in an English letter, for instance, the term ʿabd, which also means servant or slave (as in ʿAbdallāh), is translated as “negro,” TNA CO 279/30/354.

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What is still missing is the history of early modern captivity by and about Arab captives in their own language and expression—using the term “Arab” culturally and linguistically, not ethnically. As the above list of Tangier captives showed, although there were Berbers, sub-Saharan Africans (“Negro”), and a Turkish Pasha/government official, the largest number of captives was Arab— North African and Levantine. These captives were distinguished from their Turkish counterparts in that the latter were ransomed by the governors of the North African regencies, who were Turks, while the Arab captives were ignored, precisely because they were Arabs. In May 1789, for instance, the Moroccan ruler, Sīdī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh (reg. 1757–1790), sent back to the Ottoman sultan 536 Turkish captives whom he had ransomed from Malta, a gift that he hoped would embarrass the Ottoman sultan into doing the same for Arab captives.21 It is captives like these, who spoke Arabic, but may not have been ethnically Arab, who will be the focus of this monograph.22 After all, the language of nearly two-thirds of the Mediterranean basin, both among Berbers and Arabs, Muslims and Christians, Moroccans and Syrians, from Tangier to Alexandretta, was Arabic, with some Syriac and lingua franca. Although there was no print culture in the Islamic Mediterranean, there was a vast oral culture. In Europe, publishing captivity accounts became lucrative and led to a growing and popular industry, but in the Arabic context, the stories appeared as episodes in biographies, regional histories, correspondence, and fatawa—and they remained part of public memory to be told and retold for centuries.23 At the beginning of the seventeenth century, for instance, the

21

22

23

Ofqir, and Malika Ofqir (with Michel Fitusi, coauthor), who were held captive at the orders of the king of Morocco, Hasan II. See also the writings of Palestinians in Israeli captivity: Sindāḥa, Mudhakkirāt; and Mudhakkirāt al-asrā. Ibn Zaydān, Itḥāf aʿlām al-nās iii, 307. For the negotiations about these captives, see Arribas Palau, Un rescate de 600 Musulmanes cautivos. See also for Arab-Turkish differences, Haarmann, Ideology and history esp. ch. 8. Gaid, l’Algerie sous les Turcs, shows the history of the racial and judicial separation between Arabs and Turks in Algeria in the early modern period. As he noted, the Turks assumed the top governmental and administrative positions, and never allowed their daughters to marry from among the local population. The Turks had their own Hanafi court, overseen by the agha, and separated from the Maliki court of the local communites. The Berber/Amazigh constituted a sizeable part of the North African population and were instrumental in bringing to power many Moroccan dynasties. By the early modern period, however, the term “Berbers” had lost its ethnic meaning in European documents and was replaced by “Moors”: de la Véronne, Distinction entre Arabes et Berbères. In Arabic sources, “ʿArab wa Barber” frequently appears, but without a reference to a different language. As Étienne Hubert wrote to Joseph Scaliger in 1608, “The whole Berber country speaks Arabic,” in Palabiyik, The last letter 130. After all, captivity of Muslims went on until the nineteenth century: Gozalo, Esclaves musulmans 12, writing about Spain. See n. 111, p. 86 below.

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African shores to “steal negroes”;146 others were captured by European pirates and not ransomed by fellow Christians.147 There were “Tagrines,” or Andalusian exiles (derisively called Moriscos, or as Roger Coindreau called them, “Morisques catholiques”);148 the “Kourghoulis,” the offspring of Anatolian Turks and native North African women; and ḥumr, or reds, American Indians sent as slaves from North and South America to Europe and subsequently captured by the North Africans.149 Importantly, in all these listings of terms is the absence of any association in the Arabic sources between skin color and religion—as was the case in contemporaneous Portuguese Inquisition records where bianco, or white, and Christian were interchangeable.150 Arab writers mentioned on some occasions the skin color of a person—but without racist connotations.151 Captives on both sides of the Mediterranean provided free labor and constituted capital that could be bought, sold, gifted, exchanged, and bequeathed by their owners. They contributed to the infrastructural transformation of cities on both sides of the Mediterranean: as Christian captives helped build the royal palace of al-Badīʿ in Marrakesh in the 1590s, so did Muslim captives help build the royal palace in Caserta in 1752.152 Women, children, and invalids, too, were 146 147

148 149

150 151 152

“The voyage made to Tripoli in Barbary, in the year 1583,” in Hakluyt’s Voyages 146. As Jean Baptiste Colbert, French minister of finance under Louis XIV, replied to a request to free a dozen Greek slaves: “Comme ils sont schismatiques et sujets du Grand Seigneur, je ne voy pas pour quelle raison ils peuvent ester mis en liberté,” quoted in Ẓysberg, Les Galériens 60. See also the letter to Colbert in 1674 by le chevalier de Piancourt, accusing the Greeks of violence in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, causing “plus de mal que les Turcs, ces sortes de gens seraient très bons hommes pour les galères,” quoted in Calafat, La croix et le croissant revisités 114. See also Weiss, Captives and corsairs, 105. Sometimes, however, the Greeks and other Eastern Christians were ransomed by Catholic priests acting on behalf of Rome, Earle, Corsairs 119; see also Greene, Catholic pirates, 154– 155, where French consuls helped Greek captives. Earlier in the century, English parishioners collected alms to help Greek captives buy their freedom: see Knutson, Elizabethan documents. For Greek and Russian (Christian Orthodox) captives on French galleys, see Bamford, Fighting ships 152–153. Coindreau, Les corsaires 38. See Newell, Brethren by nature, ch. 7 on “‘As good if not better than the Moorish slaves’: Law, slavery, and the second native diaspora.” See also the reference to “Musici Indiani comrati in Portogallo,” in “Appendix B: List of slaves [in Malta]—1595” in Georgio Scala; the references from the Portuguese Inquisition records in Boucharab, Maghāriba 37, 106, 109; and Bamford, Fighting ships 29, 138, 164–165, on Iroquois Indians. See also the reference to Iroquois who were freed in France and then sent to America, Ẓysberg, Les galériens 62. Boucharab, Maghāriba 138–139, 196. “Blancs” also referred to White slaves of Slavic, Bulgarian, or Russian origin: Stella, Être esclave et musulman 462. See the various references in Ibn ʿAskar, Dawḥat al-nāshir 67, 101 and passim. Bono, Esclaves musulmans en Italie 193.

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taken captive. In Messina, the Maltese pirates consistently sold captured children under twelve years old and women.153 In February 1787, Sīdī Muḥammad wrote to King Carlos IV of Spain (reg. 1759–1788) to help him ransom Muslim captives from Malta, especially women, little girls and boys, and aged and incapacitated men—captives seized just for their ransom value.154 Ironically, many who ended up in captivity had chosen the sea over the land route because of its safety, especially in their travels to Mecca: of the 204 captives in a list of North Africans, 21 were pilgrims.155 Similarly, lists of European captives in North Africa include references to women with children.156 Much casuistry was employed by all jurists to justify the captivity of harmless travelers. After spates of wars, plagues, and famines (especially in Morocco), and after droves of greedy Turkish beys and deys in the regencies, there was need for quick infusions of hard currency into the national coffers by means of ransoms paid for European captives. The same applied to the economies of the European states that were active in maritime expansion. But, the physical labor of captives was more urgently needed on French and Spanish and Tuscan and Maltese ships than by North Africans whose national sources of income relied on agriculture and farming more than on seaborne trade and colonization. In his Histoire du royaume d’Alger, de Tassy stated that the Algerian local income was twice as much as the income from prizes and ransoms of captives.157 Although Christian captives were always wanted in Muslim regions for their skills and their ransoms,158 in Malta, Muslim captives were needed largely for their exchange value. The “corso … served to feed the entire nation [of Malta] and a lack of [Muslim] prey immediately resulted in dearth and famine … All who could afford it invested” in it; even the “Ursuline sisters started taking a share of the prizes that were carried to Malta.”159 Furthermore, and as the new age of empire dawned, and as migration to the colonies in the New 153 154 155 156

157 158

159

Brogini, Une activité sous contrôle, online, paragraph 7. The letter is reproduced in Arribas Palau, La participacion 206. Bouzid, Notes 7. “Mary Weymouth, and her two children, James and John,” “Bridget Randall and her son of London,” and others in a list of ransomed English captives in 1647, in Matar, British captives 223. De Tassy, Histoire 177–178. See the letter by Mulay Ismāʿīl to Kirke quoted at the beginning of this unit. This need for European skills and know-how went back centuries. See the letter by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān of Tlemcen to James II (1267–1327), king of Aragon, in which the former states that “none built up our country except the captives, for most of them are skilled in various crafts,” undated letter, Los documentos árabes 184. Muscat and Cuschieri, Naval activities 131, 133. The income from the corso helps to explain the increase in the seizure of captives: from 400 in 1576 to 2,390 in 1669: Brogini, Au Coeur

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World increased, the European need for brute strength to man fleets and perform domestic labors became paramount. It is not a coincidence that many of the sculptures of captured “corsairs” in Europe showed muscular and strong men. (See epilogue below). On various occasions, North Africans onboard European ships found themselves betrayed by the sea captains, and instead of being delivered to their destination, they were diverted and sold in the slave markets of Valletta or Senj, Cadiz or Livorno. As travelers and traders, pilgrims and emissaries, Orthodox priests and imams crossed from Tangier or Libyan Tripoli to Izmir, or from Algiers to Rhodes, or from Sidon to Alexandria onboard small and unprotected ships, they, along with merchants, scholars, jurists, sailors, and their families fell victim to various European attackers, ranging from the Catholic Maltese to the Protestant British. In 1173AH/1759 AD, a fakkāk from Tetouan wrote to the French minister of the navy about a merchant who had been seized by qurṣān al-Inglīz, or English corsairs, and whose property, worth 8,000 francs, had been stolen. The merchant had gone to trade among the Christians because he had heard that they were just and kind to Muslims, ʿadl wa iḥsān. Now he was destitute and hoped that the French authorities would help him recoup some of his losses.160 The Tunisian Ḥammūda ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (d. 1788), wrote that in Baḥr al-Shām (the Arabic name for the Mediterranean), mālik al-Mūskū, or the king of the Russians, attacked British and French ships and captured Tunisians on board.161 At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Americans, too, took captives,162 and after the Greek War of Independence (ended 1832), Greek pirates attacked Beirut and other Ottoman port cities on the Eastern Mediterranean and took captives.163 In various voices and to various audiences, local and foreign, at home or abroad, many captives “spoke” about themselves, their experiences, and their ordeals. As their qiṣaṣ and letters and miracles show, these captives saw the Mediterranean not as a sea of faith, or as a space of hybridity, occasioning con-

160 161

162 163

de l’ esclavage 542. Similarly, as al-Hindī observed, most Algerians contributed to the piratical fleets, even simple women, Ḥawliyyāt 47. BnF MS Arabe 6100, 4. Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, al-Kitāb al-Bāshī i, 369. See anonymous, Les premiers Russes. See also the reference to the Algerian ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad who died while in captivity by the Russians, Zahhār, Mudhakkirāt 52. Al-Ḍuʿayyif, Tārīkh 328. In ʿAyn al-Mrayyseh in Ras Beirut, as I was growing up, the descendants of one ʿAbdallāh al-Quwatlī were still telling the story of one of their ancestors who had been seized by pirates in 1826, held captive for two years, and after his return was called “al-Yūnānī,” or the Greek.

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and Morocco in the first three centuries after the Ottoman conquest. Chapter one examines biographies and chronicles; chapter two, letters that captives exchanged with ransomers, kith and kin, or captors; chapter three, miracles told about liberation; chapter four, captive conversion to Christianity and resistance to conversion; chapter five, accounts by ransomers who wrote about the captives in Spain, Malta, and the Kingdom of Naples. Chapter six focuses on the history of the Arabic books/manuscripts that were “captured” to European libraries at the beginning of the seventeenth century. As there are no images of the captives in Arabic sources, the conclusion will examine some examples of captives as they appear in European sculpture. In English or Spanish drama, French novella, or Continental sculpture, Muslim captives were silenced so as not to tell about their ordeals. Zoraida the Moor in Cervantes’ Don Quixote was kept silent except for one sentence (unlike the garrulousness of the Spanish galley slaves in chapter 22), and the slave “devil in a trough” in The adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668–1669) uttered one sentence only.30 But in their own environments and among their communities, Arab captives were not silent and “spoke” (per Spivak), telling their stories in verse and prose after which they were put down in writing. Their stories were Islamically motivated and without the glamor or fantasies that inform much of the Western corpus on captivity. From one end of the Mediterranean to the other, the captives and ransomers—largely Muslim but with a few Christians, largely men but with a few women—spoke. They were not silent. Another reason for the limitedness of Arabic accounts of captivity in contrast to the dozens of long accounts by Europeans is the religious-Islamic understanding of captivity. Imtuḥina (passive) bi-l-asr, or he was made to submit to captivity (by God), are the words that are often used about captivity, recalling the numerous miḥan, or tribulations, in Islamic history. The choice of this specific word by Arab writers is significant: captivity was as much a personal miḥna as that of Jaʿfar ibn Muḥammad’s, for instance, or Marwān ibn ʿĪsā’s, or Muḥammad ibn Muslama’s, “the companion of the Prophet,” or dozens of others who had suffered miḥan that were recorded in the various Islamic histories of miḥan.31 Captivity was not just an ordeal of the individual who was seized, but also of Islam and its history of trials, confrontations, and dangers. And so, since captivity, like other historical miḥan, was a test by God, the cap-

30 31

pean meaning, the term does not apply to Arabic historiography before the eighteenth century. I am adopting the view of Stone about narrative, The revival of narrative. Von Grimmelshausen, The adventures of Simplicius Simplicissimus 123–125. See Kitāb al-miḥan by al-Temīmī (d. 333AH/AD 945). I am grateful to Professor Wadad Kadi for this reference.

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Qiṣaṣ al-Asrā, or Stories of the Captives The Christians had kidnapped him in Azammūr and the Muslims ransomed him.1

∵ In the medieval oral poems that celebrated the heroism of Muslim warriors, and in literature that recalled conflicts with the Rūm, there were numerous descriptions and recollections of captivity: Thus, the “Captivity of Prince Diyāb” in Taghribat Banū Hilāl, the eleventh-century saga of the wandering conquests of the Hilāl tribe, when the prince was captured by the Christian king of Cyprus but then released by the hero Abū Zayd.2 In that great work of fiction, The Arabian nights, and for the first time, captivity developed into a full-length, autonomous qiṣṣa. Nights 249–269 and 863–894 bring together a story of Muslim captivity in Italy, probably Genoa, and the reversal of many of the motifs that appear in the European tradition of captivity narratives.3 The Arabian nights captivity story reflects elements of both the actual experiences of Muslims and some fictional elements that were current in Western literature. At the same time, it describes the mobility, the conflict, and the commercial activity that marked the Mediterranean basin in the late medieval and early modern periods.4 But the two cycles in The Arabian nights remain a unique specimen of romance, picaresque, and captivity, composed/imagined at a time when Arabs (again using the term linguistically) crisscrossed from Egypt to China, when

1 Ibn ʿAskar (d. 1578) about ʿAbdallāh ibn Sāsī, d. 1553, and buried near Marrakesh. Dawḥat alnāshir 100. The same words are used about another captive, Mālik ibn Khidda, Fāsī, Mumtiʿ al-asmāʿ 84. 2 Abū Naṣr, Taghribat Banū Hilal ch. 7. See Lyons, The Arabian epic i, 61. This and other captivity stories in that cycle and from the Sīra of al-Ẓāhir Baybars continue to be recited today: see the article in al-ʿArabī al-Jadīd newspaper, Ayyām al-sīra (12 May 2019), accessed 12 May 2019. 3 The final recension of The Arabian nights took place in the second half of the eighteenth century and was first printed in Bulaq, Egypt in 1835. 4 For a discussion of these two cycles, see my Christians in the Arabian nights.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_004

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Baghdad and Damascus and Cairo were urban centers of global reach. It had been a world where everyone knew Arabic, and where Quranic codes prevailed even in societies where Islam was not practiced. By the time the above cycles were told, however, the Mediterranean balance of cultural and naval power was changing, and in Al-Andalus, the Muslim presence was being pushed back (having started as of the 1212 Las Navas de Tolosa/ʿUqāb defeat). The fifteenth century witnessed continual defeats bringing about captivities as the armies of Isabel and Ferdinand attacked and conquered Muslim cities and outposts. One of the captives in these conquests was a poet from Basta who left a unique set of poems about his ordeal.

1

ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qaysī (fl. 1485)

The poems of the Andalusian ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qaysī described his captivity in Ubeda sometime in the second half of the fifteenth century. Much more than al-Ḥamadānī before him, al-Qaysī included descriptions of his suffering, reflecting uncertainty about his fate as he witnessed the fall of Andalusian cities and the seizure of Muslim communities into captivity and enslavement. Such seizure epitomized the strategic control that the Iberians were gaining over Muslim regions, thereby asserting their geopolitical power and sovereignty. Very little is known about al-Qaysī other than what he mentioned about himself in his poems. He did not explain why or how he was taken captive, but still, and despite his ordeal, he wrote a large number of poems, 21 of which describe his emotions, memories, and sufferings. How much he exaggerated is not easy to determine,5 but it is striking that al-Qaysī wrote in candor about his difficulties, going against the Islamic grain of not complaining about God’s will, perhaps because he endured a very long time “in chains,” as he wrote. In this respect, his poems could be situated next to the prison literature that flourished in Western Europe in the early modern period.6 Captivity, however, was different from imprisonment: in al-Qaysī’s case, for instance, he was free to move around as he served his masters, unlike for instance, Thomas More or Thomas Wyatt in England who were kept inside cells in the Tower but were better treated and did not have to perform menial labor. Still, captivity shaped 5 As Epstein noted about two English imprisoned poets: “Poetry often seems intensely and undeniably rooted in individual, lived experience, but it is composed almost entirely in traditional and conventional modes and forms,” Prisoners of reflection 161. 6 See Ahnert, The rise of prison literature.

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his poems into expressions of resistance and longing, and while he wrote many poems that did not deal with captivity, his “prison” writings can be seen to furnish an Arab reflection on the Reconquista. In a poem dedicated to the Prophet, “which I composed in captivity,” alQaysī, writing about himself in the third person, stated how God decreed captivity for him, one of the most difficult of tribulations. But, he continued, he was willing to “endure and accept God’s will” (2:28–29), for He has performed miracles in the past and can well perform one to liberate him.7 Writing in the third person was not unusual for Arab (and European) authors who believed they could better impress the truthfulness of their reflections by deflecting the authorial self. In another poem, he wrote in the first-person to praise his Sufi master, Abū ʿAbd al-Bayānī. “Writing to him from the land of the Christians, while I was a captive,” al-Qaysī decided to speak about love, because that subject, as he explained, helped him in enduring captivity. He described “one of the most wondrous of the worshippers of the Cross [Christians], a beautiful woman who captivated me with her moon-like face.” He continued with how he (imagined?) embraced her, Kissing her rose-like cheek and then her smiling lips, The church bell rang with a beautiful chime. The priest of the aʿājim [non-Arabs] openly preached the Injīl of ʿĪsā [the gospel of Jesus] son of Mary, the Spirit of God. … Had it not been for my chastity and my unwillingness to be exposed to her reprimands, I would have enjoyed what is ḥarām, Just as, in the past, I enjoyed listening to the wisdom of the imam, alBayānī. 4:1–16. See also poem 6 where this connection between the master and a beloved is repeated

Was al-Qaysī echoing a trope that appears in contemporaneous European poets: captivity to the infidels was also thralldom to (erotic?) love?8 Or was he drawing on the Sufi tradition where poets created images of passion—to women or to wine—that described their love of the Prophet or of God, or, in this case, of the Sufi master?

7 All references are to Dīwān ʿAbd al-Karīm al-Qaysī al-Andalusī. The first number refers to the poem, the second to line/s. See the brief essay on Qaysī by Castillo, Un poeta bastetano del siglo XV. 8 See Epstein’s discussion of Charles d’Orléans, Prisoners of reflection 171.

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Addressing his master again “from Ubeda—may God destroy it—while I was in thiqāf al-asr [the grip of captivity]” he called on his heart to “be patient and to pray for sirāḥ [release],” for “fate cannot but smile after frowning so long”: How many a captive in chains was freed, as if he never tasted captivity. Take as your model of patience Imam ʿAbd al-Ilālāh [sic] al-Bayānī, the best of mentors. 5:1–9

He endured because he knew how his master had once tasted of captivity, and as he further explained, poetry was his solace in Ubeda, making his chains bearable (6:57–60). To his family in Basta, he wrote, “while in captivity,” he was far from them, but his heart remained near them, and if a breeze from his homeland reached him, it would be a cool balsam to his burning heart. To his father, he wrote: You, my father: although I cannot see you, you are always on my mind, I always think of you and remember how you used to call me “Son.” I then become depressed and yearn so much to see you, Ever envying the wind when it passes over your land. 39:7–10

Like all captives, al-Qaysī recalled friends, relatives, and teachers, especially his Sufi master whom he implored to pray for him, assuring him that he kept his visage and his books before his eyes (7 and 8). To his friend Abū ʿAbdallāh ibn Rajāʾ, in whose house he had enjoyed learned conversations, he wrote about his plight in captivity: “humiliated and chained … among an infidel people, whose infidelity changes like the colors of a ḥirbāʾ [chameleon].” “Their hearts are as hard as rock,” he continued, “for I spend the whole day from sunrise to sunset slaving for them, doing all I can to fulfil their commands”: My body has grown weak, and my complexion has changed, My eyes are swollen with tears and my bowels burn: You cannot think that someone in my condition is alive. The worst thing, however, is: I cannot perform my religious duties. 35:26–30

To God, he pleaded for forgiveness of his sins in a poem with a moving opening where he briefly touched on the sin-captivity factor. Was he influenced by

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conversations with his Christian captors, or was it that the longer his captivity lasted, the more he realized that he would never return and blamed his failures for leading him to such a fate? Al-Qaysī did not describe his sins—unlike Western Christian counterparts who would list their errors and acts of disobedience. In his case, he mentioned temptation by Satan, but he did not explain what it was and focused in large measure on pleading with God: Your forgiveness O Lord is my supreme hope. Do not look back at my past dhunūb [sins] for they are the cause of my woes and are now my malady … Satan tempted me with his wickedness And made me the captive of an infidel in Ubeda. 41

In another poem, he cryptically mentioned a “rebellion” which he believed had brought about God’s punishment on him: Alas, after being a teacher and a reader of the Quran, I sleep and then wake up a servant to the worshippers of crosses and idols. If not put to work in digging, I am building and tearing down, Or I am forced into sweeping or irrigating, Or, most of the times, cleaning dogs’ dirt. I wash their clothes with my hands, And when I want to sleep, sleep flies from my eyes. This is the punishment for one like me, who rejected the piety of alIlālāh and followed the path of rebellion. 95

Again, he did not explain what his “rebellion” against God had been. But while admitting that he deserved his punishment, in a moment of despair, he declared: Death is easier than captivity in Ubeda, For in captivity, the captive encounters the sharpening of the arrows of pain. 92

Perhaps reaching a possible breaking point, he turned to challenge God:

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introduction

scriptures and their own lives. Whether held among North African “infidels” or North American “heathens” (see the 1682 account of Mary Rowlandson’s captivity among the Native Americans), many captives and authors treated captivity as a captivity to sin, their suffering as a test of faith that required imitating Christ in his submission, and final liberation as a demonstration of divine approbation.41 In many European writings, the captives were captives for Christ because they had been prisoners of sin (Romans 7:23)—and captivity was their path to salvation. No such typology informed the Arab-Islamic understanding of captivity: as captives told about their ordeals, they did not view themselves in the light of Quranic or early Muslim figures. No captive saw his liberation from captivity as a reenactment of the liberation of Jonah/Yūnis— a frequent trope in European writings; nor would Muslim captives invoke the early heroes of Islam as if they, the captives, were prophetic fulfilment of the divinely elected. Where mimesis allowed for the infusion of the historical past with the present in Christian accounts, its absence in the Islamic context militated against the confusion between the holiness of the religious past and a present of humiliating tribulation and captivity. Captives in Marseille, with its large arsenal, had different experiences from captives in Portsmouth, where there were mere dozens; and captives on galleys saw a different kind of European from captives who worked in taverns or in domestic households; and captives who remained in chains wrote differently from captives who were miraculously freed by the karāmāt of a walī (the miracles of the saint). As such, another reason why Arabic information about captivity never matched the European records was the absence of permanent North African representatives or traders (factors) in European port cities. There were no Algerian emissaries or Moroccan residents who visited European bagnios and recorded the names of their captured compatriots, or reported on whether they were ransomed, died of the plague, or “died in a madhouse.”42 The English, the Dutch, and the French sent factors and consuls to the Islamic regions of the Mediterranean who furnished detailed descriptions of their surroundings—as in the case of the daily journal of the English consul in Tripoli between 1677 and 1685, Thomas Baker.43 Moreover, there were French mission centers and

41 42 43

See the brief discussion of this theme in Jean-Claude Laborie, Les orders rédempteurs et l’ instrumentalisation 97–99. As for instance in the record of American captives in Algeria in 1785 and 1793. See appendix 4 in Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary. See Piracy and diplomacy. Writing “in her Majesties name” from Istanbul, William Harborne in 1583 appointed Harvie Millers “Consull for the English nation” in Alexandria, Cairo, “and other places of Egypt,” and Richard Forster consul in “Alepo, Damasco, Aman,

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friction or denunciation, should he have converted. Was it that the Spaniards needed captives more than they needed redeemed souls? But would the Spanish captor have wanted to exchange his captive with aʿlāj—Spaniards who had converted to Islam? Did he think that such converts had dissimulated their adherence to Islam and would promptly reassume their Christianity upon gaining their freedom? And, why did al-Qaysī always write the name Allāh as alIlālāh? Was it because the Spaniard may have been mocking Alá (God), and the captive wanted to preserve the sanctity of the name of his God? Did he think that his Christian captor really believed that Mary, who is deeply venerated in the Quran, was the wife of al-Ilālāh, or was it that he remembered some of the Quranic verses that denounce Christians for believing God to have a wife (Q 72:3)? What is valuable about al-Qaysī’s poetry is that it was written while the poet was in the throes of captivity. Curiously, not only did al-Qaysī seem to have time to compose poetry but also he had the imaginative latitude to compose playful poems: was the couplet written in his captivity about the town of al-Bīra referring to the name of a city or the name of a Christian girl he courted (91)? Also valuable is that al-Qaysī wrote about humiliation and despair, describing his physical and psychological anxiety with honesty. After his release, al-Qaysī praised the jurist Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Ḥasan, perhaps the man who had negotiated his return from captivity (33). Whatever his goal was in composing the poems, al-Qaysī was able to articulate the despair of Muslim men who fell before the conquering armies of a triumphant Iberian Christianity. His captivity writings are a record of the Arab defeat in Al-Andalus, and although they retain a deeply personal element, they reflect the larger geopolitical scene in the last decades of Muslim rule in Al-Andalus. Just about a century after al-Qaysī, another scholar-jurist was taken captive. Like al-Qaysī, he composed poems during his captivity, but unlike him, he mentioned little about his condition in captivity or his encounter with the captors or his spiritual failure as cause of his captivity. Rather, he composed his poems to praise his ruler who effected his freedom, Mulay Aḥmad al-Manṣūr (reg. 1578–1603). In such poetry, there was no place for expressions of personal suffering and humiliation. Rather, there was to be praise to the ruler, and of course, to God: Aḥmad ibn al-Qādī spoke of the niʿma, or blessing, of the liberator,10 showing that the reason for referring to captivity was his desire to hew

10

achieved the greatest number of conversions within the Hispanic realms during the fifteenth century” 140. See also Burns, Renegades, adventurers, and sharp businessmen. See the discussion of niʿma in this this genre of writing in Marín and el Hour, Captives, children and conversion.

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close to God and to speak and write of God’s blessing, as Q 93:11 urged: ammā bi-niʿmat al-Allāh fa-ḥaddith.11 And there was much niʿma for which he and his countrymen were grateful—the blessing that God had bestowed on his master in defeating a Portuguese-led invasion of Morocco in 1578. There was no sense of defeat in the poems of Ibn al-Qāḍī: he was proud of his ruler and of his religion that had proved victorious, and although there was still danger from the infidel pirates of the sea, he felt no sense of foreboding, as had been the case with al-Qaysī. Captivity was a glitch in the progress of his country under God and the Moroccan Commander of the Faithful. The captivity poems, thus, were not as much about al-Qāḍī’s ordeal as they were about al-Manṣūr’s glory. And they were written in Arabic—a language that he knew could reach all the way to Jerusalem, Mecca, and beyond. The captivity poems were inter-Islamic celebrations of Saʿdian might.

2

Aḥmad ibn al-Qāḍī (1553–1616)

Unlike al-Qaysī, much is known about Ibn al-Qāḍī. At the time of his seizure, he was a courtier in the service of Mulay Aḥmad and continued so under his successor. That is why the dates of his captivity and release are known, as well as the negotiations that were conducted to bring him back. Not untypical of other Arab captives, he did not write a narrative about his ordeal, which is why his qiṣṣa of captivity, ransom, and return has to be stitched together from his numerous works as well as from writings by his contemporaries. Granted permission by his ruler to travel to Egypt in “search of [Quranic] knowledge” at the hands of famous religious scholars, Ibn al-Qāḍī sailed from Morocco. On Thursday 15 Shaʿban 994/31 July 1586, he was captured near Hanin, northwest Algeria, by Maltese pirates who took him to their island. He was, as he wrote, in “great suffering as a result of hunger and cold, unendurable beatings and other indescribable tortures—may God destroy them [qaharahum Allāh].”12 What added to his ordeal was that he, as a scholar, had been carrying various poems celebrating his master’s victory at the Battle of Wādī alMakhāzin. These poems were taken from him and were never returned. Also stolen from him was the Fihrist, or Index, by Aḥmad al-Manjūr, which he had studied and for which he had received an ijāza (certificate). Now, he wrote, the manuscript is “in the hands of the infidels,” along with numerous other 11 12

For a longer discussion of this religious factor, see my Two Arabic accounts of captivity in Malta. Ibn al-Qāḍī, al-Muntaqā al-maqṣūr i, 347.

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writings.13 For him, the humiliation of captivity was compounded by the humiliation to his master—in losing the poems that praised him—and in losing the writings of important Muslim scholars and teachers to the infidels.14 Without describing the actual encounter with the Maltese, whether the Moroccans had fought back or not, how they were seized, or the casualties they suffered, and after the above single reference to his captivity, Ibn al-Qāḍī immediately turned to thank his ruler who had ransomed him eleven months later. For the captive, the importance of recalling captivity did not lie in the ordeal itself but in the praise that amīr al-muʾminīn, or the Commander of the Faithful, deserved for having effected the liberation of the captive. The references to captivity were a means to an end—which was to praise God for al-Manṣūr’s intervention. In this respect, Ibn al-Qāḍī was not unlike English captivity writers under Queen Elizabeth (reg. 1558–1603) who, contemporaneously with him, used their accounts to praise their monarch and to seek employment—and being good Protestants, they always thanked God.15 In his case, and to express his gratitude, Ibn al-Qāḍī composed a whole book in praise of al-Manṣūr, alMuntaqā al-maqṣūr, explaining how his ruler had always “ransomed from the lands of infidelity numberless [captives], spending incalculable amounts of money in an unprecedented manner. He cared for my case deeply, may God reward him with more than he rewarded me.”16 Captivity was a constant danger in the encounter with the “infidels,” and al-Manṣūr was ever vigilant to aid his subjects. Ibn al-Qāḍī explained: One of his [al-Manṣūr] great and laudable deeds, what became renowned about him across regions and lands, was that during feast times, such as the two major feasts [Eid al-Adha and Eid al-Fitr], the birth day of the Prophet, ʿĀshūrāʾ [tenth] of the month of Muharram, and three months of Rajab, Shaʿban and Ramadan, indeed all the year round, he spent large, countless sums of money. Every four months, he distributed 6,000 ounces of gold to the poor and the needy in his dominions.

13 14

15

16

Ibid., 307, 376. The loss of books was always a bane of captivity for traveling jurists. In 1715, Tunisian jurist Yūsuf al-Imām was returning from Alexandria when he was attacked by the “Christians” who stole all his books. Although he finally was freed from his captivity after enduring “horrors,” he never forgot his books, Khūja, Dhayl bashāʾir ahl al-īmān 258. Their accounts were a mix of fact and fiction, but they were the first Englishmen, or any Europeans, to publish descriptions of captivity among North Africans. See my English captivity accounts. Ibn al-Qāḍī, al-Muntaqā al-maqṣūr i, 251.

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Another act of charity was his ransoming of large numbers of captives from all the lands of infidelity, the island of Al-Andalus, and other places. He was generous and welcoming to every Muslim—and to the Jew in his dhimma—who came to him asking for a Christian captive to exchange with a Muslim captive.17 He was willing to help, hoping for reward in the hereafter. He used up many [Christian] captives and vast sums of money in this effort, looking for reward in the hereafter. In his council, he often said: “Whoever meets with an obstacle and is need of a captive or anything else let him come to us, and we will oblige.” Many a person whom I trust reported that to me: he once ransomed a Jew from Malta with his own money when he, may God support him, was asked to do so. What he did is known to everyone. One of his great and admirable deeds was his success in bringing me out of captivity. I was taken captive during my journey to Egypt in search of that noble knowledge [of Hadith]—having previously been granted his permission to travel, may God support him. I sailed in that direction, and then what God had foreordained happened on Thursday 14 Shaʿban in the year 94 [31 July 1586]. So, I turned to God and sought His help, knowing that my salvation could not but be at his [al-Manṣūr’s] hands, having been a beneficiary of his kindness and good nature. I wrote the following lines: The woes of the chained and suffering captive, which ran through the body’s every joint, Dissipated when he [Ibn al-Qāḍī] thought of the Hashimite Imam [alManṣūr claiming descent from Hashim, the tribe of the Prophet], the greatest of the creation, who soared in his bounty above all … Be, O just Imam, a helper to this weak captive, with his broken wing, The hands of time have slashed his jugular vein and fate has encircled him with tribulations … May God give you health, O king of the heights, and may you always remain an imam in the teeming loftiness, You are the pilgrimage destination of those seeking recovery, and a Kaʿba around which the noble circumambulate on all occasions. The poem reached his hand, God support him. He had already initiated action to effect my freedom and had written to the governors of the bastions to search for me wherever I might be in the lands of the infidels, may God destroy them. 17

See the legal judgment regarding dhimmis—Christians or Jews—under the Muslim ruler’s protection: Mechergui, Les préceptes des captifs en Islam.

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Consider his noble dedication and Hashimite help. So, and so, and so. Thus is he [Ibn al-Qādī] in his [al-Manṣūr’s] service and maḥabba [loving kindness]—may God protect him and grant him happiness. If you just know what he did to pressure the infidels because of me, you would realize how quickly he had acted. He liberated me on the 17th of Rajab in 95 [23 June 1587], having paid for my ransom the equivalent of 20,000 ounces of gold.18 A near contemporary of Ibn al-Qāḍī’s, Jón Jónsson, one of the Icelandic captives to Algiers in 1627, also described his suffering and his need for God’s help.19 But there is a difference in the two captives’ attitudes towards captivity, reflecting the difference in religious sensibility and theology. The Moroccan jurist wrote little about the details of his ordeal, focusing instead on praise for his ruler under whose roof he lived and worked. The reaction of the Icelandic captive was different, perhaps because he lived in a far-off part of the island, with no cities that could compare with Ibn al-Qādī’s Marrakesh and its souks and palaces or its ruler of wealth and fame. Captivity did not generate pride in his national belonging but reflection on his spiritual failures that had led to punishment by the captors. In the case of Ibn al-Qāḍī, captivity did not lead him to ponder whether he had deserved or not what had happened to him, unlike the inward-looking Lutheran minister. There was no place or need for Ibn al-Qāḍī to process the trauma psychologically or spiritually because all had been in God’s hands: the reason for his captivity lay in the unknowable mystery of divine will, which could not be fathomed by the kind of introspection and Protestant self-examination that the Lutheran showed. Both he and the Icelander were men of faith, but their theological traditions differed in dealing with tribulation: the latter wrote to show how much he had suffered for God in punishment for his sins; the former only wrote when he could proclaim the mercies of God through God’s benevolent ruler. Of course, Ibn al-Qāḍī never forgot his ordeal, and so, he mentioned the captivity and the liberation of other jurists and scholars. There was a long history of captivity of coreligionists and their ransoming, both by royal power and by divine intervention. And so, in his biography of the Sufi Aḥmad ibn Muḥammad Ibn ʿĀshir, Ibn al-Qāḍī wrote how the man had been “an ascetic with many evident miracles … One time a Muslim captive went to him [seeking help]. He looked at him then took out his vegetable knife, having nothing else to give

18 19

Ibn al-Qāḍī, al-Muntaqā al-maqṣūr i, 347–348. Egilsson, The travels 131–132, 150–151.

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No Arab captive became the source of logistical or geographical information about the enemy—at least not on paper.57 There is no evidence that Muslim captives were debriefed after their return to their communities: Sīdī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh welcomed the captives he had ransomed from Malta and Naples in the 1780s, but neither he nor members of his court recorded captives’ information about the captors or the foreign lands where the captives had been held. Instead, the Moroccan ruler offered the captives clothing and money and sent them home. It is not that he or members of the court were uninterested or not curious about the European world beyond their borders: he and others listened to the captives’ stories with eagerness and questioned them in great detail, but they never classified the stories into an archive for future political or military consultation. Meanwhile, in France, England, Spain, Italy, and Germany, captivity accounts, often dedicated to royalty or men in power, became sources of information about “Barbary” that were closely read by city burgesses, mayors, sea captains, merchants, clergy—even local pirates. The accounts, with their descriptions of customs and cities, also became part of the literary culture that inspired plays and novels, novellas and ballads that reached all sectors of the population.58 The European texts sometimes told heroic stories, especially of escape,59 many of which were couched in biblical imagery, and celebrating the victory of Christ over Muḥammad. This fiction-cum-reality genre of writing played a role in developing the image of the fearless and intelligent Christian in the hands of the cruel or gullible Muslim. Such an image appears in Cervantes’ “The captive’s tale” in Don Quixote (1605) where the Christian captive not only escapes but also takes with him the daughter of the mufti who converts to Christianity. A century later, the same kind of image appeared in William Chetwood’s The voyages and adventures of Robert Boyle (1726, 23 reprints thereafter) where the hero outsmarts his Irish captor, a convert to Islam, and flees with the English woman captive whom the latter had wanted to marry. Many were the novels, captivity accounts, plays, newspaper reports, memoirs, and ballads in European languages that described the ordeals and the victories of Christians among the “Turkes.” Such material, accompanied by crude illustrations showing “Mahometan” torture of Christian captives, established an indelible

57 58

59

For comparisons and contrasts between Christian and Muslim experiences of captivity, see Larquié, Captifs chrétiens et esclaves musulmans. See the seminal study about captivity as fiction by Starr, Escape from Barbary; also, Snader, Caught between worlds; Kaiser, Les mots du rachat, and other articles in that volume; Amelang, Writing chains; Zonza, Le récit de captivité; and Orsini, Récits de captivité fictifs. For English ballads about Turks and captivity, see Sisneros, The abhorred name of Turk. See Vovard, Les évasions par mer, and all the accounts in Vitkus, ed., Piracy.

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ruler, the former wrote about the ransom developments that were initiated by the magnanimous al-Manṣūr. Ibn al-Qāḍī, he reported, “left from the port of Tetouan but his ship was attacked in Baḥr al-Zuqāq [Strait of Gibraltar] by the fleets of the enemy. He was captured and would have faced dire consequences had not God’s mercy intervened.” As soon as Ibn al-Qāḍī was seized, al-Fishtālī continued in his massive history of the Saʿdian dynasty (of which only one volume survived), the machinery of ransom was set in motion. When his brother, Muḥammad Shaqrūn, heard of what had happened to Ibn al-Qādī, he appealed to Mulay Aḥmad who ordered the governor in Tetouan and a wealthy merchant there, Aḥmad al-Mufāḍil, to do everything in their power to effect Ibn al-Qāḍī’s release. Al-Manṣūr sent Ibn al-Qāḍī’s family a Christian youth, an excellent weapons maker in Badis and a servant of the “tyrant of Castile,” the king of Spain, who had been captured during the battle of 1578: he was to be exchanged with Ibn al-Qāḍī. But then, when the captors learned of the concern of the ruler for the captive, they became greedy and demanded an additional large sum of money, which al-Manṣūr generously gave. Meanwhile, the Qāḍī family took the Christian youth to Fez and from there to Tetouan to meet with the father of the youth at the appointed time for the exchange.25 Ibn al-Qāḍī left Ceuta for Tetouan through the assistance of the Miknāsī merchant Ḥājj Fulūsī. After the exchange and the payment of the ransom, Ibn al-Qāḍī was freed. But, soon after, continued al-Fishtālī, the “infidel” captors were furious because they thought they could have demanded a higher ransom. And so, they sent ships to capture Ibn al-Qāḍī again, but he escaped.26 In his account about the dignitaries of Marrakesh and Fez, al-Maqqarī reported that Ibn al-Qādī was released on 17 Rajab 995/24 June 1587 and returned to Marrakesh on Monday 8 Shaʿban/3 July 1588 (Sunday),27 adding that Ibn al-Qāḍī told him that he had been ransomed for 22,000 ounces of gold. He continued by describing to al-Maqqarī what had happened to him during his captivity, after which he recited to him a long poem he had composed in praise of al-Manṣūr—some lines of which al-Maqqarī included.28 Evidently, the qiṣṣa of Ibn al-Qādī’s captivity had circulated in Marrakesh, had been told and retold in the court, and had been remembered not as much to reflect on the ordeal of captivity as on the glory of al-Manṣūr. So memorable was the captivity and the release that a century later, the Moroccan chronicler Muḥammad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Qādirī (1712–1773) recalled the episode in Nashr al-mathānī. After describing 25 26 27 28

Al-Maqqarī, Rawḍat al-ās 230–231. See Dawūd, Tārīkh Tiṭwan i, 2:129–132 for Fishtālī’s account. Al-Maqqarī, Rawḍat al-ās 69. Ibid. 67–69.

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the learning and scholarship of Ibn al-Qādī, he added that the “subject of the biography” had traveled to Egypt in search of knowledge, had been captured by the enemy, experienced “unendurable hunger and torture,” and was ransomed by the Saʿdian ruler for “20,000 iwqiyya” (ounces).29 At no point did Ibn al-Qāḍī include any description of the Maltese captors, even after spending a year among them; they were just the “enemy” whom he wanted to forget. Like other captives, he described to kith and kin and to his fellow courtiers and his ruler what had happened to him, but unlike European captives, he did not view his story of captivity as part of an archive of information about the political, military, and social conditions of the captors. Neither Ibn al-Qāḍī nor others viewed themselves at the center of the early modern movement of ideas or the production of intelligence between the two shores of the Mediterranean—which is why he did not write a history-of-my-captivity memoir. Nor did he or other captives write accounts of their experiences to furnish systematic descriptions about their captors—in the manner of European captives whose accounts often combined their personal narratives of captivity with anthropological, social, military, or political information about the captors and their world. In this reticence, Ibn al-Qāḍī was so different from the European attitude shown, for instance, by a contemporaneous captive: Cervantes. Enslaved for five years in Algiers after the battle of Lepanto (7 October 1571), Cervantes returned to use his experience as an inspiration for his plays and the famous “Captive’s tale” in Don Quixote. He recalled names of Algerians, foods, social customs, and other particulars that reflected his firsthand knowledge of the alien world of the enemy.30 But, in his literary output inspired by his captivity (“a fountain of inspiration,” as Garcés noted),31 there was much invention and imagination, love and romance, violence and torture, and inevitably the praise for Christianity and the victory of the Catholic captives in the Muslim bagnios. At the same time, and in writing about his actual experience of captivity, Cervantes celebrated himself: how he had tried to escape four times (once every year of his five-year captivity), how he had been captured, how he had been viewed as an important man, thereby raising his ransom price, and how he had dealt with his captors. In the cave where he had been kept

29 30

31

Al-Qāḍīri, Nashr al-mathānī i, 216. The book was, in part, a history of the Saʿdians who by that time had been replaced by the Alawite dynasty. For a study of the historical context of Cervantes’ captivity, see Asín, La hija de Agi Morato; and for an extensive study of the trauma of captivity in Cervantes, see Garcés, Cervantes in Algiers, 156–165 and passim. Ibid. 16.

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(which still stands in al-Ḥamah suburb of Algiers),32 Cervantes treated his captivity as a learning experience, which later helped launch his plays that showed Spanish captives standing up to their captors (many of them Spanish “renegades”), outsmarting them, and finally managing to escape, sometimes taking with them Muslims who converted to Christianity. His experience became a source of cultural and historical capital, a way for him to participate in public discourse about the “Moors”—at the same time that he could make a career for himself. His descriptions of the bagnios were “not taken from the imagination, for truth forged it far from fiction,” as Don Lope concluded in The bagnios of Algiers.33 Cervantes impressed on his audiences all the details he remembered about Algiers, eager that they believe what they saw on stage during his years of captivity among the infidels.34 The Moroccan and the Spaniard were different in temperament and in culture. The former was a jurist, trained in law and theological argument; the latter was of immense creative imagination; Ibn al-Qādī was ransomed back to the royal court after one year in captivity; Cervantes endured five years to return without money to start his career as a writer. The description of the captives’ sufferings that Cervantes furnished (and exaggerated) in his plays was not possible for Ibn al-Qāḍī: it would have been improper, even vulgar, to parade his ordeal before the ruler—as if complaining about what he had endured. Only adulation was expected from a jurist like him, living and thriving under a benevolent ruler whose God expected only good things to be said of Him. If the ransom sum of 20,000 ounces is accurate, Ibn al-Qāḍī could not but have been full of praise and gratitude. After all, Cervantes had to ransom himself with borrowed money—500 gold escudos.35

32

33 34 35

See for the episode of the cave in Cervantes, Garcés, Cervantes in Algiers 45–49. In 2006, rubbish was removed from the cave and dozens of writers from the Arab world, Europe, and North and South America assembled to celebrate an evening of poetry there. Unfortunately, not much was done later by the municipality to turn the spot into a tourist site: there is a marker at the entrance, partly intended to prevent the homeless from turning it into their hangout. This is what the Algerian novelist Wāsinī al-ʿAraj wrote about the cave: “Inside caves were written some of the works that have changed history: the inspiration for the Qur’ṣn in Ghar Ḥirāʾ, the Muqadima of Ibn Khaldūn in the cave of Frenda, and in a cave, one of the greatest and most powerful works against the Inquisition, Cervantes’ ‘Don Quixote.’” The article discusses attempts to improve the visibility of the cave, Ibrāhīm, Don Quixote. Cervantes, The bagnios of Algiers and The great Sultana 98. As Rupp argues in Remembering 1541, in his captivity plays, Cervantes also used descriptions of the 1541 Spanish attack on Algiers. Garcés, Cervantes in Algiers 110.

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in 1733 after he had spent six months in England.69 In this respect qiṣaṣ alasrā are unique: neither sub-Saharan Africans, nor Mesoamericans, nor North American Indians—all of whom fell victim to European empires—left written accounts in their own languages that described their encounter with the first European conquistadors and slave traders as did the Arabs of the Mediterranean basin. All the Arabic texts discussed below were written in the native language of the authors, without translators or outside organizers. A few of the texts— letters—were written in Arabic but have only survived in translation, along with the letters of an Armenian who was sent by Mulay Ismāʿīl of Morocco as ambassador to England in 1710. But in the case of all other captives, their ransomers, and their rulers, they wrote and thought in Arabic. As Arabs, they had a geopolitical depth and both a history and a religion that tied them, linguistically and theologically, to coreligionists all around the Mediterranean and beyond. Their literacy enabled them to write or dictate their own letters and petitions, and to compose poems and prayers in their own language. In this respect, their captivity records and accounts provide unmediated descriptions of personal experiences that show them and their rulers, not as constituted in the European Western imagination but as offering their own testimonies and “voice-consciousness.” The Arabic captivity corpus describes the encounter of captives and captors at the same time that it describes the Mediterranean encounters between Islam and Christianity, and it does that in zones where each of these religions was consolidating its frontier and the separateness of its identity. The captivities and depredations committed on the English and the Italians, the French, the Maltese, and the Spanish should be studied in tandem with the captivities and depredations committed on the Arabic-speaking peoples of the Mediterranean basin. Although they wrote less than Europeans and Americans, cumulatively, their stories will set the record straight about the Arab and Muslim captivity experience in the early modern Mediterranean and present the first insights by non-Europeans about Western piracy and conquest.

69

TNA 71/28/345. He was distinguishing between “the customs of the Muslims” and “nās urubbī,” European people. See also my Urubba in early modern Arabic sources.

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power.39 By criticizing al-Manṣūr, Riḍwān was pitting himself and his authority as a jurist against the authority of the Commander of the Faithful, epitomizing one of the constant tensions in Moroccan history, between the makhzan, or royal court, and the religious and Sufi institutions. But after the victory of Wādī al-Makhāzin, al-Manṣūr became secure in his throne and could afford to ignore criticisms. At the same time, he began to think of military conquests. There was no possibility of confronting the Ottomans in Algeria to his east because he always wanted to keep Istanbul on his side—in case of another threat from Spain. Nor did he have the naval force to invade Spain, although he did propose to Queen Elizabeth of England that his armies, using her fleets, invade the Spanish territories in Florida—a proposal that she did not pursue.40 The only region where he could expand was across the Sahara to the south of Morocco and so, in 1591, he sent an army against Timbuktu, equipped with harbesques, the likes of which the people of Sūdān (Blacks) had never seen. He relied on a regiment of Andalusians who, with their disciplined military training, easily defeated the Sūdān and sent back thousands of captives to Marrakesh.

3

Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbaktī (1556–1627)

Among those captives was the distinguished scholar Aḥmad Bābā al-Tinbaktī. Like other captives, he was treated badly, and when he was later led to meet al-Manṣūr, he protested angrily at the humiliating treatment he had received: that he, a Muslim, had been tied and dragged from his home to slavery. The story of his captivity circulated widely, and although he himself did not write about his ordeal, he told his story to others, and it continued to be remembered in scholarly circles well into the early eighteenth century: the Moroccan chronicler, Muḥammad al-Ṣaghīr al-Ifrānī (d. c. 1742), wrote a summary in his Nuzhat al-ḥādi, and a longer account in his Ṣafwat man intashar. As he explained, he found the account of the captivity in a book by Aḥmad ibn ʿAlī al-Būsaʿīdī, who stated that he had heard al-Tinbaktī telling the story, The scholar, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad Bābā, underwent the ordeal [imtuḥina], and along with his family and his harem, was carried in chains. His library and books were looted, and he fell off the camel on which he was riding and broke his leg. He and his family remained in Marrakesh for 39 40

See Heinsen-Roach, The reluctant state; and my discussion in British captives in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. See my Queen Elizabeth I through Moroccan eyes.

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about two years after which they were freed. They were captured at the end of Muharram in 1002 [October 1593]. When he [al-Tinbaktī] entered the palace of the sultan, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad al-Manṣūr, known as alBadīʿ, he found him speaking from behind a curtain that separated him from people. The shaykh said, “God almighty! You are imitating the God of all the creation. If you have need to speak with us, come down and lift the curtain from between us.” So, the sultan descended and the shaykh said to him, “What need did you have to loot my belongings and to chain me from Timbuktu to here? I fell off the back of the camel and broke my leg.” The sultan answered, “We desired to unite the word [of God].” The shaykh replied, “Why did you not unite it by invading Tlemcen?” [an Ottomancontrolled city in Algeria]. The sultan said, “The Prophet, peace be upon him, said, ‘Leave the Turks so they would leave you.’ ” The shaykh said, “That was in the past and we are now in the present. As Ibn ʿAbbās [a Hadith narrator] said: ‘Don’t leave the Turks even if they leave you.’ ” The sultan was silent and when the subject of this biography was freed from the prison of Marrakesh, he started teaching, and the students in the city eagerly sought him out, notwithstanding his heavy accent, which could only be understood after some time.41 After al-Tinbaktī was released, he was given all the assistance he needed to pursue his scholarship in the vast library of Mulay Aḥmad. In anger at the terrible treatment he had received, and which had been credited to his skin color, he wrote a treatise refuting the arguments he heard in Marrakesh about the validity of slavery: Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd.42 Although he declared self-effacingly that he was no qualified jurist, he was vastly erudite and focused on an ongoing debate as to whether it was permissible by sharia to capture and enslave Blacks who were Muslim since the invasion had resulted in an annual payment of both gold and Black slaves to the ruler in Marrakesh. Given the limited knowledge in the Moroccan court about the geography of sub-Saharan Africa and the confused picture of the various tribes and peoples in the region, there was some uncertainty about who was Muslim and who was not, when certain communities had converted to Islam, if they had, and whether they converted to Islam after

41 42

Al-Ifrānī, Nuzhat al-ḥādī 171–172; and Ṣafwat man intashar 114–118. Did al-Tinbaktī know of what Ibn al-Qādī had written about the people of Sūdān? Ibn alQādī celebrated the fourth geographical region (as in Ptolemy’s geography) that stretched from Fez to Baghdad by setting it and its inhabitants up as the best. The people are spared the “fairness of the rūm [Europeans], the blackness of the zunj, the roughness of the Turks, and the crudeness of the mountaineers [Berbers],” Jadhwat al-iqtibās 13.

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or before they were conquered. If before, continued the debate, and they had been pagan, was it permissible to enslave them even if they converted afterward on the basis that they had not been Muslim at the time of their defeat? This racial issue had emerged in al-Manṣūr’s attempt to justify his invasion. After all, it was known that the Sudanese were Muslim and Arabic-speaking, and there was no possible legal justification for a Muslim to attack fellow Muslims. Scholars in the court bluntly told al-Manṣūr that and tried to dissuade him from the invasion, but he justified himself by pointing to his descent from the Prophet Muḥammad. That descent, he declared, gave legitimacy to his role as caliph over the Muslims—because only he who was a descendent of the Prophet’s tribe, Quraysh, and the Prophet’s clan, Hashim, could be caliph. The Sudanese, he declared, should submit to him because of his religious leadership. When such an argument failed to convince the court jurists, alManṣūr turned to a racial argument to justify his conquest of the Sudan. As the name indicates, the land was defined by color—Land of the Blacks. It was, he declared in a letter, with his swords of Qurayshite Hashim that “he had defeated the yellow-skinned enemies [the Portuguese] as well as the blackskinned of Sūdān. And it was by the prophetic light of the caliphate which upholds his dynasty that he chased the night away from the people where the crow has croaked since the days of Ham. God answered the prayer that this [Saʿdian] dynasty bring together the race of Shem with the race of Ham.”43 The justification of conquest was that the conqueror brought the black-skinned inhabitants under the fold of the Qurayshite/Hashimite (White?) descendants of Shem.44 This argument was the focus of al-Tinbaktī’s rebuttal. He turned to numerous jurists and historians, including Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) and Abū al-Faḍl al-Suyūtī (d. 1475) and gave a forceful answer: Muslims cannot be enslaved because the only “reason for enslavement is unbelief,” and those who are “free Muslims … may not be enslaved under any circumstance.”45 In an important development of the discussion, al-Tinbaktī confronted the claim that the Blacks were sons of Ham who had been cursed by his father for watching him bathe and were thus punished by blackness. Drawing on Ibn Khaldūn, he argued that the black color of the skin was not a result of divine punishment but of climate and geography.46 After finishing his treatise, al-Tinbaktī went on 43 44 45 46

De Castries, La conquête du Soudan 449. See my The Maliki imperialism of Aḥmad al-Manṣūr 155. Al-Tinbaktī, Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd 27. For a detailed study of al-Tinbaktī’s critique of racialized slavery, see Cleaveland, Aḥmad Baba al-Timbukti.

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They took me and tied my feet with ropes, and then they tied my hands; They tore off some of my clothes and then, o brother, they threw me Into the sea. I knew I would die and so I repeated the Testimony of Faith in my heart [There is no god but God, and Muḥammad is His prophet] … He came at me, having tied my hands and feet to the mast, The Christians gathered around me, looking at me and laughing, He bared my back and relentlessly lashed me Until he got tired of beating me. But I did not admit [that I had tried to escape]. I endured. They said: The Christians tell you to pay or they will shoot you with an arrow. I said to them: I have no money. Earlier, they had thrown one overboard who survived, and then they threw another who died. Then they sailed away.80 In 1440, an Andalusian diplomat recalled that pirates from as far as the island of Rhodes attacked the Granadan coast because of weakened defenses. “In this time,” he wrote, “pirates are causing great harm to Muslims … they attack in summer and in winter and are joined by all the Christian pirates, God destroy them, who are supported by the peoples of the islands where they sell their captives and the booty they pillage from the Muslims.”81 Throughout the above periods, both sides of the Mediterranean were equal in naval and military capabilities. Europeans and North Africans raided coastal towns and seized booty and captives, and as Arabs wrote about their ordeals and fears, so did Europeans.82 Piracy and corsairing were, after all, forms of war when navies were still small or nonexistent. From the sixteenth century on, however, the tide turned in favor of the imperialist ventures of the Portuguese with Henry the Navigator (1394–1460) and Alphonso the African (1432–1481). They were followed by the Spaniards, whereupon the number of North African 80

81 82

Ṭāhā, “Dawr al-ḥujjāj al-Andalusiyyīn wa-l-Maghāriba fī raṣd ḥarakāt al-tārīkh fī nihāyat al-qarn al-thāmin wa bidāyat al-qarn al-tāsiʿ al-hijrī min khilāl riḥlatayy ḥājjayn Andalusī wa Maghribī,” Majallat al-ʿuṣūr 153, quoted in Hadiyya, Qarāṣinat 232–233. Al-Ahwānī, Safāra siyāsiyya min Gharnāṭa 119, quoted in Hadiyya, Qarāṣinat 57–58. In his study of Muslims in the Mediterranean, Muʿnis, uncritically following Henri Pirenne, put the blame for the violence in the sea on the Muslims, who always viewed the Sea as “a battlefield without being able to turn it into a path for peace and commercial exchange,” Tarīkh al-Muslimīn 152.

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Taʿlīqāt Muṣṭafā ibn Jamāl al-Dīn ibn Karāma (9 July 1606) On the morning of Saturday 14 Rabiʿ I [9 July 1606] a few ships left for the Island [Cyprus?] and the earth, the planets, and the people bitterly wept profuse tears for them. On Sunday, a day on which the crow and the child would turn white in terror, Christian galleons attacked us. Minds were lost, tears boiled over, laments were raised at this terrible and ruinous catastrophe, one that can never be forgotten or remedied. Quickly, they caught up with us and shot at us with their flying bombs, pouring them down on us with burning fire. They surrounded us and then took us captive. There were 200 Muslims on board, men, women and children, slaves and free. All fell into the hands of the warring, iniquitous, cursed, infidels. Some [Muslims] were killed whose souls God bore to the house of peace, others were captured, their hands shackled by the wicked infidels, while others were wounded who saw death coming and said: “This [death] is the greatest of wishes.” What to do when fate is decreed and calamity befalls? It was incumbent to accept and submit and believe that there is no strength except in God. “We are of God and to Him we shall return” [Q 2:156]. We do not question the will of God nor challenge His judgment. From Him comes everything: He delegates and causes misfortune, takes away and gives, to Him belongs creation and His action is just. The will of God almighty cannot be met except with submission and patience to what has been determined and has already happened, knowing that His actions are always governed by wisdom and His plans include hidden good and evident blessing. We continued in captivity, enduring misery and humiliation with subdued hearts and fear, weeping for our past, and envious of those who had preceded us to death. Then when the cloud of misery was lifted and the Beloved showed us signs of His approval … God cast mercy into the heart of that Christian ʿilj and he told me to leave for Sidon on 18 Rabiʿ II [12 August], demanding a ransom of 4,800 pieces of gold for me and 23 of my family, women and children. I gave my word and quickly left, asking the blessing of God and praying to the Prophet, Peace be upon him and his family and his most worthy companions—he being our intercessor and helper. God softened the hearts of the wealthy who gave us 10 to 15 [?] for a period of two months. I agreed to their terms and they said, “We have been generous to you with our money, but don’t let us ask for it. We will then turn the loan papers to your guarantor.” I thanked them for their help, praised their kindness, and said, “I consider this loan as a gift, but

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God willing, before the time is come, I will repay you the money.” I then took the money and gave it to the soldiers who immediately released all the children. When I saw my dearest son, ʿOmar, may God protect him, all the faces of people that had earlier been grim smiled at me. Flowers of relief blossomed after they had withered. Then, at the beginning of Jamadi I [September], we entered Beirut the protected where we stayed for a while, and at the beginning of Shaʿban [three months later] of the following year, we returned to our country.50 As in European captivity situations, Ibn Karāma was able to leave his captors and travel to raise the ransom money for himself and his family. What surety he offered to the lenders is not mentioned, since they seemed to be hard-nosed about the loan. Strangely, Ibn Karāma said nothing about the rest of the captives, some 175 of them. Presumably, they too endured what God willed for them, whether in raising ransom money or being sold into slavery. Finally, the only place names mentioned are Sidon and Beirut—and so, the captivity took place in the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, “which were amongst the richest in potential prizes [for the pirates] in the whole Mediterranean.”51 The captors were most likely Maltese, but like other Arab captives, Ibn Karāma did not bother to describe them beyond denouncing them for their infidelity and for the suffering they had caused him and his family. He mentioned that some of his fellow travelers had been killed: had they fought back and were killed or had they been thrown overboard because they were deemed by the captors not to be worth a ransom? Without a ruler to praise for his liberation, the captive focused on the will of God more than on the details of the ordeal, as he showed how much he had submitted—but had also exerted individual agency toward gaining his and his family’s freedom. As in the case of Ibn al-Qāḍī, and possibly Ibn Karāma, many captivities were linked to Malta. By 1576, just over ten years after repelling the Ottoman navy in its famous siege of the island (1565), Maltese pirates/Knights of St. John were sailing the Eastern Mediterranean and attacking Muslim ships. In June 1576, a French ship docked in Alexandria—the French being on good terms with the Ottomans since the capitulations between Sultan Suleymān and King Francis I earlier in the century. The ship captain warned that five Maltese galleys and two galleons were moving to attack the coast having already threatened the

50 51

Reproduced in al-Bakhīt, Aḥdāth bilād Ṭarābulus al-Shām 186–188. Earle, Corsairs 110.

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shipping routes between Alexandria and Istanbul and between Alexandria and Rhodes.52 In the first quarter of the seventeenth century, Yūsuf al-Maqdisī alḤanbalī praised the Ottomans for sending their fleet to protect Dimyat, Acre, and Haifa on the Egyptian and Palestinian coasts from Maltese marauders. He continued by urging the military commanders to capture “the city of Malta,” which caused Muslims great harm; having strangely forgotten about the failed Ottoman siege half a century earlier, he added that it would not take more than two months to do that.53 In 1613, as the Lebanese prince Fakhr al-Dīn II was sailing to Italy, his French ship was chased by Maltese pirates (but it escaped).54 By the “1620s, Maltese piracy was operating as a well-established system,”55 so much so that in 1627, al-Maqqarī wrote about the terror of pirates as he sailed to Egypt from Morocco. We feared, he recalled, the attack of the enemy, “may God destroy them and relieve the Muslims, especially of cursed Malta; whoever escapes the harm of the Maltese will have received divine help.”56 The danger of Maltese attacks in the Eastern Mediterranean continued unabated, and in the 1760s drove the Palestinian governor (and later rebel against the Ottomans) Ẓāhir al-ʿOmar (d. 1775) to build watchtowers in Haifa.57 In the 1790s, the Moroccan diplomat-writer Abū al-Qāsim al-Zayānī wrote that “travelling by sea from Syria to Egypt is dangerous because of the Maltese ships”—which is why he preferred to travel by land.58 Malta, as Godfrey Wettinger definitively showed, often had the largest number of Muslim (and sometimes Greek Orthodox) captives, who were put up for sale to the Christian countries that sponsored the Knights: France, Spain, Germany, Italy, and even, sometimes, Protestant England. For Muslims (and Christian Greeks and Arabs on the Levantine coast), the Maltese were cruel pirates. But two Arab captives, who left slightly longish accounts about their captivity, reported good treatment. Admittedly, the two were not common sailors but well-educated men—and the Maltese admired literacy and education, even in

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54 55 56 57 58

Mahmūd, al-Qarṣana 165–166, 176–177. Kitāb qalāyid al-aʿyān fī faḍāyil āl ʿUthmān, BnF MS Arabe 1624, 9. See also Earle, Corsairs 23–94; the exhaustive study by Wettinger, Slavery in the islands of Malta and Gozo; Godechot, La Course Maltaise; and Bono, Naval exploits and privateering. Disingenuously, Jonathan Riley-Smith described the Maltese as setting out to clear “the Mediterranean of Muslim pirates,” The crusades 253. Al-Ṣafadī, Lubnān 208. See also the reference to Maltese pirates near the coasts of Lebanon in al-Maʿlūf, Dawānī al-qutūf 138. Fodor, Maltese pirates 225. Al-Maqqarī, Nafḥ al-ṭīb i, 34. Al-ʿAkkāwī, al-Shaykh Ẓāhir ʿOmar 45. Al-Zayānī, al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā 261.

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Portuguese: Ceuta 1415; Al-Qasr al-Sahgir 1458; Tangier 1464; Anfa 1467; Asila 1471; Agadir 1501; Bureiga 1502; Asfi 1506; Azammur 1508; Mahdiyya 1515. Spanish: Melilla 1497; Bona 1463; Marsa al-Kabir 1505; Oran 1509; Bayjayah 1509; Tripoli 1510; Tunis 1535; Badis 1564 Note: For a description of the attack on Tunis, see Braquehaye, “La prise.” See also Ḥarakāt, al-Siyāsa wa-l-mujtama‘ 149-57. I am grateful to Mariam Salama, graduate student of the University of Minnesota, for preparing the map. ©2018 Geobasis-DE/BKG (©2009), Google, Inst. Georg. Nacional, Mapa GISreal, ORION-ME

Muslim exiles raided the Spanish coasts and seized captives, many of whom are depicted in plays by Cervantes and Lope de Vega. Notwithstanding these attacks, their battle for the homeland in Al-Andalus had been lost, and with the eradication of Islam in Europe, Arab writers saw before them two opposed land masses around the Mediterranean basin: the “Lands of the Christians” (bilād alNaṣārā) and the “Lands of the Muslims” (bilād al-Muslimīn).90 In their eyes and in their writings, the Mediterranean became a sea that divided them from the European Nasārā—and they hoped it would continue to divide them, to be a hājiz (barrier), as the late eighteenth-century Moroccan writer Abū al-Qāsim al-Zayānī (d. 1833) wrote, to protect them from the devastating Euro-Christian attacks.91 Exacerbating the polarization were the Christian religious orders that became active in piracy and captive taking from the sixteenth century on. With 90 91

When they wanted to distinguish themselves from the Ottoman Turks, they wrote about barr al-turk, or the coast of the Turks. For the Mediterranean as a hājiz, see my article, From “Rumi” to “White in-between” sea.

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of Christian-Muslim disputations and polemics in the Mediterranean regions of Islam; captivity, along with ambassadorial missions, furnished a rare occasion for religious encounter, not in the safety of Damascus or Jerusalem, but in the Christian heartland of the Knights.

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Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib al-Tafilātī al-Mālikī (al-Ḥanafī al-Maghribī) The mufti of Noble Quds [Jerusalem] scholar of the age, superseding all his contemporaries, young and old: he was a litterateur, a poet of fine verse, nimble in composition, and extremely intelligent. He was born in the Far West [Morocco, as his name suggests in Tafilalt] and memorized the Quran according to the tarīqa [Sufi order] of Imām Dānī when he was eight years old. He studied under his father, who was average in his learning, and read with him the ujrūmiyya, and with Shaykh Muḥammad al-Saʿdī al-Jazāʾirī the sanūsiyya and a treatise on worship and jurisprudence. In turn, he taught the sanūsiyya to pupils, even before reaching puberty. He left his country by land towards Tripoli of the West [Libya], never neglecting prayer or fasting. From Tripoli, he boarded a ship to the Azhar Mosque and studied in Egypt under the aforementioned shaykhs for two years and eight months. He then went to visit his mother and as he was at sea, he was captured by the Ifranj [Franks] who took him to the bastion of infidelity, may God almighty protect him, where he remained for two years and some days. The monks of the island [Malta] started disputing with him, and because there was one monk who knew Arabic and logic, the disputation lasted about eight days, after which God silenced them and brought on them confusion and bewilderment. They were completely reined in. One of the issues that he disputed with the monk was the matter of the deification of ʿĪsā. A Christian elder said, “O Muḥammadan, the ḥaqīqa [truth] of ʿĪsā was united with the truth of God and so they became one truth.” I replied, “It is not clear how they were before they were united: either they both were eternal or both created, or one was eternal and the other created. All other possibilities are false and so are all other unions. As for the first union, it can only happen to what is created because it is a synthesis of parts and so every synthesis cannot but be of what is created—and what is created cannot pertain to godhood. As for the second, it is false. And the third is false, too, because if the eternal is united, it will become

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created, and the created will become eternal which leads to the inversion of the truth, which is impossible. It also entails the union of opposites which is against reason.”62 When they saw that they had been defeated and had lost their way, one of their great elders said to me, “Don’t go into such details.” I answered, “All what I said is beginners’ knowledge.” He who had blasphemed was stunned and frowned and his face darkened. I continued addressing the elder, “By God, did Jesus worship the cross?” He answered, “No, for the cross appeared after his death (as they claim) and we worship what is like the deity.” I answered, “By God, is there anything like God?” He answered, “No.” I said, “You ought then to burn these crosses with pitch and tar.” He became furious, “I could punish you severely and make of you an example, but God ordered us to love our enemies.” I said, “But God ordered us to denounce falsehood.” He answered, “Our law is perfect.” I scoffed, “Your law is perfect and you worship idols! And our law is imperfect because we worship God alone with no associates!?” Livid, he nearly slapped me, but God saved me. Another elder said to me, “O Muḥammadan, I read in your books of Hadith that the moon was divided into two halves: one half entered into one sleeve of the Prophet and the other into the other sleeve and then they emerged undivided from his chest pocket. But the size of the full moon is three times and one-third the size of the earth and 333 and 1/3 years: what kind of superstitions are these?” I answered, “The meaning of what you read is this: Iblīs [Satan] came to our lord Idrīs [Enoch] while he was sewing an egg shell with a needle. He said to him, ‘Can your God put the world inside the shell of this egg?’” The elder said to me emphatically, “Yes.” I said, “How?” He said: “Either God will enlarge the egg shell or shrink the world.” I replied, “Praise be to God: sometimes you allow Him things, and sometimes you don’t. So, if you grant this, why don’t you grant it to our Prophet?” He turned pale and sucked in his breath, “he frowned and turned away.”63 I said, “How could He?” This was my addition, just to continue the discussion, for the entry of the two halves of the full moon into the two sleeves is rejected by all the notable Hadith recounters. But the elder did not know the consensus of our best scholars. Had I answered that it did not happen, he

62

63

On various occasions, writers shifted from a third to a first person narrator or used both the first person singular and the plural pronouns when they spoke about themselves. I have made no changes. Oddly, quoting a Quranic verse about the Prophet, 80:1.

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would have answered that he had read it in our books and so he would not believe me. I therefore offered definite, rational proof because he would accept evidence from no other source. Then, the eldest scholar among them denied the prophecies of our Prophet, the Perfect Master. He said, “We have a just law.” I said, “Why do you not accept his prophecies?” He said, “We do not accept them because we see the harshness of his tyranny.” I answered, “Is he not the Prophet that performed miracles and saw into the deepest mysteries?” One of the elders said, “What miracle did he perform and what mysteries did he unravel?” So, I told them some of the miracles, the greatest being the Quran. I also mentioned some of the mysteries. He said, “I have read Bukhārī from among your scholars and he mentioned some of the miracles.”64 He then continued, “He [Muḥammad] was taught it [the Quran] by a youth,” referring to the Almighty’s words: innamā yʿualimuhū bashar [he was taught by humans, Q 16:103]. I said, “By God, what was the language of that youth?” He answered, “Non-Arabic” [ʿajamī]. I said, “By God, what is the language of our Prophet?” He answered, “Arabic.” I said, “By God, did our Prophet read and write or was he unlettered [ummī]?” He answered, “Unlettered. He could neither read nor write.” I said, “By God, have you ever heard of an Arab seeking knowledge from a non-Arab?” He answered: “No,” fully aware that he had been silenced. He paused and then continued, “How does your Quran say, “O sister of Hārūn” [Aaron, brother of Moses] although there is a thousand years between her and him?” I said, “You are a non-Arab and you do not know how the language of the Arabs is expressed.” “What do you mean?” he asked. I answered, “The word brother is applied in the language of the Arabs both to a real brother and to a metaphoric one. Here the latter is meant. The meaning of the verse is the following, ‘You who are known among us for chastity and piety and submission, just like Hārūn who had all these qualities of perfection.’ This kind of usage is common in Arabic—in the Arabs’ conversations and dialogues.” And so that ass of a shaykh was stuck in the mud. Looking at me, young as I was (I was then nineteen years old), he said, “You could be my grandson. How did you come by all this knowledge?” I answered, “All that you asked me today is really a beginner’s knowledge. If you continue debating with me, you will hear what will deafen your ears. So, it is enough.”

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Al-Bukhārī, d. AD875, was a collector of one of the two famous compendia of Hadith.

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He ended the debate and retreated. I then became famous among the Maltese monks and elders, and every time I walked in the market place, they showed their respect, and they did not send me to the galleys. A vision liberated me, and one day, I boarded the ship of deliverance and headed to Alexandria and then to Cairo, and from there I traveled many times to Hijaz. I visited Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Basra, Aleppo, and Damascus, continued to the Rūm [Turks], and then settled in Jerusalem.65 The disputation follows the traditional lines of argument between Christians and Muslims, focusing on Muslim rejection of the Incarnation and the misconceptions in Christian understanding of Islam. Interestingly, some Maltese monks were well versed in the Quran and in other Islamic texts, attesting to the growth in Oriental studies in Europe, from London and Paris to Valletta. The account confirmed Islamic doctrinal truth and celebrated the Muslim as a capable defender of his faith. Again, the account did not include any description of the captivity itself, how and when it had happened, or of the emotions and feelings of the young man during his time in Maltese imprisonment. Nor was there a description of the island and its fortifications and naval capacity— at a time when the defenses had become formidable. Nor did the mufti even bother to describe his departure: did the vision that he mentioned facilitate an escape or was it an anticipation of a ransom? None of this information mattered because the reason why the captive told his story to al-Murādī was to present an episode (“block”) of Muslim steadfastness in the face of Christian theological attacks—that even at a young age, he had defended the faith and therefore deserved his role as mufti later in life. His account was as much a description of a disputation as an exemplum that characterized biographical recollections in the Arabic tradition, “an account of an exemplary life that [could] lead others to emulate [the subject’s] virtues and spiritual life.”66 His travels after his captivity are intriguing in their geographical range: Aleppo and Basra were centers of trade and learning; but what did he seek in the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula? Who the monk that knew Arabic and logic was is also intriguing: nameless that he remained, he could be the same monk who is mentioned in another eighteenth-century captivity account. In that account, the captive, Ibrāhīm, described a monk in Malta who had been a judge in Jerusalem. Ibrāhīm was sent to him because he, Ibrāhīm (again a jurist), was carrying Arabic manuscripts. 65 66

Al-Murādī, Silk al-durar iv, 102–104. Reynolds, Interpreting the self 3.

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guns, North Africans still relied on galleys, and in battle, they still relied on ramming and boarding while the French used the recently invented “bomb ketches” that devastated Algiers in the 1680s “with a success no one had yet attained.”103 Muslim merchant ships did not have naval escorts to protect them from European piratical attacks until late in the eighteenth century, unlike, for instance, the English after the Navigation Act of 1651. As a result, by 1695, 24 % of the galley slaves on French ships were from North Africa and the Ottoman Empire;104 by 1732, 74% percent of the rowers-captives on the pontifical ships were North African, at the same time that the French navy, although slowly reducing its reliance on rowers, continued to buy captives.105 There were also large numbers of captives laboring in mines (where mortality was the highest), in public works (fortifications, roads, dams), and in arsenals. As Salvatore Bono stated about Italy: the number of Muslim captives in the eighteenth century was not only equal, but probably more, than the number of Italian captives among Muslims. “Et cela vaut, également, je crois, pour l’ ensemble de l’ Europe” (and I believe this applies to the rest of Europe as well).106 In 1782, the Moroccan ambassador Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Miknāsī (d. 1799) ransomed 232 Muslim captives from Genoa, 285 from Naples, and 1,395 from Malta. He spent 548,680 scudi— and that was just for half of the captives.107 Nor did the North Africans have the wealth to build and maintain large fleets. By the middle of the eighteenth century, all North African rulers—and their local opponents—relied on the English, the Dutch, the French, and other Europeans for their weapons and ammunition, and for trainers to instruct them in their use. Not only did the Ottomans not furnish their coreligionists with effective and modernized weapons,108 they also did not share with them their geographical and cartographic archives nor the elaborate maps drawn by Ḥajjī 103 104 105

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107 108

Corbett, England in the Mediterranean 418. Panzac, La course barbaresque revisitée 31. See Boyer, La chiourme turque 54; Vincent, Achats et rachats d’ escalves musulmans, http://cdlm.revuews.org/44 (accessed: 15 November 2017); Bono, Achat d’ esclaves Turcs 88n17. Bono, Esclaves musulmans en Italie 190. See also Salzmann: “[It] should not surprise us that there is no public awareness that the number of Africans, Mediterranean and Eastern European Muslims, Jews, and Orthodox Christians who languished in bondage in Western Europe greatly outnumbers the Catholics and Protestants enslaved in the contemporary Muslim world,” Migrants in chains 391. Freller, The shining of the moon 320. The cannons in the “Place de France” in Tangier (during my visit in 2015) were cast in Europe: in Toulouse 1692; in Amsterdam 1737; “De Flander” 1639; and “Dieu et mon droit” (French?) 1722. See photographs of the cannons in Rue de Pasteur in Tangier, HeinsenRoach, Consuls and captives 160–161.

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Sayyid ʿAlī ibn al-Sayyid Aḥmad (1713) I was living in Egypt and traveling among its friendly people, spreading knowledge by preaching and teaching when I decided to visit my relatives, and so I left with my family and servants to the city of Sidon. I arrived safely where I stayed for about six months, and then I decided to return to Egypt with my family, children, and attendants. We boarded a ship at the beginning of Rajab 1125 [July 1713] and as we were sailing we encountered a corsair ship from among the people of Malta, may they be cursed. We veered away and fled from them for a day but then they caught up with us and we knew that we were to be taken captive. We recited the verses of deliverance and called out invocations to the best of mankind [the Prophet Muḥammad]. We were seized, and I said to them [members of his family]: “There can be no escape from what God has ordained, and there is no doubt of meeting Him.” By God’s decree, I felt the surrender of submission and the sweetness of acceptance. I confirmed to them: “God has granted us four blessings: life and wealth are His, but honor and religion He gave to us. O God, we lay our honor and religion before You, You are the steadfast.” The corsairs took over our ship and the Christians boarded it brandishing their firearms. They did not hurt us at all, and God granted us peace of mind. They stripped all the Muslims of their possessions except my wife: none of the corsairs drew near her nor did they take any of our belongings except the bracelets hidden in a qinbāz [around her waist]. But she was able to keep a gold necklace and an ankle bracelet which she had hidden in the swaddling bands of her daughter, to whom she had just given birth. They pushed us out of our ship into theirs, may they be cursed, and shackled all the Muslims in irons and then pushed them down the belly of the ship—all but me and my family and children, by the mercy of God. Instead, they kept us in the ship captain’s cabin after he had vacated it for us, may he be cursed. The captain turned to calm our fears, we alone among all the captives, and he honored us and our children, we alone among all the Muslims. He was very respectful and protected our religion and honor—all because of His almighty benevolence and care. The ship sailed to Malta at night in the middle of Shaʿban [6 September 1713]. I, the poor [before God], spent that night in reading what was appropriate in that blessed night.73 In the morning, the counselors of the

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Some Hadiths urge prayer and supplication on the night of 15 Shaʿban.

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sultan of Malta brought us various fruits and other things, and then the captain and his men took us to a place in Malta, two miles away, known as Marsam Shadh [Il-Marsa], where there were many of their corsairs. We spent the night there, but it was a very miserable night, and so I invoked God and prayed until dawn. As soon as the hour came, the sultan of Malta sent us four of the dignitaries of his council who had the key to a magnificent house near Malta [Valletta]. They talked to me and passed on the sultan’s greeting saying: “Whatever you need, the sultan will send you.” He furnished us with our daily necessities and we stayed outside Malta for a month, fasting half of Shaʿban and half of Ramadan. Then, after the middle of Ramadan, we entered Malta [Valletta].74 The Grand Master Ramon Perellos y Roccaful (reg. 1697–1720) was in his mid70s, having spent most of his years expanding the fleet and the fortifications of Malta. Either he had mellowed by 1713 or he commiserated with a fellow religious functionary. It was common among Muslim captives to choose one of them as a spiritual guide, a papas (the word adopted into the Arabic of the captives), and perhaps the Grand Master viewed Sayyid ʿAlī in that role. Whatever the reason for the dignified welcome, the captives were sent into quarantine, which was their custom because they feared that captives from the lands of the Muslims could bring them the plague, according to their false belief. They sent everyone to prison [quarantine] except my poor self and family and children. Instead, we were led to the house of a Christian khawājā who hosted us for the night, laying mattresses for us, separate from theirs.75 The khawājā of the house was one of the ten owners of the corsair ship that had captured us. He welcomed us and ordered his wife to play us some music on the jināḥ and the sanṭīr,76 and to sing to us. We continued to enjoy his hospitality, I mean the khawājā, until the end of Ramadan, fasting and breaking our fast every night over twelve kinds of succulent foods—including bee honey, and others. On the Ramadan Feast, his wife prepared a grand dinner for us, which she served on about twelve silver plates. This Christian woman hosted us generously. 74

75 76

Al-Ḥanafī, Kitāb tahdhīb al-aṭwār, Berlin MS Sprenger 23/a, microfilm reel 1369, University of Jordan, Center for the Study of Bilād al-Shām. I am using this early version of the account. See the edition of the book, with slight variations and additions, by al-Zāhī. A Turkish term for “mister.” A musical instrument similar to the qānūn, a kind of portable harpsicord.

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mirrored the ordeals of their fellow Muslim captives, thereby furnishing firsthand information about conditions on the galleys. Interestingly, the Protestant “galériens” received both sympathy and comfort from the “turcs.”119 This inter-Christian violence in Europe occurred at a time when there were large Christian populations in the Islamic Mediterranean, from Mosul in Iraq to Alexandria in Egypt, passing through Aleppo, Damascus, the northern mountains of Lebanon, and the holy regions in Palestine. Furthermore, in the early modern Islamic dominions lived the largest number of Jews in the world, spread from Marrakesh to Algiers to Istanbul all the way to Julfa.120 The Jews were employed in the North African courts, being sent as diplomatic emissaries; and a Jew serving the Moroccan ruler turned pirate and captured three Spanish ships.121 While Christian writers as far north as England fantasized in the 1660s about the Jews—how they were to seize Salé and march on Meknes, “putting all the Inhabitants to the Sword” as they hastened towards their messianic leader, Sabbatai Sevi122—in reality, the Jews, like their Muslim (and sometimes Eastern Christian) counterparts, were taken captive by Tuscan, French, English, Maltese, and other pirates.123 In “February 1668 the 25th day thereof,” wrote British Admiral Thomas Allin, “three Turks Three Jewes and two

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120 121 122 123

English captives, see my British captives 271–272. Neau included a list in his 1699 Account in which he gave the place of origin and date when the slaves were “sent to the Galleys.” Alongside the French, there were four from “Swisserland,” one from London, Peter Toureille from Bearn, “a Proselyte,” and John James Shebert, “a Foreigner.” Arber, The torments of Protestant slaves i, 150. In the memoir of a Huguenot galley slave between 1700 and 1713, the author mentioned his friendship with a “Turk,” Memoires d’ un Protestant, trans. Marteilhe (1684–1777), The Huguenot galley-slave 144–145. Earlier in the century, the English Protestant captive of the Tuscans, William Davies, was forced (“against my will”) to participate in Catholic attacks on Muslim ports, Davies, A true relation 4. Huguenots were viciously treated, often punished in the “Turkish” manner of being subjected to bastinados: see Elias Neau’s An account 8, where there are numerous references to the “barbarity” of the French toward the Protestant captives; and Bion, An account of the torments the French Protestants endure. For the names of Protestant galley slaves on French ships, see the exhaustive list in Tournier, Les galères de France. In Algiers alone, in 1675, there were “13 thousand families,” aside from the “Christian Jewes,” according to the resident English consul, TNA SP 71/2/64v (10 June 1675). CSPD James I, 1611–1618, 9:260 (24 November 1614). From Saley in Barbary, August 16.1665, in The Jewes message to their brethren in Holland 6. That is why the Moroccan contender, al-Maʾmūn, wrote to the grand duke of Florence in October 1604 requesting assurance that his Jewish envoy, Yahuwadhā ibn Lūlū, would be protected from whatever dangers he and his companions might encounter at sea—mā yulāqūn fī-l-baḥr: al-Tāzī, al-Tārīkh al-diblumāsī viii, 228. As Benyahu noted, “more [ransom money] was always asked for a Jew than for a Moslem,” in R. Shmuel Aboab’s letters 72. As Brogini shows, the number of Jews seized into Maltese captivity between 1620 and 1645 was 67 out of a total of 189 (35.4%), Au coeur de l’ esclavage 542. See also Greene, Catholic pirates 98.

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great one,78 the latter would think badly of him. So, he was dissuaded, and we stayed in Malta, hosted every day by the people of Malta—men and women, even girls in churches, all friendly to us. God is witness to what we say. A month later, we ransomed ourselves with about 5,000 riyals. We wrote a legal contract, issued by the Judge of Islam, and confirmed it by another contract from the Christians. We relied on God who never fails, but because winter had set, we stayed in Malta in comfortable conditions until after Eid al-Adha [17 December 1714]. We were there for three months until winter had passed. All the time, and in front of our house, a church bell always rang and woke us up at night. Not unlike Catholic accounts and plays about captivity that included miracles by Santo Domingo or/and visions of the Virgin Mary,79 al-Sayyid soon reported having two visions of the Prophet Muḥammad. Defiantly, the visions occurred right in the heart of the most Christian of bastions, and across from a church with a noisome bell. It is likely that al-Sayyid treated his dream of the Prophet in accordance with the views of one of the leading medieval jurists, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), “The prophet said: Whoever has seen me in sleep has truly seen me”:80 One night, I saw the Prophet, God’s prayer and peace be upon him, coming to Malta near the house in which we were staying. He was on horseback, dressed in sable fur atop green, emerald broadcloth, and accompanied by soldiers, all from the Maghrib. He handed me a well-tried sheathed sword and took me to his right side. As I was going with him, I woke up elated and told my family and everyone with me about my dream. A few days later, I dreamed that I was reading a book in the Small Mosque when I found a Hadith either by or about him [Prophet]. Suddenly, I saw a man in front of me, I mean, facing me, who asked me, “Why don’t you read the Hadith from the beginning?” I said, “What is the beginning?” He answered, “Joy has come, heed the advice.” I woke up elated and told my family, “I saw so and so, and God knows best. We will leave for Tunis in two days.” Two days later, I sailed in a shītya [sitea], leaving all the members of my household in Malta in the house that had been assigned to us. They 78 79 80

A reference to the Spanish king. Philip V ascended the throne on 23 September 1713. See the studies by Remensnyder, Christian captives; and Garcés, Zoraida’s veil. Michael, A Muslim theologian, 202.

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[Maltese] gave them more money than they needed for their monthly expenditures, and I, in turn, left them all that I had in my possession. I bade my children and household farewell—it was a day of tears and weeping so much so that even the Christians wept with us. We left Malta on the morning of Friday and arrived in Susa, a city that was three days away from Tunis, in the land of the east.81 With God’s kindness, we spent a day and a night in crossing from Malta to Susa. The prince, brother of the prince of Tunis from the same mother, sent for us and so we went: he hosted us, lodged us in a house, and gave us more than we needed. He informed his brother, the bey of Tunis, known as Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī [reg. 1705–1735] may God be his protector: for he was kind to us, doing unto us what even kings do not do.82 I was then called from Susa to Qairawan and Sfax from where they collected 2,000 riyals and many presents. With dignity and honor, we continued teaching about the Noble Hadith and about the interpretations of the Quran, and scholars there took in all that we imparted, which we had learned from our shaykhs. They wrote down our words with approval after consulting the writings of past scholars in their land. The result was that we were celebrated for our erudition among all the scholars of the land, thanks be to God whom we praise, for none is to be sought but He. It was He who imparted on the poor one His mercy. We stayed in Susa and the region around it for two months or more, enjoying the hospitality and generosity shown to us. Whenever we received invitations, we used to travel from Susa and then return, while the dignitaries of Susa accompanied this poor one like servants, seeking his blessing. We met with honorable and learned men in those regions, who were perfect in knowledge, excellent in manners and demeanor. They were Sufis according to the law, and obedient to the Sunna. Their friendship and sweet companionship, by day and night, was worth a thousand, thousand, thousand gifts. Their companionship was sweet, by day and night, in Susa and in other parts of the land. We then learned from the prince of Tunis, may God reward him with bounty that he wanted us to go to him. We left Susa to Tunis, accompanied by seven dignitaries of Susa and their servants, along with guards. As we stopped to rest on the road, people came from all regions to greet us. When we reached the palace of the prince of Tunis, we went directly to 81 82

Al-Sayyid shifts the pronouns from first person singular to plural. Ḥusayn Bey sent an annual gift of oil and rugs to the captives in Malta: Khūja, Dhayl bashāʾir ahl al-īmān 157.

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his treasurer who informed the prince of our arrival. He invited us in and when the prince saw us, he welcomed us warmly, prepared a magnificent place for us, and assigned servants to attend to us. It was wonderful to be in his court and after we spent three days with him, Ḥusayn ibn ʿAlī, the prince of Tunis, ordered two garments for us, two of each kind, and he sent us the tailor to make the cuts the way we liked. May God reward him generously. Every day and every night, we met with him in great merriment, along with the scholars and dignitaries of Tunis in conversation and colloquy. Then he sent to the balio, which means, the English consul,83 and said to him: “Do you have any contacts in Malta, may God soon make it a house of Islam?” He answered, “Yes, I have a partner there.” He asked, “Do you have a ship?” He answered, “Yes, today my ship arrived from my country.” He asked, “What did it bring?” He answered, “It will be carrying oil from your highness.” He said, “Send it to Malta tomorrow and bring back the household of the effendi and his children and I will give you 5,000 riyals worth of oil. I will give you ten days. If you don’t do that, I will crucify you on your house door.” Prince Ḥusayn turned to me and said, may God grant him happiness here and in the hereafter, “I seek the reward of both worlds [here and eternity], and by the will of the Merciful, your household and children will be returned safely to you. So, do not worry.” He was so kind and courteous, just like a true friend to his friend, or a ḥabīb [lover] to his beloved. He then ordered a house for us, with exquisite furniture and everything that we needed so that we could prepare for the arrival of our household and our children. And so I, the poor one, spent one night with him and one night with his deputy, honored and well treated, and whenever I wanted to go anywhere, he would send his best servants with us, giving us permission to ride his special horses. When we passed in one of the souks of Tunis, all the people stood up to see us, I mean, me, the servant of the Almighty. Eighteen days later, our family and household arrived from Malta, well honored and treated, and when the prince and I received the news, we left

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Richard Lawrence was consul from 1712 until his death in 1750.

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early modern financial exchange across the Mediterranean shores, what Wolfgang Kaiser has called “the economy of ransom.”134 Geographically, Muslim captives came from all the Arab-Islamic regions of the Mediterranean, as the Tangier list above shows. (The same, of course, applies to Christian captives who came from all parts of Europe).135 A Turkish list of captives shows a large mix, reflecting the diversity and the expanse of the Ottoman Empire: the 260 captives came from Bosnia and Tunisia, Istanbul and Crete, Alexandria and Cairo, Tripoli and Gallipoli, Cyprus and Izmir, and Algiers and Rhodes.136 A list of Muslim captives in Tangier, c. 1681, recorded the place of birth of the captives, the region to which they belonged, and the location of their sale; the captives were from Constantinople and Aleppo, Smyrna and Alexandria, Tunis and Bursa, and “Demiat” and “Busnack,” and they had been bought chiefly in Livorno and Malta.137 A list of captives on the French galleys from the early eighteenth century shows them all from Morocco, perhaps because Moroccan sailors and ships ventured into the Atlantic and only rarely into the Eastern Mediterranean.138 Another list of captives from Malta in the third quarter of that century shows Tunisians as the largest group, followed by Turks, Libyans, and other North Africans.139 In their immense attentiveness to racial and ethnic demarcations, Spanish writers employed numerous designations for the captives, both racial and religious: Moro, Morisco, Berberisco, Africano, Mulato renegado, Turco, Cristiano de Turco, De nacion de moros, and others.140 All these differences, however, were folded into the term that Europeans nearly always used for North Africans-Ottomans-Muslims: “Barbary.” 134 135

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137 138 139 140

In support of this argument, see Hershenzon, The captive sea. See for instance the list of 1,473 captives ransomed from Tunis in the second half of the seventeenth century, which included Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Flemish, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Maltese, Ragusan, and Greek captives: Fontenay, Pour une géographie de l’esclavage méditerranéen 8–9. Archives nationales, henceforth, AN Marine E/B/7/220, 55–63. See Wettinger’s discussion of the size and ethnic origins of the Muslim captives in Slavery in the islands of Malta and Gozo 32–45. TNA CO 279/30/367. See the map in Weiner, Fitna, corsairs, and diplomacy 177, which shows the Atlantic range of Moroccan activity. Bouzid, Notes 19–27. Gonzales-Raymond identified 21 terms, Les esclaves maures 103. But in the Livorno records, there are three terms, “Moro,” “Arabo,” and “Turco,” see Calafat and Santus, Les avatars du “Turc” 508. See also the categories that appear in the French archive in Tunis in Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie, passim: “Tagarin,” “Maure,” “Turc,” “Andalou,” “Juive,” “Renegat,” and “Janissare.” One of the problems with these categories is translation: in an English letter, for instance, the term ʿabd, which also means servant or slave (as in ʿAbdallāh), is translated as “negro,” TNA CO 279/30/354.

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for them, which we did. We wept as they did, and so it was a time of weeping and sorrow, unequal to any other. We spent the night in the galleon, and in the morning all our friends came to the ship with gifts of food and other supplies and bade us a second farewell. We sailed on Friday the beginning of Dhul Hijja taking with us the sheep that we were to sacrifice at Eid al-Fitr on board the ship. We shared the food with the poor and after 15 days arrived safely in the port of Alexandria. The dignity with which the captive and his family were treated in Malta is striking: the captivity seemed more like an excursion than the horrible experience that others described. The similarity with the previous account in regard to disputation is noticeable—perhaps a trope that all captives used in order to celebrate Islamic victory at the same time as they told of their experience among the infidels. The gifts of money that were made to al-Sayyid by the Grand Master could either be an exaggeration or an anticipation on the part of the Maltese of the large ransom they would collect. The generous view of the Grand Master, the figure who represented the most dangerous Christian for North Africans, reflected the genuine expression of gratitude for the captor who had respected al-Sayyid and protected the honor of his family. How accurately al-Sayyid described the whole experience is, of course, difficult to verify, and the element of exaggeration cannot be excluded. But even the bitterest European captives did sometimes describe caring and kind captors.84 Al-Sayyid’s account can also compare with the rare description of the captivity of a whole family to North Africa a century earlier. In the Icelandic captivity account of Ólafur Egilsson, the author, like al-Sayyid, was seized with his wife and three children and taken to Algiers. As al-Sayyid reported good treatment, so did Egilsson, and although his oldest son was separated from him, Egilsson and his wife and their two little children stayed together, and after they arrived in the house of one of the Turkish chieftains, “the younger child was given clothes and a cradle. Also, my wife was given cloth after their custom, and we were given food, though I was not allowed to eat with her.”85 While captivity was violent, sometimes captors were considerate, even compassionate.

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The English captive Richard Hasleton wrote about the kindly “father” in Algiers; William Okeley wrote two pages in his memoir of captivity about his patron and how problematic it was for him to cheat such a compassionate man by escaping, Vitkus, ed., Piracy, 88–89, 170–171. See also the account by the American captive, Jonathan Cowdery, in Ben Rejeb, Jonathan Cowdery’s. Egilsson, The travels 30.

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But, while Egilsson described his surroundings, the clothes and customs that he observed, and repeatedly asserted his Christian commitment, al-Sayyid was focused on how he and his family were treated and the miraculous visions of the Prophet. At the same time, as Egilsson was allowed to leave Algiers to collect ransom money, al-Sayyid left Malta with a safe-conduct in hand to raise the money. And as in reports of Muslim negotiations with Christian captors where Christian intermediaries played a role, in this case, rather curiously in Catholic Malta, it was an English merchant-consul who was favorably trading with the anti-Protestant Knights. The fact that al-Sayyid was a jurist—and a sayyid—may have helped gain for him his freedom—or at least that is what he wanted to convey. The Maltese respected his religious station, and so did the Tunisian pasha, whose willingness to pay the big ransom sum is puzzling, especially that he did not ask for any guarantees—as if he did not expect the money to be repaid. Was a religious functionary from Iraq that important or was it that al-Sayyid was eager to pour further praise on his ransomer’s generosity by ignoring the issue of repayment? Importantly, as the account showed, al-Sayyid gave the biographer his full name, as other captives did, too, thereby assuring listeners—and later readers—of the truthfulness of his story. In the European captivity writings, many captives who published their work started by emphasizing the veracity of their accounts—simply because of the large amount of exaggeration and lies in the popular “industry” of captivity writing in early modern Europe. In Arabic, the name, with its long lineage, was enough to confirm the truthfulness of the qiṣṣa. With his name and lineage on record, he could not lie. One aspect of this captivity account was delicate because it related to women. Al-Sayyid could not tell his story without mentioning that his wife had been seized as well. This presence of the female in the captivity account, any captivity account, was a destabilizing factor because it opened the door for dishonor and shame. That is why, and from the start, he emphasized to his listener and writer that no harm was done to his wife: although some of her jewelry was stolen, she had been smart enough to hide a few gold rings in the swaddling bands of her newborn child. But importantly, she had not been violated. This implicitness is similar to what appears in the writings of European women in American Indian and North African captivity accounts. No European woman in the seventeenth century wrote about her captivity among Muslims, the heyday of piracy in the Mediterranean. The first captivity account by a European woman was Mary Rowlandson’s, describing her ordeal among the American Indians in the 1670s (it was published in 1682). But, as the wife of an English Puritan minister, she never even mentioned the danger of sexual violation: it would have been too embarrassing for her reverend husband. It was only in the

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eighteenth century, when captivity of Europeans had dramatically declined, that women captives, along with male and female novelists and playwrights, became aware of a lucrative market for their output. They described, in fiction and in memoir, how Christian women stood up to their Moorish or Turkish or Arab captors and, of course, were never compromised sexually. The Dutch Maria ter Meetelen became the first European woman to describe captivity in North Africa. She was followed by the English Elizabeth Marsh, who published her account of captivity in Morocco in 1769. However, she published it anonymously. As she complained in her “preface,” she encountered “Misfortunes” at the hands of her countrymen who shamed her after accusing her of sexual relations with the infidels.86 No North African woman taken captive to Christendom wrote about her ordeal: she would have been too ashamed to write about her humiliation, or too terrorized by the brutality of the experience.87 An exception was Faṭma, whose letters are unique in Mediterranean Arabic writings—letters giving voice to a Muslim woman captive.

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Faṭma, 1798

Many references tell of the captivity of Muslim women by European pirates. Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿIdhārī (d. after 1312) wrote about a Spanish attack on Salé the day after Eid al-Fitr when “the Christians landed and seized women and children … They abused [ yaʿbathūn] women and virgins, and killed the old, shedding blood and dishonoring the protected [women].”88 In 1471, the Portuguese attacked Asila on the western coast of Morocco and carried more than 5,000 of its inhabitants into slavery. Ibn Yajbish al-Tāzī, a contemporaneous poet (d. 1514), described the plight of the captives, with special attention to the women who were being dragged into humiliation and abuse.89 As the Por-

86

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88 89

For an English translation of a selection from ter Meetelen, see Bekkaoui, White women captives 62–120; for an Arabic translation, see Ithnatā ʿashrat sana min al-istiʿbād. For an edition of Elizabeth Marsh’s account, see Bekkaoui, The female captive. But see Penelope Aubin, The noble slaves (1722), where captive European women (Violetta and Eleanora) were made to join the seraglio. Interestingly, in 1769, appeared the fictional Pekuah and the civilized treatment by her Arab captor in Samuel Johnson’s History of Rasselas. The same sense of shame prevented white women from describing their humiliations in Indian captivity in Latin America, Operé, Indian captivity in Spanish America 74: women did not make declarations about their captivity because they “did not want to talk or had something to hide” 94. Ibn ʿIdhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, i, 418. See the poem in al-Bukhuṣaybī, Aḍwāʾ 146: “If you had seen them as they were taken, you

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taken captive. In Messina, the Maltese pirates consistently sold captured children under twelve years old and women.153 In February 1787, Sīdī Muḥammad wrote to King Carlos IV of Spain (reg. 1759–1788) to help him ransom Muslim captives from Malta, especially women, little girls and boys, and aged and incapacitated men—captives seized just for their ransom value.154 Ironically, many who ended up in captivity had chosen the sea over the land route because of its safety, especially in their travels to Mecca: of the 204 captives in a list of North Africans, 21 were pilgrims.155 Similarly, lists of European captives in North Africa include references to women with children.156 Much casuistry was employed by all jurists to justify the captivity of harmless travelers. After spates of wars, plagues, and famines (especially in Morocco), and after droves of greedy Turkish beys and deys in the regencies, there was need for quick infusions of hard currency into the national coffers by means of ransoms paid for European captives. The same applied to the economies of the European states that were active in maritime expansion. But, the physical labor of captives was more urgently needed on French and Spanish and Tuscan and Maltese ships than by North Africans whose national sources of income relied on agriculture and farming more than on seaborne trade and colonization. In his Histoire du royaume d’Alger, de Tassy stated that the Algerian local income was twice as much as the income from prizes and ransoms of captives.157 Although Christian captives were always wanted in Muslim regions for their skills and their ransoms,158 in Malta, Muslim captives were needed largely for their exchange value. The “corso … served to feed the entire nation [of Malta] and a lack of [Muslim] prey immediately resulted in dearth and famine … All who could afford it invested” in it; even the “Ursuline sisters started taking a share of the prizes that were carried to Malta.”159 Furthermore, and as the new age of empire dawned, and as migration to the colonies in the New 153 154 155 156

157 158

159

Brogini, Une activité sous contrôle, online, paragraph 7. The letter is reproduced in Arribas Palau, La participacion 206. Bouzid, Notes 7. “Mary Weymouth, and her two children, James and John,” “Bridget Randall and her son of London,” and others in a list of ransomed English captives in 1647, in Matar, British captives 223. De Tassy, Histoire 177–178. See the letter by Mulay Ismāʿīl to Kirke quoted at the beginning of this unit. This need for European skills and know-how went back centuries. See the letter by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān of Tlemcen to James II (1267–1327), king of Aragon, in which the former states that “none built up our country except the captives, for most of them are skilled in various crafts,” undated letter, Los documentos árabes 184. Muscat and Cuschieri, Naval activities 131, 133. The income from the corso helps to explain the increase in the seizure of captives: from 400 in 1576 to 2,390 in 1669: Brogini, Au Coeur

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women were the first women in Islam who encountered Europeans from positions of fear, abuse, and uncertainty.97 Like other women captives, there was always fear about sexual abuse, and everyone, European and North African and Levantine, wanted to claim that captivity did not lead to violation. It is difficult to determine the veracity of such claims: violence against women captives was normative as far back as Homer and the war of Troy, which started because of a captured woman (at least according to the Greek narrative about Helen).98 A report in the Alexandria archive tells of a Muslim woman in the 1720s who was sold and resold seven times until her ship moored in Alexandria where she was ransomed.99 During the French invasion of Egypt in 1798, the French ransacked the residence of one of the Mamluke governors and sabū, or enslaved, the women of his harem; a few pages later, the author angrily wrote how the French were fornicating with the women captives.100 That is why, earlier, alSayyid made sure to state that his wife was never humiliated—she remained in his ḥurma, or protection. Muslim rulers were ever eager to ransom women and children first, because they believed them most susceptible to conversion.101 The Ottoman Sultan Muṣṭafā II (reg. 1695–1703), concerned about Muslim women captives, wrote to his Moroccan counterpart: “If a woman is taken captive in the East, the people of the West should ransom her. For thus it is written in the books of jurists.”102 The Algerian Ḥājj Aḥmad Dey earnestly sought to liberate “la demoiselle Hara”;103 and in 1786, Sīdī Muḥammad of Morocco paid 300 bushels of grain for ransoming each captive woman, but 200 for each man.104 These captured women and the kinswomen of captured men saw the need to “speak,”

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101 102 103 104

See Belhamissi, Captifs musulmans et chrétiens; and Tucker, She would rather perish. Later, the feud between Achilles and Agamemnon started because of Chryseis, a captive daughter of a priest. Euripides dramatized the plight of captives in The women of Troy. Maḥmūd, al-Qarṣana 129. She anticipates perhaps Voltaire’s account of the “Old woman’s misfortunes” in ch. 12 of Candide (1759). Nubdha fī bayān qiṣaṭt mashyakhāt Faransa, Vienna National Library, MS Flugel 932, 26v. The Egyptian historian, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Jabartī (d. 1822) also described the abuse of Egyptian women: see a summary of his description in the novel by Dagher, Ibnat Bunābart al-Miṣriyya 213. So were Christians, according to de Tassy, Histoire 168. Quoted in Binjādah, al-Maghrib wa-l-Bāb al-ʿĀlī 133. Plantet, Correspondance des deys d’Alger i, 522. Host, Histoire de l’empereur du Maroc 137. Curiously, in seeking to ransom their women, Muslim rulers were at odds with at least one European counterpart: if “an unfortunate husband [implored] the ransom of his wife” in the kingdom of Naples, wrote an English observer in 1811, he is answered by the king of Naples “in the same unprincipled unfeeling manner, ‘what, are women so scarce in my dominions?’”: MacGill, An account of Tunis 77.

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write, and act in order to gain their freedom or the freedom of their kinsmen. In August 1668, after the son of the Algerian Fāṭima bint (daughter of) Muḥammad Mūsā had been taken captive to Spain, she paid 200 pieces of eight to Francis de Ajalla to ransom him, promising to pay the money eight days after the arrival of her son in Tunis.105 The encounter with the Christian invaders sometimes forced changes in gender roles that resulted in defiant, public actions. In August 1719, an English factor in Algiers described how the local “Women daily fill the Consul’s house clamoring some for their husbands, some for their children; he [consul Hudson] is called ill names in the streets.”106 Women were assuming social responsibility toward their kinsmen in captivity: they were going out into the streets and into residences, in a group momentum that resembles very much the English petitioning women of a century earlier, who pounded the streets near Westminster demanding support for their captive husbands from both king and parliament.107 Muslim and Christian women assumed the same roles when their breadwinners were seized into slavery. One Moroccan woman in Tangier at the end of the sixteenth century, Mubāraka al-Sharīfiyya, was abducted by the Portuguese and enslaved in their colony of Tangier. Mubāraka’s name shows that she was blessed—perhaps because she was saved by a miracle. However, her story also shows her tenacity, literacy, and courage. From her captivity, she wrote—thus she was literate—to Riḍwān al-Janawī, “time and time again, asking him to intercede for her with a qāʾid in the palace … He wrote and wrote to the qāʾid about her as she clung to hope. Finally, victory was granted by God … and she came out from the hands of infidelity.” She promptly traveled to see the shaykh, who was overjoyed and asked her how she had been freed. She told him: “a man, accompanied by two or three other men, helped her escape. The man came to her at night, having agreed with her on a time during the previous day. They met and lowered themselves, one after the other, from the wall of the city until they were free.” Everything that happened, commented Mubāraka, was a result of the miraculous intercession of the shaykh.108 And her courage: that she was able to climb down a wall in Tangier is impressive. The walls of the city were forbidding. The voice of a Moroccan woman captive survives in two unique letters from Malta that were composed in 1798. Who wrote the two documents and why is not clear: the documents do not celebrate God or His mercies, as would be 105 106 107 108

Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie vi, 145. TNA, FO 113/3/185. See my Wives, captive husbands, and Turks. Tuḥfat al-ikhwān wa mawāhib al-imtinān fī manāqib Sīdī Riḍwān [al-Janawī], Rabat, National Library, MS Kāf, 391.

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expected, but show the complete reliance on the part of the captive on the Moroccan ruler whom she claimed was a “relative.” There is graphic description of abuse, quite absent from male accounts, including the miscarriage she suffered after beatings. As the letters reveal, Faṭma had been seized with her husband and servant, after which ransom negotiations started. Since she was a “relative” of the sultan, the sum demanded by the Maltese captors was quite high. As “a relative” of Mulay Suleymān (reg. 1792–1822), she should have been treated well, in line with all captors in the Mediterranean who treated important or wealthy captives mildly for purposes of demanding higher ransoms. Why she was made to endure the torturous treatment that she described is unclear: it reflects a rather sadistic owner who sent his servant to smear her with excrement, confine her in a solitary cell, and then beat her, even though she was five months pregnant. And why the voice of the husband is unheard is left unexplained. The letter reads like a deposition that Faṭma dictated to a scribe—who wrote in colloquial Arabic—putting down what he heard. Who was the intended reader/s is not clear: if it was to be sent to Mulay Suleymān, it would have had to open with honorifics and praise; starting bluntly with sordid descriptions of ill treatment was insulting. That there is not a single mention of God is strange: all hope lies in the ruler, not in the husband, or in a holy man back in Meknes, or in the divine, only in Mulay Suleymān. Was Faṭma or the scribe ignorant of epistolary convention—of opening with the basmalah—or was it that in the midst of suffering, there was no time for thinking about God? Alternatively, it is quite possible that the letter was a kind of deposition before some Christian tribunal—which might explain the absence of any mention of Allāh or of the Prophet: I was brought to Malta and kept in the quarantine for 40 days. I was then led to the Maltese Sultan who asked me: “Where are you from, woman?” “I am from the west [gharb/Morocco],” I answered. “Whose daughter are you?” “I am the daughter of the sultan Mulay Idrīs;109 I do not deny my ancestor, and I am a relative of Mulay Muḥammad [ibn ʿAbdallāh]. I am in your hands, brought here where you can do what you want with me [even] put me to the sword.” Then I added, “God brought me to you so that you would be better to me than others.” He then replied that he could not help her

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Mulay Idrīs (reg. 788–791) was a descendant of the Prophet and the “founder” of Morocco.

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Qiṣaṣ al-Asrā, or Stories of the Captives The Christians had kidnapped him in Azammūr and the Muslims ransomed him.1

∵ In the medieval oral poems that celebrated the heroism of Muslim warriors, and in literature that recalled conflicts with the Rūm, there were numerous descriptions and recollections of captivity: Thus, the “Captivity of Prince Diyāb” in Taghribat Banū Hilāl, the eleventh-century saga of the wandering conquests of the Hilāl tribe, when the prince was captured by the Christian king of Cyprus but then released by the hero Abū Zayd.2 In that great work of fiction, The Arabian nights, and for the first time, captivity developed into a full-length, autonomous qiṣṣa. Nights 249–269 and 863–894 bring together a story of Muslim captivity in Italy, probably Genoa, and the reversal of many of the motifs that appear in the European tradition of captivity narratives.3 The Arabian nights captivity story reflects elements of both the actual experiences of Muslims and some fictional elements that were current in Western literature. At the same time, it describes the mobility, the conflict, and the commercial activity that marked the Mediterranean basin in the late medieval and early modern periods.4 But the two cycles in The Arabian nights remain a unique specimen of romance, picaresque, and captivity, composed/imagined at a time when Arabs (again using the term linguistically) crisscrossed from Egypt to China, when

1 Ibn ʿAskar (d. 1578) about ʿAbdallāh ibn Sāsī, d. 1553, and buried near Marrakesh. Dawḥat alnāshir 100. The same words are used about another captive, Mālik ibn Khidda, Fāsī, Mumtiʿ al-asmāʿ 84. 2 Abū Naṣr, Taghribat Banū Hilal ch. 7. See Lyons, The Arabian epic i, 61. This and other captivity stories in that cycle and from the Sīra of al-Ẓāhir Baybars continue to be recited today: see the article in al-ʿArabī al-Jadīd newspaper, Ayyām al-sīra (12 May 2019), accessed 12 May 2019. 3 The final recension of The Arabian nights took place in the second half of the eighteenth century and was first printed in Bulaq, Egypt in 1835. 4 For a discussion of these two cycles, see my Christians in the Arabian nights.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_004

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Ibrāhīm Librīs, 1802

Throughout the period under study, the three North African regencies and Morocco negotiated with but also fought against European powers: Spanish, French, English, Maltese, Genoese, Dutch, Livornian, and pirates operating in the many islands of the Western Mediterranean. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a new naval power had arrived in the Mediterranean and, like the Europeans, also became engaged in captive taking. Like the British and the French, the Americans wanted to take part in Mediterranean trade, but for the Moroccans and peoples of the regencies, they were just like the Europeans: well-armed aliens who monopolized trade and cut out the North Africans from their livelihood by the firepower of their fleets. With their advanced navies, they could blockade or bombard harbors, at the same time that they could control the movement of ships by issuing the Moroccans and the Algerians with passes that limited seafaring.112 For over a century, the seas that had been the seas of the North Africans and had provided them with income from trading, fishing, and limited transport had now become the seas of the Christians, resulting in loss of revenues, mobility, and maritime freedom. Another consequence was the acceleration of economic and infrastructural decline in Morocco and the regencies—which historians of the American encounter with “Barbary” ignore, ever blaming North Africans for their piratical activities, which then supposedly forced American military reprisals.113 As Jean Mathiex noted, the economic and technological decline of the Muslims vis-à-vis Western Christians was hastened in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries largely because of Christian piracy.114 Further, as the early nineteenth-century historian from Rabat, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Duʿayyif (d. 1818) showed, one of the serious problems that Moroccan rulers faced with the British, the French, and others was that these countries, especially at times of war, took

112

113 114

In 1711, for instance, English merchants petitioned Queen Anne to stipulate that “no Ships or other smaller Vessels belonging to any of those Governts [Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli] … (Particularly with regard to the Part of Tangier then in the Possession of your Majesty’s Royal Uncle King Charles the 2nd) … should remain cruising near or in sight of any his then Majesty’s Roads, Havens, Ports, Towns and Places, nor any way disturb the Peace & Commerce of the same” TNA SP 71/21/12v (4 June 1711). After all, as Earle noted, as far back as the 1730s, “a concerted effort by [European] navies and governments had largely eliminated the long-standing problem of piracy,” Sailors 109. “Le retard économique et technique des pays musulmans sur l’ Occident chrétien appelé à s’ aggraver si rapidment du xvie au xixe siècle est largement du à la course chrétienne,” Mathiex, Trafic et prix de l’homme 157. See also Corrales, Les repercussions de la course espagnole.

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away food supplies from the region—thereby causing severe shortages. Both Sīdī Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh and his son Mulay Suleymān tried to keep supplies in the country, but various Moroccan merchants, after receiving bribes, facilitated the export of foods.115 In the face of naval attacks and gunboat diplomacy, Morocco and the Ottoman regencies desperately sought treaties of cooperation with the foreign powers.116 The United States was slowly building up its naval force after the confrontation with the Algerians in the 1780s and 1790s. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the American fleet possessed enough ships that no North African power could confront it. The episode below was recorded in an Arabic chronicle that described the conflicts and confusions between the Moroccans and the Americans in 1802.117 The Moroccan ruler, Mulay Suleymān, was eager to establish commercial ties with the United States, building on the recognition of that country’s independence by his father in 1786. Already, his father had realized the impossibility of matching the Europeans at sea and had discontinued attempts at building a fleet.118 While the French could afford to lose dozens of privateering ships to England in the Napoleonic wars of 1801 and 1803 and could continue fighting,119 Morocco was in possession of a very small fleet. Unable to force—or entice—negotiations, the Moroccan ruler reverted to taking captives, hoping thereby to reach agreement on new trading treaties:120 for him and other Moroccans, corsairing was primarily “a means of [putting] pressure on Western nations to conclude peace treaties with Morocco.”121 Seizing captives was the only weapon left for the less economically and militarily advanced. “The Mediterranean piracy (corso) was the attempt of impoverished societies excluded from the main stream of development to compensate themselves—at least in part—for the losses caused by the commercial ascendancy of the northerners.”122

115 116 117

118 119 120 121 122

Al-Ḍuʿayyif, Tarīkh 198. For the superiority of the fleets of France, Britain, Spain, and Venice to the Ottoman fleet, see Panzac, Armed peace esp. table 1. See Irwin, The diplomatic relations of the United States 131. There are numerous studies on relations between the United States and North Africa in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, but the emphasis is usually on Algeria. See Allison, The crescent observed; and Parker, Uncle Sam in Barbary. Harrak, Foundations of Muhammad III’s Western policy 38. Norman, The corsairs of France 440, 441. Inaccurately, Allen wrote that the “emperor of Morocco” was about to “declare war again,” Our navy 131. El Mansour, The anachronism of maritime jihad 51. Fodor, Piracy, ransom slavery and trade 121. Marcus Rediker quoted Eric Hobsbawm who

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Even so, the Moroccans still needed British mediation: On Thursday 5 Jamadi II 1217/6 October 1802, he [Mulay Suleymān] negotiated a peace agreement with al-Mirkān [the Americans] through the mediation of the English. He freed the captives from the hands of the Americans, along with their rayyes [naval commander], Ibrāhīm Libris. On Friday, he [Mulay Suleymān] prayed in the palace and then headed to Meknes. On Thursday the 8th [of Rajab] equivalent to 17 October [?], he inspected the navy in Rabat where he saw ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Zināt who had been among the captives … At the beginning of Rabiʿ, Rayyes Ibrāhīm left al-ʿArāʾish because the sultan wanted him to capture the Americans from among the Christians. ʿIshʿāsh gave Rayyes Ibrāhīm the sultan’s letter, which stated, “If you find the American at sea, take him captive and bring him to Tangier.” So, at the beginning of Rabiʿ I 1218 [21 June 1803], Ibrāhīm sailed through the strait [Gibraltar] in the direction of Algiers. He seized a ship [the American brig Celia, of Boston] belonging to the Americans and took [blank in original] Christian captives and sailed on. But the wind died at which time the Christians in Tangier wrote to the Americans saying, “Rayyes Ibrāhīm’s ship sailed out to capture the Americans. The ship looks like this, and it has so and so sailors and so and so guns. And the rayyes looks like this.” Then another ship sailed out from Salé, piloted by al-Ṭāhir ʿAwwād, with the following descriptions. At the end of the month of Rabiʿ I [20 July 1803], an American ship with forty guns and around 400 Christians met Rayyes Ibrāhīm’s ship. The American [Captain William Bainbridge, commander of the George Washington] said, “Are you Rayyes Ibrāhīm?” He answered, “Yes.” Ibrāhīm realized that the American knew all about him. So, the Christian said to him, “Lower your dinghy and come over here.” But Ibrāhīm refused. The Christian threatened, “If you don’t surrender I will sink your ship and the death of the Muslims will be your responsibility.” He could not but lower the dinghy in which Rayyes Ibrāhīm sent his son. The American seized the son along with Rayyes Ibrāhīm’s ship where he found the booty that Ibrāhīm had taken. He then split the [Muslim] sailors into four groups, sending each group in a different American ship. The sultan received the news from the English in Gibraltar. When Rayyes Ibrāḥīm was taken captive the Christian captor asked him, “Why had described pirates, all pirates, as leading a “protest against oppression and poverty: a cry for vengeance on the rich and the oppressors,” in The Seaman as pirate 146.

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Addressing his master again “from Ubeda—may God destroy it—while I was in thiqāf al-asr [the grip of captivity]” he called on his heart to “be patient and to pray for sirāḥ [release],” for “fate cannot but smile after frowning so long”: How many a captive in chains was freed, as if he never tasted captivity. Take as your model of patience Imam ʿAbd al-Ilālāh [sic] al-Bayānī, the best of mentors. 5:1–9

He endured because he knew how his master had once tasted of captivity, and as he further explained, poetry was his solace in Ubeda, making his chains bearable (6:57–60). To his family in Basta, he wrote, “while in captivity,” he was far from them, but his heart remained near them, and if a breeze from his homeland reached him, it would be a cool balsam to his burning heart. To his father, he wrote: You, my father: although I cannot see you, you are always on my mind, I always think of you and remember how you used to call me “Son.” I then become depressed and yearn so much to see you, Ever envying the wind when it passes over your land. 39:7–10

Like all captives, al-Qaysī recalled friends, relatives, and teachers, especially his Sufi master whom he implored to pray for him, assuring him that he kept his visage and his books before his eyes (7 and 8). To his friend Abū ʿAbdallāh ibn Rajāʾ, in whose house he had enjoyed learned conversations, he wrote about his plight in captivity: “humiliated and chained … among an infidel people, whose infidelity changes like the colors of a ḥirbāʾ [chameleon].” “Their hearts are as hard as rock,” he continued, “for I spend the whole day from sunrise to sunset slaving for them, doing all I can to fulfil their commands”: My body has grown weak, and my complexion has changed, My eyes are swollen with tears and my bowels burn: You cannot think that someone in my condition is alive. The worst thing, however, is: I cannot perform my religious duties. 35:26–30

To God, he pleaded for forgiveness of his sins in a poem with a moving opening where he briefly touched on the sin-captivity factor. Was he influenced by

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Conclusion

Stories about captives and captivities circulated all around the Arab Mediterranean for generations, from Agadir to Sidon to Jerusalem, crossing boundaries from one community to another. Whether the captives were from Timbuktu or from Marrakesh, from Alexandria or from Damascus, they were remembered in anecdotes or reports, in chronicles, letters, and biographies. Captives were jurists and sailors, men and women, Sufis and courtiers, ever confirming the danger posed by the zabanṭūṭ,126 along with the danger of high-powered fleets sent by foreign countries. Asr was a perennial and universal test, for it even could occur to Muslims by Muslims. The Arabic stories of the captives were widely different. Many of the stories were written by third parties, who felt a responsibility to show the defiance of the Muslim captives at the same time that they showed submission to God, and where applicable, gratitude to ruler and ransomer. In the case of learned captives, their stories showed how much they defended Islam in disputations with the Christian captors—and won. In the same manner that many European captivity accounts celebrated the Christian superiority of captives, so did the Muslim accounts: captivity was not just a human ordeal; it was also a religious confrontation in the Mediterranean zones of confessional conflict and violence. It is noteworthy, however, that the longest Arabic accounts about captivity told of the religious confrontation between Christianity and Islam—and ended without hostility or hatred. For Arab writers and narrators, the ordeal of captivity lay not as much in the suffering endured by the captives but in the danger posed to their faith. In this respect, their emphasis on defending the faith was not different from what European captives, Protestants and Catholics, also celebrated. Because the religious factor was central to the “block” in a captive’s life, there was a total absence of Arabic captivity stories in fiction: religion prevented the Arabic reports on captivity from developing into entertaining adventures, as was the case in the Western canon, or from exploring the imaginative potential of the captivity experience. Perhaps if more captives wrote their own firstperson narratives, there might have been opportunities for some embellishment. Telling the story of captivity was an affirmation of submission to God in which there could be no untruth. Nor was there a print market as was the case in the European context: no copyist or bookseller in the stalls of the warrāqīn would have deemed a story of Muslim humiliation worthy of promotion.

126

The name used for pirates by North Africans; also sometimes written zamanṭūṭ.

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In Arabic, there was invective hurled at the captors, but not demonization of the Naṣārā into figures of grotesqueness and abnormality—as was the case in many European accounts with their mendacious description of “Barbary,” Muslims, and Islam. There was also no celebration of martial heroism: so many European accounts of captivity describe daring escapes—real or bombastic— in a manner that does not appear in Arabic captivity stories. And of course, there were no accounts of sexual escapades—similar to the stories of the English T.S., for instance, who wrote and published in 1670 about seducing the wife of the dey and fathering a child—who looked as white as a European.127 Even if such escapades did happen, it would have been completely inappropriate for an Arab to write about them. In addition, there was emphasis in the European captivity writing on recording the ordeals as a form of catharsis—a way in which the retelling of the details of captivity was useful psychologically. Captivity had been a trauma, and writing about it helped in the process of healing. At the same time, it allowed the freed captive to reintegrate into the home community that often was either ambivalent about the returnee, or hostile, fearing that the captive had converted secretly to Islam and had thereby been contaminated. Captivity was always violent and traumatic, but Arab victims did not view it as an experience on which they needed to reflect: there was no “use” in recounting the horrors of the past—either to themselves or to readers—because captivity was a miḥna, a test, which God had ordained— and to which the captive submitted. If European captivity accounts served in consolidating national identity and in Protestant or Catholic myth making, the Arabic qiṣaṣ served in confirming Islam across the centuries and in all the regions where the accounts could be told and retold, from Morocco to Iraq and from Timbuktu to Damascus. Arab captives told their qiṣaṣ for generations, so much so that they were embedded in public memory. In the nineteenth century, Muḥammad ibn Yūsuf al-Zayānī still recalled the Spanish conquest of Oran two centuries earlier, repeating descriptions in prose and verse that he collected from other writers. He recalled how Shaykh Muḥammad ibn al-Qawjīlī al-Jazāʾirī implored the pasha of Algiers to “turn to jihad with force and to light the fire of war on infidelity. For how much has infidelity injured Muslims and how many men, women, and children have been taken captive.”128 Lacking the kind of exclusionary denominational and linguistic differences that separated European nations into different religious nationalities, and that limited informa-

127 128

T.S., The adventures. The events supposedly happened in 1648. Al-Zayānī, Dalīl al-ḥayrān 157.

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tion about captivity to the linguistic medium (notwithstanding translations), Arabic writers treated all Islamic captivities of the past as their own qiṣaṣ— regardless of where or when they had occurred. Captivity by the Naṣārā became part of the historical encounter in Arabic memory—its danger never forgotten. Al-Zayānī continued with another story: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān alJāmʿī recalled how he met a scholar living with his family in tents on top of the mountain outside Oran and near the forests. At night, they all hid there, but in the daytime, the scholar stayed in his house and his mosque, reading and teaching his pupils. So he asked him why he did that. The scholar explained: “We have been living this way since the time of the Christians and for fear of them. We were not safe in our houses and feared they would enslave us, so we went to the tents so we could make our escape to the forests. Consider how much the Muslims had grown to fear those satanic despots [ṭawāghīt].” Another murābiṭ (coastal defender) told him “they could never sleep without having guards watching over them. And even in their sleep, some feared the raids of the Christians and screamed in terror.”129 In 2002, in a note on the preservation of the bodies of holy men, the editor of a book on the karāmāt of a seventeenth-century Sufi cited the following episode. “Twenty years or more ago,” he wrote, “the Spanish newspapers that were published in Tangier reported from their correspondents in Spain that as the government was repairing roads in Cordoba and Seville, corpses of Muslims with beards and white turbans were discovered. These captives had not decomposed even though they had been dead for more than 300 years.”130 Captives cast a long shadow in Mediterranean Arab history. 129 130

Ibid. 163. Quoted by the editor of al-Fāsī (d. 1052 AH/AD 1642), ʿAqd al-durrar 43, n. 1. For captivity as trauma (in the European tradition), see Helgason, Historical narrative as collective therapy; and Spindler, Identity crises of homecomers.

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friction or denunciation, should he have converted. Was it that the Spaniards needed captives more than they needed redeemed souls? But would the Spanish captor have wanted to exchange his captive with aʿlāj—Spaniards who had converted to Islam? Did he think that such converts had dissimulated their adherence to Islam and would promptly reassume their Christianity upon gaining their freedom? And, why did al-Qaysī always write the name Allāh as alIlālāh? Was it because the Spaniard may have been mocking Alá (God), and the captive wanted to preserve the sanctity of the name of his God? Did he think that his Christian captor really believed that Mary, who is deeply venerated in the Quran, was the wife of al-Ilālāh, or was it that he remembered some of the Quranic verses that denounce Christians for believing God to have a wife (Q 72:3)? What is valuable about al-Qaysī’s poetry is that it was written while the poet was in the throes of captivity. Curiously, not only did al-Qaysī seem to have time to compose poetry but also he had the imaginative latitude to compose playful poems: was the couplet written in his captivity about the town of al-Bīra referring to the name of a city or the name of a Christian girl he courted (91)? Also valuable is that al-Qaysī wrote about humiliation and despair, describing his physical and psychological anxiety with honesty. After his release, al-Qaysī praised the jurist Abū Ḥāmid ibn al-Ḥasan, perhaps the man who had negotiated his return from captivity (33). Whatever his goal was in composing the poems, al-Qaysī was able to articulate the despair of Muslim men who fell before the conquering armies of a triumphant Iberian Christianity. His captivity writings are a record of the Arab defeat in Al-Andalus, and although they retain a deeply personal element, they reflect the larger geopolitical scene in the last decades of Muslim rule in Al-Andalus. Just about a century after al-Qaysī, another scholar-jurist was taken captive. Like al-Qaysī, he composed poems during his captivity, but unlike him, he mentioned little about his condition in captivity or his encounter with the captors or his spiritual failure as cause of his captivity. Rather, he composed his poems to praise his ruler who effected his freedom, Mulay Aḥmad al-Manṣūr (reg. 1578–1603). In such poetry, there was no place for expressions of personal suffering and humiliation. Rather, there was to be praise to the ruler, and of course, to God: Aḥmad ibn al-Qādī spoke of the niʿma, or blessing, of the liberator,10 showing that the reason for referring to captivity was his desire to hew

10

achieved the greatest number of conversions within the Hispanic realms during the fifteenth century” 140. See also Burns, Renegades, adventurers, and sharp businessmen. See the discussion of niʿma in this this genre of writing in Marín and el Hour, Captives, children and conversion.

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or cryptic references: the writers wanted to make their cases known to ransomers, rulers, or captors in the best and most accessible ways. While there are letters to and from captives and their kin among both Europeans and Arabs, no letter has survived from European captives to North African rulers in the manner that such letters were written by Arab captives in France, Holland, and England, naively thinking that monarchs or men of authority would bother to read them. Muslim captives, both Arab and Turkish, did not have the highly organized Catholic religious orders to help in their liberation in the manner of French or Spanish captives. Nor was there anything similar to Trinity House in seventeenth-century England or the Sklavenkasse in Hamburg (established in 1624, expanded after the end of the Thirty Years’ War) that paid the ransom of sailors.4 Nor were there any of the European merchant companies that designated part of their insurance funding for ransoming captives. Ransom of large numbers of captives depended completely on the decision of the rulers— unless a captive had enough money to negotiate his own freedom; many are the contracts that show individual initiative on the part of captives or their kin to negotiate ransom payments. There were numerous intermediaries— Christian, Muslim, or Jewish—who facilitated the processes, but much still depended on who the captor was. If the Christian captor was an individual, then the right sum could free the captive; but if the captive was on the galleys of France or Malta, then authorization came from naval commanders who were more eager to keep their fleets moving than in collecting ransom sums. Perhaps one of the strangest situations in the ransoming of captives occurred in Mount Lebanon in the first part of the seventeenth century. Prince Fakhr al-Dīn was a governor in the Ottoman dominions, but eager to break away from the authority of Istanbul and ally himself with the Habsburgs, he ransomed Christian captives in the regions under his control and sent them back to Christendom; on some occasions, he also ransomed his own— Druze captives. In June 1629, he wrote to the Spanish court in Sicily that he had saved, khallaṣa, 32 Maltese and Spanish Christians from the Muslims. In return, he asked that three of his own, who were captives there, be freed and returned to him.5 Such cooperation on his part had been ongoing for 4 Tatlock, “Selling Turks” 313. See also the reference to Maltese redemptive orders: La Charité (Confraternità della Carità), founded in 1631, and Confraternità della Santissima Trinità e Redenzione degli Schiavi, founded in 1652, in Gugliuzzo, Être esclave à Malte 6. For Dutch redemption of captives, see Hensen-Roach, Consuls and captives 143–147. 5 Carali, Fakhr ad-Dīn II ii, 289.

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years: as early as 1616, he had opened his harbors in the Sidon region to Maltese ships to dock and ransom Christian captives.6 Fakhr al-Dīn traded in captives through one of his Maronite advisors and liaisons, the distinguished scholar Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāqilānī (1605–1664). In 1626, the latter was in Mount Lebanon to oversee the establishment of a school sponsored by the Congretatio Fide.7 With the strong contacts he had both in Lebanon and in Rome, Fakhr al-Dīn decided to use him in business. In 1632, he gave alḤāqilānī quantities of silk, which the latter sold in Italy after which some of the money from the sale was deposited in a Florentine bank for the security of his children, as Fakhr al-Dīn indicated.8 With the rest of the money, al-Ḥāqilānī bought some Muslim captives in Livorno whom he took to North Africa where he sold them for ransom. But then followed some disagreement over the sum that was to be paid to Fakhr al-Dīn, and so, in September of that year, the Druze prince wrote to Ferdinand II de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany (reg. 1621– 1670), the following letter: [After the usual honorifics] If you inquire about us and our children, we are all well, thanks be to God. We invoke God that He fulfill all your wishes. The Maronite priest Ibrāhīm arrived here [Lebanon], praising God for the kindness that you showed him. He brought us the receipt for the money [he had deposited] in the bank, which was the price of the silk he had sold. The sum that you still keep is the price of the captives—which we have not received. Do give the money to priest [sic; he was not a priest] Ibrāhīm and let someone you designate buy for us some broadcloth and other fabrics and let him bring them with him. As for the money in the bank, we have received the receipt and so let the money stay in the bank and let the interest grow year after year until a time when we and our children need it. We will then ask for it with the interest that it had accumulated over the years. Every year, calculate the sum accrued by the interest and record it, and then add it to the principal in the bank so it can grow and nothing be lost. We are grateful to God. Do not delay priest Ibrāhīm so he can return to us with broadcloth and fabric equal to our money that he earned from the captives.9

6 7 8 9

Ibid. 140. Tabar, Les relations de l’Eglise Maronite 269–270. Gorton, Renaissance emir 163. Carali, Fakhr al-Dīn ii, 333–334. An amusing aside: in a recent article, Lebanese writer Ilyas Khūrī mentioned (adding, however, “God knows”) that the prince had “deposited the sum of 111 million dollars in a Tuscan bank” which a current Lebanese minister was trying to retrieve

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The captives whom al-Ḥāqilānī sold for ransom in North Africa were doubtlessly Muslim. They linked Florentine Catholics to Maronites to Druzes, from Mount Lebanon to Livorno and Florence to North Africa. Meanwhile, Ottoman sultans and North African rulers sent delegations to European capitals and port cities to ransom their subjects. Even so, large numbers of captives remained in bagnios all around the Mediterranean bases of slave exchange and sale. Such captives had to rely on themselves and hope that in writing to kith and kin, they would be ransomed. Such was the case of ʿAlī in his letters to his relatives in Sfax in the 1590s: the letters described captivity in a few words, “the fleas, the disgrace, the ill-treatment,” after which the captive made his desperate appeals.10 Other captives, perhaps having given up on relatives or rulers at home, turned to Christians whom they may have known during visits or trading exchanges in any of the major cities of Europe. A letter written by an anonymous Moroccan c. 1650 to his “friend in Amsterdam,” possibly the orientalist Jacob Golius/van Gool, Ghūl (1596–1667), shows the helplessness of the captive, but also, quite interestingly, the acquaintances he made during his stay in the Netherlands.11 The letter is in poor Arabic, and so the author could not have been an official sent by his ruler on state business. Such officials were always well trained in rhetoric and jurisprudence. Nor was he a scholar who, like other Moroccans, had been sought for his mastery of Arabic, a language that orientalists in France, England, and Holland were learning. In the first half of the seventeenth century, various Moroccans travelled to Amsterdam and Leiden to teach Arabic to Dutch orientalists—and they were welcomed in cities that enjoyed wide religious tolerance.12 As the writer indicated in the letter, he had sailed to Genoa, planning to continue to Algiers and from there to board another ship for Tunis. Then the French seized the ship and sold him to the Genoese fleet—even though he had a bas abort, or passport, from the “shaykh” (prince?) for safe passage. The captive asked his addressee for iḥsān, or charity, to pay

10

11

12

for the state. The sum, the writer added, is now worth five billion dollars: “Nafṭ, wa ḥashīsh wa koronā,” al-Quds al-ʿArabī, 3 March 2020. For the translation and study of these letters, see Zammit and Lahlali with contributions by Agius, The letters of the Moorish slaves. See also Lahlali and Agius, Writing private letters. For the letter, see Houtsma, Uit de oostersche correspondentie 10. I am grateful to Professor Katrien Vanpee, University of Minnesota, for her translation. For a brief survey of Muslims in the Netherlands, see Kaplan, Muslims in the Dutch golden age. Aḥmad ibn Qāsim stayed in the house of the Dutch Arabist Thomas Erpenius in 1613, while a few years earlier, ʿAbd al-ʿAzz, another Moroccan, had befriended Johannes Theunisz, the Mennonite Hebraist and Arabist: see van Dalen, Johannes Theunisz and ʿAbd al-ʿAzz.

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Another act of charity was his ransoming of large numbers of captives from all the lands of infidelity, the island of Al-Andalus, and other places. He was generous and welcoming to every Muslim—and to the Jew in his dhimma—who came to him asking for a Christian captive to exchange with a Muslim captive.17 He was willing to help, hoping for reward in the hereafter. He used up many [Christian] captives and vast sums of money in this effort, looking for reward in the hereafter. In his council, he often said: “Whoever meets with an obstacle and is need of a captive or anything else let him come to us, and we will oblige.” Many a person whom I trust reported that to me: he once ransomed a Jew from Malta with his own money when he, may God support him, was asked to do so. What he did is known to everyone. One of his great and admirable deeds was his success in bringing me out of captivity. I was taken captive during my journey to Egypt in search of that noble knowledge [of Hadith]—having previously been granted his permission to travel, may God support him. I sailed in that direction, and then what God had foreordained happened on Thursday 14 Shaʿban in the year 94 [31 July 1586]. So, I turned to God and sought His help, knowing that my salvation could not but be at his [al-Manṣūr’s] hands, having been a beneficiary of his kindness and good nature. I wrote the following lines: The woes of the chained and suffering captive, which ran through the body’s every joint, Dissipated when he [Ibn al-Qāḍī] thought of the Hashimite Imam [alManṣūr claiming descent from Hashim, the tribe of the Prophet], the greatest of the creation, who soared in his bounty above all … Be, O just Imam, a helper to this weak captive, with his broken wing, The hands of time have slashed his jugular vein and fate has encircled him with tribulations … May God give you health, O king of the heights, and may you always remain an imam in the teeming loftiness, You are the pilgrimage destination of those seeking recovery, and a Kaʿba around which the noble circumambulate on all occasions. The poem reached his hand, God support him. He had already initiated action to effect my freedom and had written to the governors of the bastions to search for me wherever I might be in the lands of the infidels, may God destroy them. 17

See the legal judgment regarding dhimmis—Christians or Jews—under the Muslim ruler’s protection: Mechergui, Les préceptes des captifs en Islam.

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the regencies, English ship commanders sometimes freed North African captives from Spanish galleys and took them back to London. From there, they were sent back to their countries. When Richard Cromwell (reg. 1658–1659) assumed power after the death of his father on 3 September 1658, a few “Turkes” petitioned him for assistance to return home: on 16 September 1658, “Mahamet: Mustaoth: Hamat and Abdulbak: all of them Turke native borne,” sent a petition to “his Highnes Richard Lord Protector of the Comonwealth of England & Scotland and Ireland,” that they had been slaves of the Spaniards for twenty years. They had escaped to France and then received a “license to come here”—and so they requested permission to leave “by some of your shipping” to “Leghorn.”15 Whether Cromwell, in power for less than two weeks, paid any attention to them is not known, although a positive response from him might have been the reason that soon after, “Abducadir, Achmet Sillaw, and Hame of Sally” petitioned “for the same.”16 Perhaps captives were encouraged by the peace and trade treaties that the short-lived ruler had signed with the North African regencies (Cromwell left government under a year later, in May 1659). Soon after the restoration of Charles II (reg. 1660–1685) to the throne, the British gained control of the bastion of Tangier, and from 1661–1684, they were frequently at war with Moroccan forces trying to liberate the city. Captives were taken from both sides. The letter below belongs to a “Moor” (somebody must have translated it for him)17 who sought employment in the colony; he and others had been captured by the English in 1661, the first year of the colony, and forced to serve—thereby antagonizing the Moroccan fighters around Tangier. During a skirmish, his brother and all his companions had been killed. Finding himself alone, he converted to Christianity—thus “Peter”—and appealed in his letter for employment, either in the garrison or on board any of the ships of the British fleet. He had been cooperating with the British since their arrival and he was desperate to stay with them: 14 January 1666 To the Kings most Excellt Matie. The humble Peticon of Pet[er] ye Moore Sheweth

15 16 17

TNA SP 18/182/193–194 (iii). TNA SP 18/182/ (iii.1). Only the English version of the petition has survived. But there were Moroccans who learned English during their captivity: see the reference to a one-time captive from “Santa Cruz … he speaks English hauing among the many turns he hath made in the world been some time in England,” TNA CO 279/31/57v.

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That yor Pet[itione]r served hs Matie in ye Citty of Tangier for ye Space of five yeares in bringing Horses Cattle and Such like provisions for ye supplies of hs Majties Garrison there as ye Rt Hoble ye Earle of Peterborrough, ye Lord Bellasis and Col ffitzGerald can testifie That yor Petr Brother and twelve more of ye Natives were Slaine in yr Majties Service, and a Peace being since concluded, and no Provision made for your Petres Security or otherwise, was advised by ye Deputy Governor of this Citty to make his humble address to yr Matie for Releife therein. And therefore most humbly prayes That yr Matie will be gratiously pleased to grant that he may Serve yr Matie in yr Troope of Guards and to bestow Something upon him to reward him for that Service, or otherwise, either at Sea or Land as your Matie shall think fitt, in wch Service he is Ready to hazard his life. And yor Petr shall every pray. The Peticon of Peter the Moore. To be mounted, & listed in his majties Life-Guard; or to have some employment in ye Rll Navye.18 As Peter was writing his petition, Tangier was growing into an important port for ships from all around the Mediterranean and the Atlantic—from Ireland to New England to Turkey, and its residents traded in legal merchandise, booty, and contraband. But the British did not develop an industry around captivity, unlike the French who needed manpower for their fleets. Many letters survive from Moroccan captives in France that were addressed to the French and to the Moroccan authorities. On 23 April 1682, the captive ʿAbd al-Nabī Suleymān, being held on one of the galleys of the king of France, addressed to Mulay Ismāʿīl a letter from Marseille on behalf of “all the captives enslaved on the French king’s ships.” He opened by requesting permission to speak bluntly about those kilāb al-faranj, or French dogs, who inflicted torture and humiliation on the Muslims, insulting their Prophet, degrading their religion, and ridiculing their sultan. They also made them live in a veritable hell, keeping them naked and hungry, always beating them as they carried their chains, weighing 100 libras. After pleading for help, he turned to alert Ismāʿīl to the dishonesty of the French and to advise him on how to deal with them. Before the ambassadorransomer Ḥājj Muḥammad Temīm went to the galleys in Marseille to survey the Moroccan captives, he told his king, the French had sent the fleet out to sea with the slaves on board, leaving behind only the infirm and aged captives.19

18 19

TNA SP 29/188/143. Nor was he able to see captives in Toulon or Brest.

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Therefore, Temīm was offered the useless captives for ransom.20 Suleymān then continued: “We are your subjects and you are our master. Do not leave us prey to these dogs. Still, we remain patient in obedience to God’s will.” He concluded that the captives had appealed to the Algerians, the Tunisians, and the Turks for help—but the Turks ransomed only their own. “If you want us to describe how those dogs treat us, we can fill books,” he concluded. This letter, along with others, was carried by a relative of one of the assistants to Ḥājj Temīm, Ḥājj ʿAlī Maʿnīnū, during the latter’s embassy to France in 1681–1682. Ḥājj ʿAlī had a nephew, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq, who had been captured by the Portuguese. In Paris, the uncle pleaded with King Louis XIV (1643–1715) for his nephew, and so the king ordered his ambassador in Lisbon to effect the captive’s release. The ambassador was successful: ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq was released, after which he traveled to Toulon and then to Marseille, where he met with captives who gave him letters to their kin in Morocco. He was to sail with the French ambassador, M. du Saint-Amand, who was on his way to Morocco, but as he was about to board, the letters were discovered and he was prevented from leaving. Saint-Amand was afraid that if the letters reached their destination, with the description of the terrible treatment that the captives received, his life would be in danger. He therefore made sure that ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq did not return before he finished his mission in Morocco and was back in France. With gifts of watches, gold brocade, and firearms, the mission was successful. And so, it was only in March 1683 that ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq returned from captivity.21 In that same year, 1683, as a Moroccan ship was sailing to Algiers, a French ship captured it notwithstanding its passport of safe conduct. All its sailors were sent to the galleys. Angrily, Ismāʿīl wrote to King Louis XIV, opening without any of the polite honorifics and pompous praise that were customary: 1 August 1684 Greetings to him who follows the path of guidance and rejects the path of evil.22

20 21 22

De Castries, Les sources i, 694. See for the Arabic originals, al-Nāṣirī, Sallā wa Ribāṭ al-Fatḥ iii, 81–82. Ibid. 80–81, 85–87. This greeting was used for non-Muslims and is taken from a Quranic verse, 23:39, when Moses greeted Pharaoh. The first part of the verse was consistently used in correspondence and protocol: a century later, al-Miknāsī wrote that when he greeted the Spanish king, he did so according to sharʿ (law), al-Miknāsī, al-Iksīr fī iftikāk al-asīr 86. For a study of epistolary protocols in the medieval period, see Gully, The culture of letter-writing esp. 179– 192.

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qiṣaṣ al-asrā, or stories of the captives

ruler, the former wrote about the ransom developments that were initiated by the magnanimous al-Manṣūr. Ibn al-Qāḍī, he reported, “left from the port of Tetouan but his ship was attacked in Baḥr al-Zuqāq [Strait of Gibraltar] by the fleets of the enemy. He was captured and would have faced dire consequences had not God’s mercy intervened.” As soon as Ibn al-Qāḍī was seized, al-Fishtālī continued in his massive history of the Saʿdian dynasty (of which only one volume survived), the machinery of ransom was set in motion. When his brother, Muḥammad Shaqrūn, heard of what had happened to Ibn al-Qādī, he appealed to Mulay Aḥmad who ordered the governor in Tetouan and a wealthy merchant there, Aḥmad al-Mufāḍil, to do everything in their power to effect Ibn al-Qāḍī’s release. Al-Manṣūr sent Ibn al-Qāḍī’s family a Christian youth, an excellent weapons maker in Badis and a servant of the “tyrant of Castile,” the king of Spain, who had been captured during the battle of 1578: he was to be exchanged with Ibn al-Qāḍī. But then, when the captors learned of the concern of the ruler for the captive, they became greedy and demanded an additional large sum of money, which al-Manṣūr generously gave. Meanwhile, the Qāḍī family took the Christian youth to Fez and from there to Tetouan to meet with the father of the youth at the appointed time for the exchange.25 Ibn al-Qāḍī left Ceuta for Tetouan through the assistance of the Miknāsī merchant Ḥājj Fulūsī. After the exchange and the payment of the ransom, Ibn al-Qāḍī was freed. But, soon after, continued al-Fishtālī, the “infidel” captors were furious because they thought they could have demanded a higher ransom. And so, they sent ships to capture Ibn al-Qāḍī again, but he escaped.26 In his account about the dignitaries of Marrakesh and Fez, al-Maqqarī reported that Ibn al-Qādī was released on 17 Rajab 995/24 June 1587 and returned to Marrakesh on Monday 8 Shaʿban/3 July 1588 (Sunday),27 adding that Ibn al-Qāḍī told him that he had been ransomed for 22,000 ounces of gold. He continued by describing to al-Maqqarī what had happened to him during his captivity, after which he recited to him a long poem he had composed in praise of al-Manṣūr—some lines of which al-Maqqarī included.28 Evidently, the qiṣṣa of Ibn al-Qādī’s captivity had circulated in Marrakesh, had been told and retold in the court, and had been remembered not as much to reflect on the ordeal of captivity as on the glory of al-Manṣūr. So memorable was the captivity and the release that a century later, the Moroccan chronicler Muḥammad ibn al-Ṭayyib al-Qādirī (1712–1773) recalled the episode in Nashr al-mathānī. After describing 25 26 27 28

Al-Maqqarī, Rawḍat al-ās 230–231. See Dawūd, Tārīkh Tiṭwan i, 2:129–132 for Fishtālī’s account. Al-Maqqarī, Rawḍat al-ās 69. Ibid. 67–69.

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and sailed out, he captured a ship carrying marble, gold, silk, and others, and so he sent it back with 26 Muslims on board. On the way, your ships captured it and you kept it for days after which you destroyed it and sent the Muslims to the galleys. Why did you not return it or keep it for three years as we kept your ship? Where is the truth in what you do or say? It is clear to us that the only thing that works with you is force. If you still want to keep the peace and sign a treaty, send us an ambassador who will have the authority to do so. He can dock in any of our ports and we can discuss everything with him and complete the agreement. He should be a man with complete authority from you. Moreover, if you find there is some disagreement, let us know what you want to do. Peace to him who follows the path of guidance. 19 Shaʿban 1095 [1 August 1684].23 As Ismāʿīl complained, the French were not beyond mendacity, deceiving “Muslims” in order to take them captive and forcing them to serve on their ships. This issue of “truth” and “giving your word” was raised again by Ismāʿīl when a few years later he was negotiating with the Spanish King Carlos II (reg. 1661–1700) regarding 100 Spanish captives taken after the Moroccan reconquest of Larache (al-ʿArāʾish) in 1689. Repeatedly in his letter of 14 September 1690, he reminded his counterpart of the lies of the Spaniards—how they had given their word to the people of Granada before its surrender in 1492, only to break it. They had signed a treaty with the Granadans of 60 articles, but they did not abide even by one, thereby revealing “their deceit and treachery toward the people of Granada and others of Al-Andalus in every town and village.”24 Even after two centuries, the history of European dishonesty was not forgotten, and the memories of the expulsion of the Muslims were recalled, making the negotiations for Moroccan captives both complicated and confrontational. Moreover, there were still memories of the 1609–1614 expulsion of the Andalusians: Ambassador al-Ghassānī whom Mulay Ismāʿīl sent to Spain in 1690 was a descendent of the expelled—as he often mentioned on the pages of his travel account. Meanwhile, captivities were taking place in the Eastern Mediterranean, too, where the Ottoman fleet was no longer as effective in protecting domestic shipping as before. In 1576, the bey of Rhodes was ordered to confront the “Christian galleys … that have been attacking Muslim ships on their way to and from Acre 23 24

Al-Tāzī, al-Wathāʾiq i, First collection 412–414. The letter also appears in al-Nāṣirī, Sallā wa Ribāṭ al-Fatḥ, but dated 22 July, iii, 89–91. Al-Tāzī, al-Wathāʾiq i, First collection 416–419.

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and Tyre”;25 under a century later, during the Ottoman-Venetian war over Crete, attacks on Muslim ships increased.26 Added to these dangers were the series of wars that erupted between Britain and France (1689–1698, 1701–1713, 1756– 1763) and which led to a dramatic rise in piracy and captivity. Because of the cooperation between Paris and Istanbul—for which Louis XIV was constantly denounced by his European counterparts—North African and Ottoman merchants and pilgrims boarded French ships for their travel in the Mediterranean. With the War of the Spanish Succession raging as of July 1701, the British started attacking French shipping. One ship, carrying 58 Muslims and traveling from Tunis to Alexandria, was seized by the British. An order was sent to the chief judge in Alexandria telling him to look into the matter of the “captives in the land of the hostile Christians, may God almighty destroy them.” The English not only took the Muslims captive, they also took all their money and merchandise, claiming false information to justify the attack: 29 May 1703 The captives are the following: the respectful Ḥusayn ibn ʿUthmān from Fizayrun [?], the honorable Suleymān ibn Suleymān ibn ʿAlī from Izmir, and from the port of Alexandria the noted Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm, the badrī Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥājj Ibrāhīm, the respectful Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥasan, and from [illegible] Muṣṭafā, and from the port of Rashid, Ḥajj ʿAlī and Ḥajj Aḥmad and from near Ḥawsh ʿĪsā in the county of al-Buḥayra [Egypt], ʿOmar ibn Ḥusayn and Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī and all the rest of the 58 men and women. None of the aforementioned captives was a native of the wijāq [regency] of Algiers in the West, or of the city of Tunis or of the wijāq of Tripoli in the West. The Christian ship of the English and the Flemish ship that captured the aforementioned Christian ship of the French: the captors claimed that the captured Muslims—men and women—were soldiers from Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. But that is not so, and what they say is untrue, for the captives are from the aforementioned regions.27 The captives, most of whom were Arabs, with a few Turks, had been caught in a war of the superpowers that were beginning to dominate both the western as 25 26

27

Heyd, Ottoman documents 128, 129. As Consul Rycaut noted in The present state of the Ottoman Empire 55. See also 91, where he adds that the Turks believe the sea to be the “Dominion and Possession” of the Christians, “but that the earth is the lot and inheritance of the Turks.” Maḥmūd, al-Qarṣana 155–157.

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well as the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Whether the 58 captives were found and released is not known, but they were not the only ones to pay the price for an inter-European conflict. Throughout the War of the Spanish Succession, the fleets and pirates of France inflicted heavy damages,28 and even when the two superpowers reached a peace treaty in Utrecht (1713–1715) and suspended maritime hostility, other regional pirates started attacking Muslim ships at such an increasing rate that the French and the British declared that they really could do nothing about the situation. In a proclamation of 5 October 1717, the pasha stated that the consuls in Egypt of these two countries had declared, “there were numberless pirates at sea, of various nationalities, who were attacking the Christian ships and seizing every one they found. There was now fear for the travelers and their merchandise on board such ships sailing to the lands of Islam. Thereat, the consuls declared that they would no longer permit the transport of Muslims and their goods on their ships.”29 In the aftermath of the maritime instability generated by the war, pirates holed up in islands from the Balearic to the Aegean, along with the Dunkirkers and the corsairs of Zeeland in the Netherlands, launched relentless attacks on all shipping, regardless of nationality or religion. The ordeals of captivity that devastated the Mediterranean were not just experienced by the captives. They also touched relatives who would know nothing about the fate of their breadwinners at sea. Months could pass without any information until news arrived, usually from ship owners or emissaries or returning captives, reporting whether the ship and its crew had reached their destination safely, had sunk, or had been seized by European pirates.30 Once the location of the captive was known, relatives tried to send letters to him (there are no letters sent to women), conveying reassuring information about home and inquiring about his condition. In 1706, Aḥmad Qardanāsh, a lead-

28 29 30

The number of prizes seized by the French during the War of the Spanish Succession was 6,577: Villiers, Les corsaires 39. Maḥmūd, al-Qarṣana 163–164. Captives who were taken to the Americas were beyond communication, unless they returned, as was the case of the “20 Turks” who were sent to Istanbul by Sir Walter Raleigh: see “The second voyage of Master Laurence Aldersey … anno 1586” in Hakluyt’s Voyages 182. A century later, Turkish captives who were no longer useful on the French galleys were sold in the American colonies, Mitford, The sun king, 36–37. In 1753, a Knight of Malta suggested that Muslim captives be shipped to Louisiana in order to increase the labor force in the American colonies: captives were moveable labor, be it across the Atlantic or into the various slave markets and bagnios stretching from Cadiz to Alexandria, Bamford, The Barbary pirates 14.

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Other contemporaneous jurists in Morocco, however, not connected with the court, were critical of al-Manṣūr for not doing enough to ransom other captured subjects. During the Wādī al-Makhāzin battle, Moroccans had been taken captive at the same time that their compatriots had captured a high number of Spanish and Portuguese soldiers. But while Ibn al-Qāḍī, a man of the court from a rich family, and as his name shows of the lineage of jurists, was ransomed quickly, captives without comparable credentials had been forgotten by al-Manṣūr. The jurist Sīdī Riḍwān al-Janawī,36 or Riḍwān the Weeper, albakkāʾ, as he was known (d. 1624), grew vociferous in his demands for action on behalf of his Muslim compatriots. He wrote to Mulay Aḥmad, demanding that he do something about the unransomed captives. He lamented how the “infidels” were able to return to their homelands while “our brethren” remained in captivity, in suffering and humiliation. “We are able,” he added, “not to have a single one of them remain in their [enemy’s] hands. Know that the priest of the Christians can ransom the most important of the Christians for very little money and return with them to their homelands—while we remain silent. It is certain that ransoming captives is a deed done for the glory of God.”37 He was irate that the Christian captives in Marrakesh were leading “privileged lives.”38 Criticism of rulers in failing to ransom captives was common, in North Africa and also in Europe: unknown and unimportant captives were not always a priority for rulers, and while families ever awaited the return of their breadwinners from captivity, captives did not always assume importance in the corridors of 36

37 38

As his name shows, al-Janawī was a convert to Islam, originally Genoese. The story of his conversion is as follows: Before his conversion, “Riḍwān ibn ʿAbdallāh went to church where he found a horse. He took it outside. When the Christians came and found the horse’s droppings [inside the church], they snatched at them and each took some home claiming that Jesus had visited their church the previous night—and the droppings were those of his beast. When Riḍwān saw that, he decided on the true religion and sought the land of Islam where he converted and married a Muslim woman from the People of the Book. Actually, I heard she was Jewish,” Sharḥ al-qaṣīda al-munfarija, Rabat, National Library, MS Dāl 370, 281. In al-Sharrāṭ’s al-Rawd al-ʿāṭir al-anfās, there is a continuation/alternative: eager to find the true religion, Riḍwān waited until a Christian asked him to accompany him to the lands of the Muslims for trade. He explained that should he not return, he trusted Riḍwān to inherit his store. They went to Tetouan where Riḍwān found an old Andalusian dignitary who taught him the shahadah, whereupon he became a Muslim. The merchant tried to dissuade him, but he refused, whereupon the merchant gave him 30 ounces and wished him well. About the wife, al-Sharrāṭ added that she had been one of the exiles from the lands of the Christians who had converted to Islam, citing information from Tuḥfat al-ikhwān wa mawāhib al-imtinān fī manāqib Sīdī Riḍwān 168– 169. See the study and reproduction of the letters in al-Mannūnī, Wathīqatān. As described by a Portuguese captive, see Mark, Free, unfree, captive, slave 105.

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must, you must, you must. Peace be with you and the mercy and blessings of almighty God. Peace. Written with the approval of your sister Fāṭima. May God be with all through the intercession of the Prophet. Peace.32 The fact that the family members were asking for help from the captive shows the impact of the captivity of the breadwinner: in their impoverishment, they could only turn to him. The relatives may have known that some captives were put to work and were paid for their labors—and so, they hoped that their relative would help them, even in his captivity. At the same time, there was anxiety that the captive might have converted to Christianity, thereby assimilating into his new society and forgetting all about his past: thus the references to all the members of the family who awaited his return. On some occasions, Arab captives wrote letters to the rulers of their captors, and with language full of praise and rhetorical flourish, they hoped to appeal to their kindness. They described their conditions and pleaded for help—even though many of them knew that in the case of the French, the need for rowing muscles on the fleet militated against liberation. One letter to Comte de Pontchartrain from 44 Turkish captives in Toulouse was written in Turkish but survives in a French translation. It was sent to the “Ministre de la Marine” and recorded the captives’ complaint about hunger and “tres petit pain,” or very little bread, after which the captives listed their names and places of origin: “Constantinople,” “Candie,” Algiers, Tunis, and Cyprus. Next to their names were their galley numbers.33 Similarly, Arab captives addressed letters to men in authority. In the letter below, the writer used all the Arabic rhetorical display he could muster, describing the sorrow of separation from his brother, a captive in Paris whom he had met during his stay in Marseille. How did he recognize him after decades of separation? What is striking in the letter, however, is his appeal to national identity. Stating that he was a Tunisian, he believed that his place of origin would help in gaining freedom for his brother. He explained that his brother had been a captive for 33 years and had been seized not at a time of war between Tunisia and France: if his dates are correct, the brother was captured in the early 1680s when France was at war with Algiers. Movingly but naïvely, and thinking that his letter would be read in the French court, as letters were read to the beys of Tunis, he wrote the opening in rhymed prose to convey a literary value worthy of the recipient:

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AN Paris, Marine B/7/223/BIS 5. BnF, Fond Français, 10780, f. 24v.

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28 March 1707 To the dear sir, the glittering gold, our sayyid the grand vizier Ibn Sharṭān [Pontchartrain] may God make joyous your days and may He lengthen your life and make every day for you a thousand years of greatness and honor.34 Know Sīdī, I am a Tunisian man and came to your country to the city of Marseille to trade. In that city, I found my brother, a captive of yours on the ship al-Iskātāntā, who had been a captive for 33 years, serving the sultan [French king] on that ship. He is 54 years old and was seized by ships from Toulon at a time when there had been a truce between you and us. He had been on a ship of janissaries belonging to Tunis. Now, Sīdī, may God make you victorious and glorify your days and defeat your enemies: we ask you to be gracious and free my brother. We implore you by God almighty and we implore you by our master ʿĪsā ibn Mariam [Jesus son of Mary] and we implore you by our lady Mariam daughter of ʿImrān [Q 19:28]. We implore you, Sīdī, by all the prophets to be gracious to my brother and make things right for him by ordering whomever your highness commands [to release him]. Know, Sīdī, that the captain of the aforementioned ship likes the captive very much because the latter has personally served him for the past five years and has not been at the oar. Now that I am in your country, do not disappoint me in my brother, may God almighty never disappoint you in anything. My brother’s name is Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad the Tunisian, on the ship al-Iskātāntā, and his number is two thousand four hundred and forty-six, 2446. If you will be willing to free my brother, know that I live in Marseille in the canton of Dalbro.35 Release came only after the payment of the ransom sum. On 9 November, “Moustapha Mahamat” was released: “Royal order, Marly, 9 Nov 1707: liberty for Moustapha Mahamet de Tunis, No. 2446 by paying 400 liv.”36 At the beginning of the age of nations in Europe and by refraction in North Africa, regional/ national identity appeared to captives as a useful way of appeal. Because

34

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A few months earlier, Ḥusayn Dey (reg. 1705–1735) sent a letter to Comte de Pontchartrain (7 January 1707) seeking the release of six Algerians who had been captured by the French on board a Saletian ship, see Plantet, Correspondance des deys d’ Alger ii, 61–62. AN Paris, Marine B/7/223/BIS 3. The information about his release was graciously furnished to me by Professor Gillian Weiss: AN, Marine, B6 40, fols. 388r–390r.

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French and other European captors saw all Moors and Turks as one undifferentiated community of “Moors,” captives started to refer to their national origins, especially when they knew that their rulers and countries had peace treaties with their captors. At the same time, and as in the above letter, some captives moved beyond this appeal to nationality by invoking religious commonality. This kind of appeal had been used in Al-Andalus, when the two religious communities were still on the same land, contiguous in peace and war, and importantly, may well have spoken the same language. Muslim writers—both captives and ransomers—believed that reminding the Christian captors of the shared prophetic tradition between Christianity and Islam could prove efficacious. In 1240, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī al-Tjībī was “tested” by the captivity of some of his relatives. Unable to raise the money needed to ransom them, he wrote an appeal to “frere Asib Badra,” the priest of Tarkona, the city where they were held, informing him that the captives were his uncle, Ḥasan, another uncle, two brothers, Muḥammad and Ibrāhīm, their mother Dhabya, and their friend Muḥammad from Tlemcen. The writer appealed to the priest by reference to the unity of the Abrahamic tradition: In the name of Allāh Almighty, Creator of mankind from a single soul, molder of their bodies from the same matter. He molded them all in truth into one womb. Were they to know what it was that their bodies shared, and how their souls emanated from one soul, which was hypostatized by the spirit of Allāh, they would have continued to act in unity and refrained from bloodshed, and stopped acting like lions leaping on ewes so that Allāh took revenge for some against others, and let some to exercise their might against others. Each will be rewarded in accordance with his deeds. He stressed the need for keeping close physical, mental, and spiritual relationships in accordance with the law [revealed to] Ibrāhīm [Abraham], Allāh’s favorite from among the entire body of followers of the straight path. He made him father of all: Yaʿqūb [Jacob], son of Isḥāq [Isaac]’s offspring, father of al-Aṣfar [often used to refer to Portuguese], father of all the Rūm and the tribes of the sons of Ismāʿīl [Ishmael], son of Ibrāhīm [Abraham] and father of all the Arabs. That was to make it more understandable for them to be united and in harmony with each other. The Muslim cleric employed religious language that bridged Christianity to Islam. Impressively, he was able to promote such bridging even after the ongoing defeat of the Arab-Muslim population in Al-Andalus: the battle of al-ʿUqāb in 1212 and the siege of Cordoba 1236. He emphasized the commonality of

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or before they were conquered. If before, continued the debate, and they had been pagan, was it permissible to enslave them even if they converted afterward on the basis that they had not been Muslim at the time of their defeat? This racial issue had emerged in al-Manṣūr’s attempt to justify his invasion. After all, it was known that the Sudanese were Muslim and Arabic-speaking, and there was no possible legal justification for a Muslim to attack fellow Muslims. Scholars in the court bluntly told al-Manṣūr that and tried to dissuade him from the invasion, but he justified himself by pointing to his descent from the Prophet Muḥammad. That descent, he declared, gave legitimacy to his role as caliph over the Muslims—because only he who was a descendent of the Prophet’s tribe, Quraysh, and the Prophet’s clan, Hashim, could be caliph. The Sudanese, he declared, should submit to him because of his religious leadership. When such an argument failed to convince the court jurists, alManṣūr turned to a racial argument to justify his conquest of the Sudan. As the name indicates, the land was defined by color—Land of the Blacks. It was, he declared in a letter, with his swords of Qurayshite Hashim that “he had defeated the yellow-skinned enemies [the Portuguese] as well as the blackskinned of Sūdān. And it was by the prophetic light of the caliphate which upholds his dynasty that he chased the night away from the people where the crow has croaked since the days of Ham. God answered the prayer that this [Saʿdian] dynasty bring together the race of Shem with the race of Ham.”43 The justification of conquest was that the conqueror brought the black-skinned inhabitants under the fold of the Qurayshite/Hashimite (White?) descendants of Shem.44 This argument was the focus of al-Tinbaktī’s rebuttal. He turned to numerous jurists and historians, including Ibn Khaldūn (d. 1406) and Abū al-Faḍl al-Suyūtī (d. 1475) and gave a forceful answer: Muslims cannot be enslaved because the only “reason for enslavement is unbelief,” and those who are “free Muslims … may not be enslaved under any circumstance.”45 In an important development of the discussion, al-Tinbaktī confronted the claim that the Blacks were sons of Ham who had been cursed by his father for watching him bathe and were thus punished by blackness. Drawing on Ibn Khaldūn, he argued that the black color of the skin was not a result of divine punishment but of climate and geography.46 After finishing his treatise, al-Tinbaktī went on 43 44 45 46

De Castries, La conquête du Soudan 449. See my The Maliki imperialism of Aḥmad al-Manṣūr 155. Al-Tinbaktī, Miʿrāj al-ṣuʿūd 27. For a detailed study of al-Tinbaktī’s critique of racialized slavery, see Cleaveland, Aḥmad Baba al-Timbukti.

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corrections, suggesting a final draft with carefully planned wording. The tone of the letter, however, is not that of pleading and groveling, as might be expected, but of anger and defiance: 1707 We, the captives in Marseille, write to complain to you and to God about what has happened and what is happening to us at the hands of the overseers of your government whom you have assigned over us. They have tyrannized over us and so we turn to our master with our complaint. If you are our master, you will redress our grievances, which is what we want; but if you do not redress them, we will send a letter of complaint to our lord, Mulay Ismāʿīl, and to others in Algiers and in Tripoli, and to all other cities to wreak vengeance on the Christians there, both merchants and captives. However, we are writing to you so you can issue your command. If you do not do that, we shall write to our countrymen to exact vengeance—as we have duly informed you. What has happened is the following: we are captives and you graciously granted us land in which to bury our dead. We have built and paid for it [cemetery], and whenever one section of it has needed repairs, we have done so.40 Whenever one of us falls sick, we look after him, and if he is admitted to the hospital and recovers in accordance with God’s will, we furnish him with some of the alms [ṣadaqa] until he regains his full health. If one of us is liberated, we give him some of that money so he can return to his country. The alms are collected from the possessions of dead captives. When one dies and leaves behind him some money, we use it for charity in those matters we have just described such as repairing the cemetery if it collapses, helping the sick, and assisting the old shaykhs and the blind. We use the charity money only in these situations. The same situation applies to Christians who are captives in Muslim cities.41 They do the same thing, collect money from each other and help 40

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For Algerian cemeteries in France, see Belhamissi, Les captifs 59–61; and Dakhlia, Musulmans en France et en Grande-Bretagne 289–293. For the cemetery in Marseille, see Bertrand, Les cimetières des “esclaves turcs.” The cemetery for the “Turcs esclaves du roi” had been built a few decades earlier when the arsenal was being enlarged. The repairs which the captive mentions were often done on the wall that separated the Muslim cemetery from the cemetery of the Christian “forçats” 207. See also ch. 18 in Anselme des Arcs, Mémoires; and Hershenzon, The captive sea 130–132 on complaints about the desecration of cadavers. For European cemeteries in North Africa, see Soumille, Le cimètiere européen. The cemetery in Algiers was named after Saint Antoine. There were also cemeteries in Tunis, Tripoli,

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each other. Nobody interferes in anything they do. Now: one of the captives has died and has left in this world some dirhams and some possessions. He had a business partner in everything they sold and bought. Nevertheless, the intendant and the commissioner gave to the partner of the dead man the half that was his, but they kept the other half. We spoke to them and asked them to give us back the other half, but they refused and said that they had already informed the sultan of their action. Now, Sir, if you need the personal belongings of the captive—then the matter is in God’s hands. But we told them: far from it that the sultan should need the possessions of a captive, nor would he approve of such an action. We have hereby informed you, Sir, and presented you with our complaint so you would return to us the possessions of the dead captive. Otherwise, we shall write to our countries. Peace.42 The address on the letter was followed by the following sentences: Know, O master, that your consuls, merchants, and priests reside in all Muslim cities. In our country, no one interferes with the poor Christian captives: if one captive dies and leaves behind him some belongings, the priests take his belongings for the church and extend alms to the poor among the captives. In Algiers, nobody bothers the captives and none takes their belongings—neither the sultan or the minister or anybody else. However, here, unjustly and by force, they took our belongings. This is not right for the honor of the sultanate. Peace. The language of the letter is blunt. The writer/s somehow believed that they could threaten the king and demand better treatment. While the above captive thought he could threaten the French monarch, the reality on the ground was quite different. Algeria could not confront France or the other superpower, Britain. In 1723, the dey sent a letter to the British monarch, full of helpless pleading: “Sometime agoe, severall of our subjects were taken under your

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and Meknes. See also the detailed study with illustrations of the cemetery and surviving grave markers of Englishmen and others in the Anglican Church in Tunis: Pringle, An expatriate community. AN Paris, Marine B/7/ 224/60. The letter is reproduced in Vannān, Nuṣūṣ 146–148. Interestingly, the French translation of the letter does not include the last paragraph. For another letter that he wrote—this one on behalf of himself and dated 1 November 1707—see my translation in Europe through Arab eyes 230–232.

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Colours & made Slaves. You promised to release them but being delay’d a long time, some have redeemed themselves, and one being much tormented, killed himself, and when we enquir’d of your Consul here, concerning this matter he answers that you are fully acquainted therewith, but we signifie it to you again, that we may be Certify’d of the truth therof, and we hope you will according to your promise, speedily free them out of Slavery.”43 The North African had only promises and hopes in his dealing with an indifferent George I. With the improvement in communication, rulers on both sides of the Mediterranean were apprised about their subjects in captivity and took pains to protect them. Captives kept a network that furnished them with information about conditions elsewhere, at the same time that they communicated—if their letters got through—with their captors and their rulers, and with fellow captives around the Mediterranean. North African rulers repeatedly wrote to their European counterparts complaining how pirates raided their shores and seized their subjects to slavery.44 To add insult to injury, European consuls sometimes plotted with sea captains to haul Muslim travelers on board European ships to the slave markets in the Christian port cities. In 1716, a French ship left from Algiers with pilgrims to Mecca, stopped to pick up more pilgrims in Tunis, and then veered north to sell them all in Sicily.45 At the same time, there are various letters by (or written on behalf of) captives or by stranded merchants that have survived both in the French and British archives. North African merchants who fell prey to the piracy of either of those two countries found themselves enslaved, and if and when liberated, they traveled to Paris or London in the hope of appealing for the return of their goods. The following letter of 1731 shows the ordeal that one captive endured who desperately wanted to believe that he could retrieve his stolen goods—or receive compensation for them. In the Ottoman Empire, victims complained to the sultan’s officials in the hope of redress;46 but rulers in Morocco and the regencies had limited power and resources, and so the victims traveled to European capitals in the hope of assistance. As traders went to England, they found themselves in a land they did not know and where they did not have a com-

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TNA SP 102/1/132v (18 August 1723). Even European captives, from the sixteenth-century on, had commented on such attacks. In the 1580s, the English captive in Algeria, Richard Hasleton, commented how the Spanish attacked the Algerian coast and carried “men … to make galley slaves,” Vitkus, ed., Piracy 87. Plantet, Correspondance des deys d’Alger ii, 93–94, letter from Ali Dey to King Louis XV, 15 May 1717. Van den Boogert, Redress for Ottoman victims 94.

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God willing, before the time is come, I will repay you the money.” I then took the money and gave it to the soldiers who immediately released all the children. When I saw my dearest son, ʿOmar, may God protect him, all the faces of people that had earlier been grim smiled at me. Flowers of relief blossomed after they had withered. Then, at the beginning of Jamadi I [September], we entered Beirut the protected where we stayed for a while, and at the beginning of Shaʿban [three months later] of the following year, we returned to our country.50 As in European captivity situations, Ibn Karāma was able to leave his captors and travel to raise the ransom money for himself and his family. What surety he offered to the lenders is not mentioned, since they seemed to be hard-nosed about the loan. Strangely, Ibn Karāma said nothing about the rest of the captives, some 175 of them. Presumably, they too endured what God willed for them, whether in raising ransom money or being sold into slavery. Finally, the only place names mentioned are Sidon and Beirut—and so, the captivity took place in the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean, “which were amongst the richest in potential prizes [for the pirates] in the whole Mediterranean.”51 The captors were most likely Maltese, but like other Arab captives, Ibn Karāma did not bother to describe them beyond denouncing them for their infidelity and for the suffering they had caused him and his family. He mentioned that some of his fellow travelers had been killed: had they fought back and were killed or had they been thrown overboard because they were deemed by the captors not to be worth a ransom? Without a ruler to praise for his liberation, the captive focused on the will of God more than on the details of the ordeal, as he showed how much he had submitted—but had also exerted individual agency toward gaining his and his family’s freedom. As in the case of Ibn al-Qāḍī, and possibly Ibn Karāma, many captivities were linked to Malta. By 1576, just over ten years after repelling the Ottoman navy in its famous siege of the island (1565), Maltese pirates/Knights of St. John were sailing the Eastern Mediterranean and attacking Muslim ships. In June 1576, a French ship docked in Alexandria—the French being on good terms with the Ottomans since the capitulations between Sultan Suleymān and King Francis I earlier in the century. The ship captain warned that five Maltese galleys and two galleons were moving to attack the coast having already threatened the

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Reproduced in al-Bakhīt, Aḥdāth bilād Ṭarābulus al-Shām 186–188. Earle, Corsairs 110.

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In the English translation, the letter reads quite differently: it is polite, more restrained, and drastically edited. It subdues the Arab voice in favor of an English voice that made it stylistically and politically acceptable. It also moved the letter from the spontaneity of a bewildered merchant to the “proper” language of eighteenth-century royal address. The translation opens with a long section of honorific titles. Since this flourish is not by Muḥammad himself, the translator, Jezreel Jones (recognizable by his hand),50 may have felt that such flourish was expected of Arabic writers and that King George expected such flourish, too: Peace of God Prosperity and long life to The King our Lord, and to His Royall Progeny successe and all Happiness; after our humble duty & acknowledgment saluting Your Royall hands, prostrating at Your Royall Feet, with all duty full wishes, and respect for the glorious Memory of your Royall Father in Glory; and hopeing the Choisest blessings from God for the long life of the Queen Your Royall consort & all her Royall Posterity. The translation continues with the story, which Muḥammad had told, but without the angry exclamations or recriminations. While sailing under the English flag from Tripoli to Crete, he, Muḥammad, and other merchants from Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis had been attacked by a French ship that seized them and took them to Malta. He was beaten and wounded, and then, along with his brother and the “Blacks,” was sold, and their effects seized, despite the “Peace & alliance between the English and the French.” He was able to procure his freedom but he could not go to Paris and present his grievance there. Therefore, he decided to come to England. He spent five months on the journey, and after six weeks in London, he was not able to find “any body to assist him” nor to introduce him “to Your Majesty, being a Stranger.” He had approached the king’s secretary for a “Loan or subsistence to keep me alive” since “I had noe Freind by God and Your Majesty” and hoped that the king would help him with “Clothes and Food against the Cold & rain of this climate, which I fear otherwise would be insupportable. The 6. of Rabea the first. 1143 of the Hegira” (19 September

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to France so they could make their way home: see the letter of 1748 describing six Algerians who had been captured by the English but made their way to France and were given assistance to return to their country, reproduced in Belhamissi, Les captifs 136–137. By 1765, there were also escaped captives from Spain in France, ibid. 140–141. As naval technology changed, the French no longer needed the high number of slaves for their fleet and sent captives back to their countries. Jezreel Jones was the English representative in Morocco who dealt with Moroccan captives, visitors, and ambassadors in London.

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1730). Arriving in European cities to claim justice, still carrying the keys to the coffers in which he had kept his possessions, Muḥammad soon faced the cold climate and the different language, with no one to help him financially.51 The petition includes the list of possessions that had been seized by the French; the amount of capital that had been invested by the Moroccan and the other merchants; and the financial disaster that befell this small group of entrepreneurs because of European piracy. The list mentions various sums of money, along with an “English watch, and a Dager with Scabard and Garnish of silver: These were Taken & carryd by a lame or limping Drummer, who struck & wounded this mercht with a Cimiter.” In another “Wooden Chest,” there were the following items: 800 Sevill Dollars amongst which were 200 ditto of Legorn current money; This Mercht has still ye key ofthis chest; 14 Ps of Muslin, ye rest contained wearing apparrell & c. 400 Muslins of Egypt, 17 Dozn of fine Tunis Crimson Caps for Turks; 31 Turky skins wch the French men made buskins of; 200 White skins; * two Gold rings, & one of them with a jewell cost 60 dollars & a halfe; *These were taken by ye Mate or Pilot when they Striped him they were in his shoose.52 Without the British king’s intervention and compensation, Muḥammad and his fellow merchants did not believe they would get any help or would be able to relaunch their commercial enterprise. Where the petitioner might have been able to gain access to his own ruler in Morocco, on the day that rulers often designated for their subjects, he would not be able to reach King George, especially with a petition in Arabic and without an advocate at court. Whatever the fate of his petition was, it is an important document that records the voice of the petitioner in his own idiom and emotional outburst. European piracy was causing economic destabilization in North Africa: for, Muḥammad and his fellow investors were not part of stock-holding or royal companies, similar to those that had developed in England, Holland, and France over a century earlier; rather, theirs was an individual venture. Muḥammad’s loss of capital would bring about the collapse of his whole trade. The desperateness of men like him continued for decades as British and French ships pillaged Muslim traders at sea. In May 1733, the Tunisian Bey sent an emissary to the “sultan of the English,

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TNA SP 71/23/46. “A copy was attached in Arabic.” TNA SP 71/23/29–31, 45–46.

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may God extend his days” (accompanied by a letter from the British “consul Laurence”) to retrieve the eight leather skins, two bags of coffee, one bag of cotton, a small amount of raisins, twelve barrels of dates, a barrel of ʿaraq (arak?), a small quantity of botarga, and some clothes, a mattress, and copper belongs. It is not known if Muḥammad Ibn Muṣṭafā the emissary did get these items back; again, the list shows the scant goods that were being traded by Muslims.53 19 February 1713 In 1713, perhaps the strangest “captivity” occurred. Bentura de Zari, at least that is how he wrote his name,54 was an Armenian Christian who was sent as ambassador to London by Mulay Ismāʿīl in 1710.55 In the October 1709 letter to Queen Anne (reg. 1702–1714), Mulay Ismāʿīl had introduced him as “Bentura al-Armanī” (the English translation reads “Venturo the Armenian Merchant”). Bentura described himself, rather unproblematically, as representing Mulay Ismāʿīl, calling Morocco “my Country.” How an Armenian came to be in Morocco is unclear, but there were Armenians in the Mediterranean who traded in silk and who had established churches in Livorno, Venice, and Amsterdam. These communities could well have started from the Armenian migrations from Istanbul and Thrace at the beginning of the seventeenth century and that joined the “trade and information exchange of the Mediterranean Basin.”56 A small community was in Cadiz, where Bentura might have been based and from where he could have traveled to Meknes; the only letters that survive in his hand are in Spanish. Why Ismāʿīl chose him as his emissary to London is unclear, since Bentura did not seem to have any contacts in England. Although there was a small Armenian community there, at no point did Bentura refer to it or appeal to it for help during his stay.57 After arriving and having his audience with Queen Anne, Bentura learned that Moroccan pirates captured an English ship. In retaliation, the English authorities ordered him “confin’d” to his house, just behind Westminster, where he spent his time writing letters of complaint to the secretary of state. He was not a captive in the usual sense of the word, enslaved to the oar or to hard labor; nevertheless, house arrest deprived him of his freedom, his servants, and most importantly, his cook. None of the letters that have survived by him were writ53 54 55 56 57

TNA 71/28/345–346. I am grateful to Mr. Levon Nazarian who confirmed that the signature is Armenian, but difficult to read. For a brief account about him, see Rogers, A history of Anglo-Moroccan relations 77–81; and my The last Moors. Shapiro, The great Armenian flight 89. Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean 77–82.

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of Christian-Muslim disputations and polemics in the Mediterranean regions of Islam; captivity, along with ambassadorial missions, furnished a rare occasion for religious encounter, not in the safety of Damascus or Jerusalem, but in the Christian heartland of the Knights.

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Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib al-Tafilātī al-Mālikī (al-Ḥanafī al-Maghribī) The mufti of Noble Quds [Jerusalem] scholar of the age, superseding all his contemporaries, young and old: he was a litterateur, a poet of fine verse, nimble in composition, and extremely intelligent. He was born in the Far West [Morocco, as his name suggests in Tafilalt] and memorized the Quran according to the tarīqa [Sufi order] of Imām Dānī when he was eight years old. He studied under his father, who was average in his learning, and read with him the ujrūmiyya, and with Shaykh Muḥammad al-Saʿdī al-Jazāʾirī the sanūsiyya and a treatise on worship and jurisprudence. In turn, he taught the sanūsiyya to pupils, even before reaching puberty. He left his country by land towards Tripoli of the West [Libya], never neglecting prayer or fasting. From Tripoli, he boarded a ship to the Azhar Mosque and studied in Egypt under the aforementioned shaykhs for two years and eight months. He then went to visit his mother and as he was at sea, he was captured by the Ifranj [Franks] who took him to the bastion of infidelity, may God almighty protect him, where he remained for two years and some days. The monks of the island [Malta] started disputing with him, and because there was one monk who knew Arabic and logic, the disputation lasted about eight days, after which God silenced them and brought on them confusion and bewilderment. They were completely reined in. One of the issues that he disputed with the monk was the matter of the deification of ʿĪsā. A Christian elder said, “O Muḥammadan, the ḥaqīqa [truth] of ʿĪsā was united with the truth of God and so they became one truth.” I replied, “It is not clear how they were before they were united: either they both were eternal or both created, or one was eternal and the other created. All other possibilities are false and so are all other unions. As for the first union, it can only happen to what is created because it is a synthesis of parts and so every synthesis cannot but be of what is created—and what is created cannot pertain to godhood. As for the second, it is false. And the third is false, too, because if the eternal is united, it will become

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Neither of these, I am sure, my Lord, can be my Case, and I hope it will not be thought reasonable that I should answer at the perill of my health and Liberty for every Action committed by my Master or his Subjects after the Expiration of the Truce. But it will appear still more unjust my Lord, that I should be confin’d for general complaints before any Memorial has been lodg’d with me to transmit to my Principall where no fact has been verified, nor my redress (as I can learn) in a proper way either demanded or refused. You will, I am sure my Lord, do me the Justice to remember that it is not my fault that the Truce has not been long since renewed, for I have always done my Endeavours to maintain a good Correspondence between the two Nations, and upon such Complaints as have been delivered to me, I have poured effectual Redress for her Britannic Majestys Subjects, which is a further Reason why I should have been exempt from all treatment of this nature. I Bless God, My Lord, that I was born a Christian, am so still, and in that Faith, I hope to live and die and tho’ it be my Lott to represent a Mohamedan Prince, whom God will in his due time (I hope) illuminate as a Christian [;] therefore I patiently submitt to such Misfortunes as it pleases God to visit me with, and as a Christian I have hitherto represented my Confinement in such Modest Terms to the Emperor my Master as will not I hope provoke him to retaliate on the Queens Subjects as might be Justifiable upon so signal an Affront offered to his Imperial Dignitie. But my Lord as a Man, and as a Minister to so Potent a Prince I cannot help complaining and demanding speedy redress. For neither the defraying of my Charges whils’t I am in Custody, nor the Paymt nor allowances for Franchise which the Queen has usually Granted to my Predecessors can be sufficient Compensation for the Loss of my Time, health and Liberty; much less will they satisfy my Master for the Affront he has received in my Person when he shall think fit to resent it, which I fear will be too soon, if more care be not taken to prevent the increasing of this Evill. I am, My Lord, Your Lordships Most Obedient and humble Servt.

North African regions, see Heinsen-Roach, Consuls and captives 112–117. Evidently, by 1700, Europeans did not oppose “the habit of detaining ambassadors in reprisals” 113.

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would have answered that he had read it in our books and so he would not believe me. I therefore offered definite, rational proof because he would accept evidence from no other source. Then, the eldest scholar among them denied the prophecies of our Prophet, the Perfect Master. He said, “We have a just law.” I said, “Why do you not accept his prophecies?” He said, “We do not accept them because we see the harshness of his tyranny.” I answered, “Is he not the Prophet that performed miracles and saw into the deepest mysteries?” One of the elders said, “What miracle did he perform and what mysteries did he unravel?” So, I told them some of the miracles, the greatest being the Quran. I also mentioned some of the mysteries. He said, “I have read Bukhārī from among your scholars and he mentioned some of the miracles.”64 He then continued, “He [Muḥammad] was taught it [the Quran] by a youth,” referring to the Almighty’s words: innamā yʿualimuhū bashar [he was taught by humans, Q 16:103]. I said, “By God, what was the language of that youth?” He answered, “Non-Arabic” [ʿajamī]. I said, “By God, what is the language of our Prophet?” He answered, “Arabic.” I said, “By God, did our Prophet read and write or was he unlettered [ummī]?” He answered, “Unlettered. He could neither read nor write.” I said, “By God, have you ever heard of an Arab seeking knowledge from a non-Arab?” He answered: “No,” fully aware that he had been silenced. He paused and then continued, “How does your Quran say, “O sister of Hārūn” [Aaron, brother of Moses] although there is a thousand years between her and him?” I said, “You are a non-Arab and you do not know how the language of the Arabs is expressed.” “What do you mean?” he asked. I answered, “The word brother is applied in the language of the Arabs both to a real brother and to a metaphoric one. Here the latter is meant. The meaning of the verse is the following, ‘You who are known among us for chastity and piety and submission, just like Hārūn who had all these qualities of perfection.’ This kind of usage is common in Arabic—in the Arabs’ conversations and dialogues.” And so that ass of a shaykh was stuck in the mud. Looking at me, young as I was (I was then nineteen years old), he said, “You could be my grandson. How did you come by all this knowledge?” I answered, “All that you asked me today is really a beginner’s knowledge. If you continue debating with me, you will hear what will deafen your ears. So, it is enough.”

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Al-Bukhārī, d. AD875, was a collector of one of the two famous compendia of Hadith.

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attitudes, they belong to the harsh world of negotiations, uncertainty, and international tensions, forcing humiliation on the deys and the beys and reflecting their inability to act in the presence of superior European navies. In the case of letters by captives, they give voice to the nonelites—the common mariner and his relatives—in language that was simple and blunt, often on scraps of paper, in local dialects and in hasty handwriting, using every space on the page, even corners and margins. Other letters reflected the lived experiences of captives: unfamiliar with the culture and epistolary protocol of their captors, writers fell back on their local styles of composition, most likely generating amusement rather than sympathy among their European recipients who would have found their bombast and rhetorical flourish meaningless. In the throes of captivity, uncertain if ever they would return, unsure about ransoms, resigned to the cruelty of their captors, captives wrote with urgency and hope, believing sometimes the appeal to Jesus and Mary would effect their release from the chains of a benevolent Christian. The stories in the letters of the captives reached the ears of their rulers in Meknes and Algiers and Tunis, and from these stories, the rulers, as well as the captives’ kith and kin, learned about the Naṣārā across the sea, those captors who were threatening their coasts, destroying their livelihoods, and seizing sailors along with women and children from Agadir to Sidon. But sometimes, although rarely, captives told stories of gratitude to their liberators—as the following Moroccan captive promised to do in a 1720 letter (that has survived only in the English translation): To the Kings Most Excellent Majesty [George I]: The Petition of Aly, ben Moosa Zefzef. Humbly sheweth That in the year 1720 of the Christian AEra your Petitionr was a Collonell of Horse under the Command of His Excly The Basha, & cheife commander under Ahmed ben Aly, Basha, Generall, and Commander in Chief of all His Imperiall Majesty. The Emperor Of Moroco’s & Fess’s Forces against The Spaniards at the Siege of Ceuta,62 where your Petitionr was shot and then taken & carried Prisoner in the first Battle with the Marquis de Lira and remained in slavery, under Lieutenant Generall Chaves, Formerly Governor of Majorca, whose affairs calling him to the court of Madrid where your Pettr attended on him as a Menial Servant, Through Devine Providence found means & Opportunity from thence, to make his Escape to 62

For a description of the battle of Ceuta, see Tāwīt, Tarīkh Sabta 194–198, along with the poetry that was composed, calling for the liberation of the outpost that was “held captive,” asīra, by the Spaniards.

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Porto in Portugal, and from thence, in a British vessel, To Bristol, and so to This Most Happy & Magnificent Court, ever Blessed with your Majesty, whom God Long Preserve, with your Royall Consort and Family. Wherefore your Pettr to Compleat his happiness Prostrate himself at your Royall Feet, Humbly Praying that your Majesty will Graciously Extend your Bounty to your Petitioner to assist him in his further Progress That he may arrive safely To his own Country where He will acknowledge the Goodness Your Majesty abounds in, and Ever think it his Duty to Improve the Harmonious Interest of your Majesty together with that of His Masters. And in Duty & Submission shall Pray. I doe hereby certify that the Petitioner, Aly ben Moosa Zefzef, is a Native and Subject of the Emperor of Moroco, and that whilst I was in Barbary, I was well acquainted with the Petitioners Father Moosa Zefzef, who was a Favorite of the Alcaides, the present Basha Ahamed ben Alys Father, and an intimate Freind of his. Jezreel Jones.63 63

TNA SP 71/21/23–24.

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Divine Intervention: Christian and Islamic When you step on board a ship, repeat the basmalah and the fātiḥa seven times, and invoke God against Satan: for these will protect you from drowning, burning, or being taken captive.1

∵ In Spanish literary accounts, God intervened in the liberation of captives through the Virgin Mary, whom captives invoked and sometimes saw in visions and dreams. For Protestant writers, God spoke through the silent prayer of the captives and their reading of the Bible; and for Muslims, there were dreams of the Prophet and interventions of holy men who with their karāmāt were able to effect the captives’ freedom even from faraway distances. Arab authors remembered these karāmāt for generations and repeated them in their biographies and hagiographies of holy men and women. As with the Stories of the saints in the Catholic tradition, the lives and miracles of Muslim holy men and women inspired later believers and demonstrated the continuing efficacy of visiting tombs and shrines. Both Christians and Muslims believed in miracles, not only to effect freedom but also to demonstrate the truthfulness of their religion and the power of their God.

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Only one account has survived in Arabic that tells of the miraculous liberation of Mediterranean Christian captives from Muslim hands. It is poorly written, but it includes the report on the captivity of three monks from Italy who remain nameless. The episode seems more hagiographic than historical, but interestingly, it does not end with a Christian victory of converting the Muslims. There is a kind of amity, and of course, admiration on the part of Muslims for the miracle-performing monk—but the monk denounces the infidels at the end

1 Al-Zayānī, al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā 153.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_006

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Sayyid ʿAlī ibn al-Sayyid Aḥmad (1713) I was living in Egypt and traveling among its friendly people, spreading knowledge by preaching and teaching when I decided to visit my relatives, and so I left with my family and servants to the city of Sidon. I arrived safely where I stayed for about six months, and then I decided to return to Egypt with my family, children, and attendants. We boarded a ship at the beginning of Rajab 1125 [July 1713] and as we were sailing we encountered a corsair ship from among the people of Malta, may they be cursed. We veered away and fled from them for a day but then they caught up with us and we knew that we were to be taken captive. We recited the verses of deliverance and called out invocations to the best of mankind [the Prophet Muḥammad]. We were seized, and I said to them [members of his family]: “There can be no escape from what God has ordained, and there is no doubt of meeting Him.” By God’s decree, I felt the surrender of submission and the sweetness of acceptance. I confirmed to them: “God has granted us four blessings: life and wealth are His, but honor and religion He gave to us. O God, we lay our honor and religion before You, You are the steadfast.” The corsairs took over our ship and the Christians boarded it brandishing their firearms. They did not hurt us at all, and God granted us peace of mind. They stripped all the Muslims of their possessions except my wife: none of the corsairs drew near her nor did they take any of our belongings except the bracelets hidden in a qinbāz [around her waist]. But she was able to keep a gold necklace and an ankle bracelet which she had hidden in the swaddling bands of her daughter, to whom she had just given birth. They pushed us out of our ship into theirs, may they be cursed, and shackled all the Muslims in irons and then pushed them down the belly of the ship—all but me and my family and children, by the mercy of God. Instead, they kept us in the ship captain’s cabin after he had vacated it for us, may he be cursed. The captain turned to calm our fears, we alone among all the captives, and he honored us and our children, we alone among all the Muslims. He was very respectful and protected our religion and honor—all because of His almighty benevolence and care. The ship sailed to Malta at night in the middle of Shaʿban [6 September 1713]. I, the poor [before God], spent that night in reading what was appropriate in that blessed night.73 In the morning, the counselors of the

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Some Hadiths urge prayer and supplication on the night of 15 Shaʿban.

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who caused the right hands of those who tried to strike him to wither.” Shaykhs with long beards who were sitting near the prince and known as the Just Ones said, “If he is a magician, he will not be able to heal a withered hand. Let him pray in front of us to see if he is a servant of God [ʿabd Allāh].” After saying this, they told the monk to pray and so he went down on his knees and stretched his hands to heaven and slowly said, “Our Lord, Jesus Christ, you who performed great miracles in the world by raising the dead, healing the lepers, giving sight to the blind, and often healing the withered hands: answer my prayer, I, the undeserving sinner and servant, heal with your power those withered hands.” After he finished his prayer, he drew the sign of the glorious cross, and the withered right hands returned to normal. When the ʿAjam saw the miracle [āya], they were baffled and said, “Truly this monk is a servant of God.” The prince beckoned to him and said, “O monk why did you come to this place?” He answered, “To find three monks and a boy who have been enslaved. I am asking you to bestow a favor on me.” The prince said, “Do you have gold with which to ransom them?” He said, “From the lovers of Christ I have collected a hundred dinars. Here, take them and give me the captives.” The prince said, “Because we have seen that you are an uncorrupted servant of God, we give you the monks and the boy gratis and ask you to remember us in your prayers to God, may His name be blessed. As for the 100 dinars that you have, spend them by ransoming other captives.” The prince then ordered the three monks and the boy to be brought to him and he freed them and handed them over to the monk. The latter thanked the prince, blessed him, and went and ransomed with the 100 dinars a group of captives. Then he returned to the prince and said, “I have bought some captives as you told me to do. How do I get them out of here? I have no ship and have no more money.” The prince answered, “Because we seek your prayers, you will find your wish fulfilled through that door.” He then ordered a ship to be prepared, which they call, samāwiyya [heavenly?] and to be filled with everything that passengers would need. He then called on the man at the helm and secretly said to him, “Take the monks and the captives to their destination. Take note, you and all the Muslims with you, of the actions of this monk who performed a miracle with the withered hand. On your return, bring us assurances that he is truly the servant of God whom you saw perform miracles.” After the Muslims heard what he said, the prince went on board the ship and secured a place for the monks and the captives. When the ship sailed away from Africa, the Muslim sailors were surprised to see the

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monk fasting every day, praying, and constantly preaching to the monks about salvation. They reached an island with no drinking water, but they could not leave it because the wind was against them. They remained there for many days and finished all the water they had, and for four days, they were hot and thirsty. When the monk saw them in that condition, he told them to fill all the jugs with seawater and to bring them over to him. They did and he went down on his knees in prayer saying, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and His true word, You who turned the bitter water of Saint Elisha sweet [2Kings 2:21] and during your life turned water into wine [at the marriage in Cana, John 2:1–11]: make this water sweet. Let the believers and the unbelievers with me marvel mightily and let them recognize your power, first and last, and let them praise your holy and almighty name—with your Father, of course, and with your true Spirit that is holy.” After he finished his prayer, he drew the sign of the cross on the jugs and instantly, and with wondrous power, the captives and the Muslims were able to drink, and they praised God for His bounty. They stayed there for days drinking the water until it was finished but the wind continued to prevent them from sailing. So they went to the monk asking him for his blessing because they had become weakened with thirst. He told them to fill the jugs again with seawater, which they promptly did and he prayed and drew the sign of the cross whereupon the water became sweet. Everyone there marveled and thought him the angel of God. Then, the wind rose in their favor and they left the island and reached the destination of the monks and the captives. The sailors returned to Africa and reported all that they had seen to their prince who wondered at hearing what they told him. He struck his breast and said, “I was a fool: for God sent me this great man and I did not keep him to observe the miracles he performs.” Immediately, he wrote a letter to the monk in which he asked him to come over to him because he had a question for him. He promised to give him as many captives as he wanted. When the monk received the letter, he said to the messengers, “What I did by leaving the holy monastery was out of necessity— and in consideration of my soul brethren who were enslaved. As of now, God does not want me to leave my monastery until the day I die. If the prince wishes to do himself good, let him manumit captives as many as his goodness dictates. But he should not hope to see me in his presence.” Having failed in their mission, the messengers returned to the prince and repeated the monk’s words to him and to the Muslims there. They all

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marveled at his deeds although they did not relinquish their false religion, nor did they prefer to believe in the true and faithful religion of the Christians. For the devil had taken control of them. Still, they were astonished and amazed at the miracles of the shaykh.2 The relationship between the Christian captives and the Muslim captors in this piece shows respect for the miracle-performing monk, acceptance of his divinely enabled power, and generosity in freeing captives gratis. This story of captivity and liberation repeats the traditional motif of the divinely empowered holy man whose miracle, curiously using the Quranic word, āya, results in victory over the captors and freedom for his coreligionists. In this case, the fact that the episode survives in Arabic points to the plight of Christian Arabs who were seized into captivity, both by North Africans and Europeans. Patriarch Isṭfān al-Duwayhī (1630–1704) recalled asrā, or captives, whom he compared to souls liberated from “the waterless dungeon” of purification; specifically, he recalled the captivity of Anṭūn, Metropolitan of Damascus, who was seized by “sea brigands” in 1523 while sailing to Rome; he remained in captivity until 1528 when “he ransomed himself.”3 In 1679, the patriarch sent Bishop Buṭrus Makhlūf from Lebanon to Rome in order to oversee the printing of a book on the consecration of priests. Accompanying him were three Maronite youths, one of whom was Tūmā al-Maqdisī (from Jerusalem); all three were on their way to Rome to study at the Maronite College.4 They were captured by Tripolitan pirates and had no money to ransom themselves. An Italian paid their ransom, and two sailed back to Rome and from there returned home, arriving on 12 May 1680.5 Al-Maqdisī was kept by his captors who tried to convert him to Islam, but he resisted and was finally ransomed and reached Rome in March 1681.

2 BnF MS Arabe 276, 234v–237r. “Africa” was the early name of the region of Tunisia. Given the location of Calafuria on the western coast of Italy, it is likely that the monks were taken to Tunis. 3 Al-Duwayhī, Manārat al-aqdās 465; al-Duwayhī, Tārīkh al-ṭāʾifa al-Mārūniyya 433. 4 The Maronite College was established in Rome in 1584 for the purpose of educating Maronites from Lebanon and Syria. 5 Ḍaww, Tarīkh al-Mawārina iv, 420–422; Cheikho, Athar jalīl li-l-Baṭrak Istifānus Duwayhī 210. See also Shiblī, Tarjamat abīna al-maghbūt Istifānus Buṭrus al-Duwayhī 108; and Dīb, Asr almuṭrān Buṭrus Makhlūf. Makhlūf had studied for three years at the Maronite College after which he returned to Mount Lebanon in 1651. He became the scribe of Duwayhī and on 4 June 1674, he became the Maronite metropolitan of Cyprus, but faced widespread opposition from the Orthodox population there.

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great one,78 the latter would think badly of him. So, he was dissuaded, and we stayed in Malta, hosted every day by the people of Malta—men and women, even girls in churches, all friendly to us. God is witness to what we say. A month later, we ransomed ourselves with about 5,000 riyals. We wrote a legal contract, issued by the Judge of Islam, and confirmed it by another contract from the Christians. We relied on God who never fails, but because winter had set, we stayed in Malta in comfortable conditions until after Eid al-Adha [17 December 1714]. We were there for three months until winter had passed. All the time, and in front of our house, a church bell always rang and woke us up at night. Not unlike Catholic accounts and plays about captivity that included miracles by Santo Domingo or/and visions of the Virgin Mary,79 al-Sayyid soon reported having two visions of the Prophet Muḥammad. Defiantly, the visions occurred right in the heart of the most Christian of bastions, and across from a church with a noisome bell. It is likely that al-Sayyid treated his dream of the Prophet in accordance with the views of one of the leading medieval jurists, Ibn Taymiyya (d. 1328), “The prophet said: Whoever has seen me in sleep has truly seen me”:80 One night, I saw the Prophet, God’s prayer and peace be upon him, coming to Malta near the house in which we were staying. He was on horseback, dressed in sable fur atop green, emerald broadcloth, and accompanied by soldiers, all from the Maghrib. He handed me a well-tried sheathed sword and took me to his right side. As I was going with him, I woke up elated and told my family and everyone with me about my dream. A few days later, I dreamed that I was reading a book in the Small Mosque when I found a Hadith either by or about him [Prophet]. Suddenly, I saw a man in front of me, I mean, facing me, who asked me, “Why don’t you read the Hadith from the beginning?” I said, “What is the beginning?” He answered, “Joy has come, heed the advice.” I woke up elated and told my family, “I saw so and so, and God knows best. We will leave for Tunis in two days.” Two days later, I sailed in a shītya [sitea], leaving all the members of my household in Malta in the house that had been assigned to us. They 78 79 80

A reference to the Spanish king. Philip V ascended the throne on 23 September 1713. See the studies by Remensnyder, Christian captives; and Garcés, Zoraida’s veil. Michael, A Muslim theologian, 202.

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sea pirates, attacked the Palestinian port of Jaffa and ʿamilū aʿmālan, or committed many deeds, including the seizure of two small ships.9 In retaliation, the people attacked the local French monastery and looted it saying, the ifranj have looted us and so we will pillage your monastery. Brayk continued: “During that time, pirates landed in Tyre, and pillaged and looted, and took men and women captives.” And as Orthodox Christians paid the price, so did Jews, too. In that same year, 1757, Dawūd Mūsā Munsiyus, ʿibrānī, or Hebrew, from Izmir, as he wrote in his short memoir in Arabic, was traveling on board a ship from Sidon when Catholic pirates attacked and carried off the passengers as captives to Cagliari in Sardinia—where he was converted to Christianity and adopted the name of Būlus.10 Earlier in the century, on 24 February 1701, Eftīmos, the bishop of Sidon and Tyre, wrote to Pope Clement XI (reg. 1700–1721) to congratulate him on his ascension to the throne of St. Peter. In the letter, the bishop announced the happy resolution of some local ecclesiastical conflicts and the conversion of some Orthodox Melkites to the Catholic faith. However, as he asked the pope to help confirm them in their faith, he urged him to remove “all dangers from the attacks of the pirates who assault them at sea and rob them of their property.” Clearly, the pirates were not Muslim but French/Maltese. “We wanted to inform your holiness,” the bishop continued, “so that you convey your wishes to his majesty the glorious and supreme sultan of France, to order the sea pirates [qurṣān] to stop attacking the Christians of Sidon. We shall also write directly to his majesty the sultan of France informing him about this crisis and imploring him on behalf of the Christians of Sidon.”11 The depredations committed by these pirates were described in some detail by an English sailor who wrote an account about French and Italian corsairs between 1692 and 1693. Having served on their ships he confirmed the violence committed by the Catholics on the Orthodox:

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Bāsha, Wathāʾiq tārīkhiyya ii, 34, 39, 57. The attack occurred even though the Grand Master had prohibited his corsairs in the 1740s from cruising in the Levant, Earle, Corsairs 120. For the danger of European pirates to inhabitants of the Levant port towns, see also Cohen, Ottoman rule: the incursions of the Maltese corsairs were “presques journalières” (almost daily) 164. It is not clear why Bernard Heyberger described the danger on the “chrétiens syriens” as “tracas” when the pirates were so dangerous that Muslim ships did not dare sail near Jaffa, Securité et insécurité, 152–153. St. Joseph University Library, Beirut, Lebanon, MS 551. See entry 86 in Cheikho, al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya. Bāshā, Tarīkh i, 167–168. See the reference to this piracy in Jābir’s three-volume novel, Bayrūt madīnat al-ʿālam i, 202.

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The latter part of the Summer, they [corsairs] come stealing on the Coast of Syria, where they do most mischief with their Felucca, which commonly Rows with 12 Oars, and carries 6 Sitters: For at Night they leave the Ship, and get under the shore before Day, and hide the Felucca in a hole, and go all ashor, where they way-lay the Turks, and take sometimes a Dozen of them at a time, whom they bring on board the Ship and so Sail away to those places where these Turks live, (viz.) to Tripoly-Soria, Joppa [Jaffa], Caipha [Haifa], St. John de Acres, Sidon, or Barute [Beirut], and come to an Anchor without Gun-shot when they hoist a white Ensign, and fire a Gun: hereupon the turks will come off and treat with them, for the Redemption of their Slaves.12 He continued: “Having told you how he [corsair] deals with the Captivated turks; I shall now proceed to shew how they use the poor Greeks they take in the Saicks.” Not only did the corsairs torture them to find where they had hid their money, they also seized them as captive laborers—and worse: “If there is ever a Carpenter, or Caulker among them, he is fast in for his Life-time; or if there be ever a fair-faced Lad among them, he must stay to be a Comarada of some lustful Voluntario.”13 The pirates were very active, so much so that the French consul in Tripoli (Lebanon) complained about them to the Conseil de Marine. He wrote that “brigantins corsaires,” whose identity was unknown, appeared around midnight (25 February 1719), but two Ottoman ships chased them away.14 These Christian pirates did not even spare the Christian clergy, as Eftīmos, the (same) bishop of Sidon and Tyre, reported to the pope. In 1722, one of his relatives, he wrote, “a very devout Catholic who is spreading Christianity in Egypt,” was on board a ship that was seized by Christian pirates. On the ship were also Ibrāhīm Masʿad, a Maronite, and “Mr. Abostolī,” a Greek. Eftīmos wrote his letter, as he explained, in the hope that the captives and the ship would be freed. If the pope effects their freedom, “the Catholics in the East will rejoice … [at a time of anxiety and pain] inflicted on them by the schismatics [Antiochian Orthodox] … He kisses the hands of Pope Innocensuz the thirteenth” (reg. 1721–1724).15 After the 1724 break in the Orthodox Arab community, which resulted in the creation of a new denomination, the Greek Catholics (Eastern rites with Roman papal primacy), one Nicolo Curi/Khūrī (“grec catholique”) who was seized by pirates 12 13 14 15

Mr. Robert’s Adventures 7–8. Ibid. 12–13. Ismail, Documents iii, 303. Jabbūr and Khūry, Wathāʾiq hāmma 72.

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was ransomed after the intervention of the pope.16 For Christian Arabs from the Ottoman regions, traveling by sea exposed them to captivity by pirates of all religions.

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Muslim

In the Mediterranean, from Gibraltar to Sidon, Muslim North Africans and Levantines were seized for the galleys of France and the pontifical fleet, the markets of Malta, and the road works and households of Spain. As a result, karāmāt and prayers assumed a crucial role in effecting their freedom. Captivity and liberation remained, by necessity as well as by faith, part of God’s will, with which all had to reckon, but in a world where the European captors were growing militarily stronger and seizing more and more Muslims, and where local rulers were growing more impotant and moneyless, the only hope that the captives had was in the power of karāmāt. Historically, it is in this period, when Moroccans and Algerians and Tunisians faced the danger of European seaborne attacks, that the awliyāʾ (sainted men) began to rival the jurists in importance: while the latter resolved social and marital issues, the former had the power to free captives. In popular piety, the awliyāʾ were always active in the lives of people: during times of famine or plague, they became agents of action, bringing rain during drought and healing the sick with their miracle cures—even after their deaths. Sometimes, they appeared to be more efficacious than even the rulers were.17 The qiṣaṣ of the captives in the context of karāmāt present information not only about captivity but also about evolving religious beliefs and practices among the communities of North Africa. The danger of the sea always weighed heavily on sailors and travelers and, as in other cultures (e.g., the prayer for the sea in the Book of common prayer),18 Muslim clerics composed prayers to ward off drowning or captivity. “O God,” read one prayer, “As your prophet Joseph prayed to you from his prison and you saved him; as your prophet Jonah prayed 16 17

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Bono, Esclaves Musulmans 203. See Istaytū, al-Fuqr wa-l-fuqarāʾ 456–464, 471–476. For a negative view of these awliyāʾ and marabouts, see the description by Antonio de Sosa who was held captive in Algiers between 1577 and 1580, An early modern dialogue 174–181. “Special Prayers with respect to the Enemy: THOU O Lord, art just and powerful: O defend our cause against the face of the enemy. / O God, thou art a strong tower of defence to all that flee unto thee: O save us from the violence of the enemy. / O Lord of hosts, fight for us, that we may glorify thee. /O suffer us not to sink under the weight of our sins, or the violence of the enemy. /O Lord, arise, help us, and deliver us for thy Name’s sake.”

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with all the dignitaries of Tunis, along with the dignitaries of Susa whom the prince had assembled. Joyfully and full of happiness, we entered Tunis and went to the house that had been furnished and supplied with everything we needed. The deputy sent us a gift of a female slave to serve us while the prince sent our wife a full outfit, from head to foot, all made of silk and other fabric. Tunisian men and women started arriving to welcome and congratulate us. We stayed there in full honor and were appointed to preach every Friday, Monday, and Thursday, and to teach a lesson every day in the afternoon about the Noble Hadith, at the same time that we started training a few scholars. Most of the days were spent in receiving invitations and being entertained. We continued there for about ten months. During that time, the prince went to a place where there was a rebellion, but the rebels surrendered to him and paid him about 50,000 riyals in cows and cattle and other things. They now obeyed him after having rebelled. He said to us, “We paid 5,000 riyals on your behalf and God has compensated us with 50,000 riyals.” We continued in those regions for ten months, teaching and enjoying our welcome to the point where we nearly forgot our homeland. Had it not been that the love of the homeland is a mark of faith, we would have settled there. We then asked permission of the prince to leave for Egypt, and he conceded only after we had repeatedly importuned him. He said, “You will leave when we find you a trustworthy ship.” A few days later, an Algerian galleon arrived in Tunis on its way to Alexandria, so we rented a cabin all to ourselves, while the servants slept elsewhere. He covered all our expenses and he took a receipt from the captain. He then gave us various supplies, including 40 honeyed candles, each worth 400 dirhams, rosewater, and other things befitting kings. Then he said to me, “Sir, you are leaving us and we did not host you as we should have. We want you to write us a letter, since you seem hesitant, informing us of all that you need.” I answered, “Sīdī, may God reward you with bounty, for you have not failed in anything that is expected in hospitality and generosity …” He insisted and so I said, “Sīdī, if you insist, we need two blankets.” And so, he ordered two jars of oil and a quantity of olives along with everything else we had mentioned—evidence of his abundant generosity. After we loaded everything on the galleon, and as we started walking from the tower to the sea shore, people joined us and continued with us for six hours, until we reached the tower near the ship. The agha of the tower hosted us in a manner worthy of kings. Then, we continued to the tower at the sea shore, with people milling around us, asking us to invoke God

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that he may not command or compel him with torture to do by any means.”24 While many Muslim captors did mistreat their captives—and illustrations of torture and cruelty are manifold in early modern printed European captivity accounts—they did not appeal to a religious or legal code to sanction their savagery. In addition, Grotius was interested in the legal justification and history of captivity, while his Muslim counterparts were deliberating on the impact of captivity on their communities.25 The nonreturn of captives generated problems in the family and in the community for which jurists had to find answers. For instance, a Christian was captured, converted to Islam, married, and had a son, but then, he was captured for ten months. When he returned, he found that his wife had remarried and had already given birth to a son. What was to be done? The Muslim jurist determined that the woman had a choice of whom she would keep as her husband.26 The legal conundrums preoccupied jurists in all the world of Mediterranean Islam—as Consul Paul Rycaut reported in his history of the Ottoman Empire about the mufti of Istanbul trying to resolve a problem with a captive. If a Turk [was] carryed Slave into the Northern parts of the world, where in Winter is but one hour of day, how he might possibly comply with his obligation of making prayers five times within the twenty hours; viz. Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Sunset, and at an hour and half in the Night; when the whole day being but of one hour admitted of none of these distinctions; for resolution of which, the Mufti answered, that God commanded not things difficult as it is in the Alchoran, and that matters ought to be ordered in conformity to time and place, and making short prayers once before day, then twice in the hour of light, and twice after dark, the duty is complied with.27 As in Catholic Christendom, where the ransoming of captives by religious orders was viewed as a sacrifice, which stood “at the very heart of the Christian tradition,”28 so it was in Islam. Ransoming captives was integral to piety and offering charity to bring captives back was always praised and remembered. Muḥammad Bey of Tunis in 1663 used to pay for ransoming Muslim captives regardless of regional belonging: he provided them with food and clothing on 24 25 26 27 28

Grotius, The law 324. See on Grotius and his view of the Barbary States, Mössner, The Barbary powers. Al-Zayyātī, al-Jawāhir al-mukhtāra ii, 39. National Library of Morocco, Rabat, MS Dāl 1698. Rycaut, The present state 107. Flannery, The Trinitarian order 135.

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their return journey, after which he sent them back to their countries. Reference to him and his good deeds was remembered as late as a century and a half after, in 1225/1810.29 In the same vein: in one of his writings, the patriarch of Antioch, Makarios (d. 1672), described a past episode in Raha-Urfa. The Muslims (which is the term that is used) venerated the mandīl, or veil, which bore the image of Jesus, and which they had preserved “generation after generation.” When the king of the Rūm in Constantinople offered to exchange the mandīl with money and the freedom of Muslim captives, the ruler of Raha wrote to the king in Baghdad asking for instructions. The latter set the request before jurists and judges who first determined that the mandīl protected Muslims, and that “Muslims had more right to the mandīl of ʿĪsā, peace be upon him,” than others. Then a jurist urged the exchange in order to release fellow Muslims from captivity, and so the mandīl was sent to Constantinople in a venerable procession.30 In the midst of the confusion, fear, and helplessness that captivity precipitated in Muslim societies, the awliyāʾ stepped in with their power of karāmāt. The need for miracles explains the high number of biographies and hagiographies that appeared in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which always included miracles about the liberation of captives from the enemy—even the jinn—miracles that sometimes verged on the magical.31 Judging also by the many histories and biographical dictionaries of the period, the supernatural and incredible were widely accepted by people facing political instability at home, European attacks on their coasts, and the occupation of port cities. The miracles of the awliyāʾ gave hope because the walī could prevent piratical attacks, as, for instance, a disciple reported about Aḥmad al-Sāyiḥ. Enemy ships appeared near the coast of Ḥāḥā, which spread fear in the populace. Sīdī Aḥmad was immobilized by fear but then he called out, “Bring me my sword,” at which moment the ships departed, “sans raison, par sa Baraka” (for no reason, by the power of his blessing).32 Miracles assured sailors that if they were seized into captivity, there was a force at home that could bring them back, a force that was more powerful than money and that could even defeat the undefeatable Christians. Since the Mediterranean looked like an impossible barrier to cross

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Rabat, National Library, MS Dāl 1444, 378. BL MS Or 9965, 34v–37r. See for the same story in a Muslim context, al-Qaramānī, Akhbār al-duwal ii, 373. Al-Qaramānī lived in Damascus and died in 1611. See Hermosilla-Cardaillac, Esclavage et magie. The article examines Inquisition records of captives-turned-Christians. Ben Mohammed, Fawaid al-Jamma 21.

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back to an escaping captive’s village and community, and since captives were often kept inland so they would not run away (unlike many Christian captives who were able to escape and write about their flight precisely because they had lived near the sea), the awliyāʾ used their supernatural powers to free captives, and even make them “fly” home. The authority of the awliyāʾ was strengthened by the fact that many of them had been themselves held captive. A Sufi master “wandered around the land and entered Ceuta, most likely he was taken as a captive, but because of his trances, the Christians honored him and gave him food and did not put him to labor.”33 Sīdī Shuʿayb ibn al-Ḥasan al-Andalusī, a jurist who had migrated from Al-Andalus to Morocco, was once walking near the seashore when the crew of a Spanish ship abducted him and chained him to other Muslims. As soon as they did that, the ship no longer moved. The Spaniards realized that they could not continue whereupon some suggested that they release the captive because he was a qissīs (priest) who was favored by God. However, he refused to leave unless they released all the Muslim captives too—which they did.34 To be credible as a walī, Shaykh Abū Suleymān ibn Muḥammad al-Dādsī was told that he had to be taken into captivity. Soon after, he was, and was ransomed by some Christians who were actually secret Muslims.35 Captivity authenticated authority. Numerous qiṣaṣ of captivity include karāmāt. While in the European narratives, the stories of captives stand on their own, telling of the endurance, heroism, and intelligence of the captive, in the Arabic context, many episodes about captivity are found in the lives of the North African Sufis-cum-saints. Shaykh Abū ʿAbdallāh Aḥmad (1648–1698) was once in his lodge. He entered a state of ecstasy after which he stood up and he went to one of the houses of his followers and said: “Give me a mawzūna [old Moroccan coin] and your son will return.” For their son had been captive in the land of the Christians, may God destroy them, for twelve years or thereabouts. They gave him the money and just a month later or thereabouts, a messenger came with the following happy news: The captive had been in Tetouan and had gone to the seashore on an errand where he found a ship with captives preparing to escape. The captives took him on board and they all got away. He returned to his fam-

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Al-Fāsī, Mumtiʿ al-asmāʿ 86–87. Al-Sharrāṭ, al-Rawḍ al-ʿāṭir al-anfās 315. Al-Ifrānī, Ṣafwat man intashar 174.

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qiṣaṣ al-asrā, or stories of the captives

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eighteenth century, when captivity of Europeans had dramatically declined, that women captives, along with male and female novelists and playwrights, became aware of a lucrative market for their output. They described, in fiction and in memoir, how Christian women stood up to their Moorish or Turkish or Arab captors and, of course, were never compromised sexually. The Dutch Maria ter Meetelen became the first European woman to describe captivity in North Africa. She was followed by the English Elizabeth Marsh, who published her account of captivity in Morocco in 1769. However, she published it anonymously. As she complained in her “preface,” she encountered “Misfortunes” at the hands of her countrymen who shamed her after accusing her of sexual relations with the infidels.86 No North African woman taken captive to Christendom wrote about her ordeal: she would have been too ashamed to write about her humiliation, or too terrorized by the brutality of the experience.87 An exception was Faṭma, whose letters are unique in Mediterranean Arabic writings—letters giving voice to a Muslim woman captive.

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Faṭma, 1798

Many references tell of the captivity of Muslim women by European pirates. Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad ibn ʿIdhārī (d. after 1312) wrote about a Spanish attack on Salé the day after Eid al-Fitr when “the Christians landed and seized women and children … They abused [ yaʿbathūn] women and virgins, and killed the old, shedding blood and dishonoring the protected [women].”88 In 1471, the Portuguese attacked Asila on the western coast of Morocco and carried more than 5,000 of its inhabitants into slavery. Ibn Yajbish al-Tāzī, a contemporaneous poet (d. 1514), described the plight of the captives, with special attention to the women who were being dragged into humiliation and abuse.89 As the Por-

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For an English translation of a selection from ter Meetelen, see Bekkaoui, White women captives 62–120; for an Arabic translation, see Ithnatā ʿashrat sana min al-istiʿbād. For an edition of Elizabeth Marsh’s account, see Bekkaoui, The female captive. But see Penelope Aubin, The noble slaves (1722), where captive European women (Violetta and Eleanora) were made to join the seraglio. Interestingly, in 1769, appeared the fictional Pekuah and the civilized treatment by her Arab captor in Samuel Johnson’s History of Rasselas. The same sense of shame prevented white women from describing their humiliations in Indian captivity in Latin America, Operé, Indian captivity in Spanish America 74: women did not make declarations about their captivity because they “did not want to talk or had something to hide” 94. Ibn ʿIdhārī, al-Bayān al-mughrib, i, 418. See the poem in al-Bukhuṣaybī, Aḍwāʾ 146: “If you had seen them as they were taken, you

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It is not clear whether his mother and her companion had paid the ransom of their husbands, thereby effecting their release, or whether the mother had performed a karāma. Ibn ʿAskar continued with numerous karāmāt of his mother, “may God be pleased with her.”38 Often, he mentioned how he had himself witnessed the miracles, or registered the names of the people who had told him about them.39 To assure readers of the veracity of the karāmāt, many narrators started their stories with a recension of the redactors—just like in the recension of the Prophetic Hadith. Specific names were given to confirm truth. Perhaps as in the European tradition of captivity writing, where many authors opened their texts with assertions and assurances that they were telling the truth about their experiences, so did the Arab writers, more eager to assure readers of the power of divine karāmāt than of the captive’s heroism. At one point, and to show the power of miracles, Ibn ʿAskar even told the story of captivity and liberation from the jinn. The awliyāʾ were truly men of superior power in all the regions of Islam: 2.2

ʿAlī Ḥmamūsh I heard from one who is to be trusted that a man had a beautiful daughter. And so, the jinn kidnapped her to an unknown place. The father was confused and saddened, not knowing what to do. He was told to go the shaykh [ʿAlī Ḥmamūsh] and tell him what had happened. The shaykh said, May God bring your daughter back to you. Tonight, go outside the Futūḥ Gate [in Cairo] and sit there until midnight. For the kings of the jinn will pass over you in seven chariots. Stand firm and be not afraid until the seventh chariot has passed. Step up then to the king and describe her to him. And tell him, so and so, meaning himself [the shaykh] greets you, and commands you to bring back my daughter to me. The man did as he was told, and he saw of the jinn and their number what dazzled his mind. He stood before the king who halted his chariot and said, Bring me that jinni who has the damsel. Both were brought to him in half an hour. The king said to the man, Take your daughter and greet the shaykh for me and tell him that

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Another woman credited with miracles was the wife of al-Mukhtār al-Kintī (1748–1810), although her biography did not include them: anonymous, al-Ṭarīqa wa-l-talīd min karāmāt al-shaykhayn, Rabat, National Library, MS Kāf 2294, 3. In general, Muslim women captives are less assertive in their religious roles vis-à-vis the captors than some Christian women captives in the medieval period. See Sterk, Mission from below, who describes Christian women captives and their role in the conversion of the enemies of Rome.

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I will always obey his every command. Then he turned to the jinni and said, What made you do what you did? The jinni gave no answer. And so, he ordered that he be executed and crucified in that same spot. When the man returned with his daughter and told the shaykh what had happened, the latter said, Go in peace but do not tell anyone about what happened as long as you live. Then the aforementioned man continued: I walked away near the place where the jinni was crucified and I saw something like a beetle hanging on a twig.40 The biography of Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh (1551–1622), Nūr al-armāsh fī manāqib abī al-Ghayth Muḥammad al-Qashshāsh, written by his disciple Abū Luḥayya al-Qafṣī, consists of 50 chapters and presents the life of a Tunisian Sufi. From his twenties, Abū al-Ghayth became a central authority in the region on legal positions: about tobacco, for instance, he judged that it was not permissible, because it grew on the “devil’s tree” and was addictive: man yashrabuhu lā yakād yaṣbir ʿanhu.41 It is interesting that his third wife (the first two marriages had been unsuccessful, the first lasting only one day and the second ending in divorce because the wife would not wear a hijab and insisted on riding horses) had been a ʿilja, a European captive whom he bought and married after she converted to Islam. He lived between Gafsa and Tunis, where he was active in two Sufi lodges and for two years oversaw affairs at the Zaytuna Mosque.42 The fame of his miracles reached as far as Marrakesh where Ibn al-Qāḍī heard about him. Ibn al-Qāḍī met him in Tunis in 1580 and wrote in praise of the devout, pious, ascetical, Tunisian walī with his numberless miracles and revelations … He liberated large numbers of Muslim captives from the hands of the infidel enemy—may God destroy them—and he performed well-known miracles … among which was his liberating a sharifian captive. When he [Abū al-Ghayth] reached his town, he said that the sharif would not be ransomed except by sharifian gold, meaning minted under the reign of Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Manṣūr. The sum [required for the

40

41

42

After every biography, Ibn ʿAskar mentioned the date of the death of the subject. In this case, ʿAlī died in the third decade of the tenth century AH/sixteenth century AD and was buried in Fez, “where his tomb is famous,” Dawḥat al-nāshir 60. Al-Qafṣī, Nūr al-armāsh 191, 193. For a biography of al-Qashshāsh and a brief description of his work, see Abedesselem, Les historiens tunisiens 149–153. See also the entry about him in al-Fakkūn, Manshūr al-hidāya 199–200; and the reference to him in Ibn Qāsim, Kitāb 140, and note. Ibn ʿĀshūr, Jāmiʿ al-Zaytūna 53; see also 38. See for a photograph of his tomb, 55.

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ransom] was about 3,000 iwqiyya. So, he slipped his hand under his rug and started pulling out sharifian gold until he had the required sum.43 Nūr al-armāsh consists of reports about Abū al-Ghayth which, as al-Muntaṣir explains, he had heard from people he “trusted.” Sometimes he had a name for the narrator, sometimes not. Al-Qashshāsh became famous for effecting the liberation of 700 men, women, and children who had been seized from near Hammamet by the Knights of Malta in 1602/3. He also effected the liberation of 336 captives who had been taken in 1606 by Sicilian and Maltese galleys.44 He gained the title “father of succor”: 2.3

Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh, Tunis, Early 1600s I, the poor servant of almighty God, al-Muntaṣir, was told by one I trusted: A sharif was taken captive and so his Christian captor brought him from the lands of the Christians to Tunis [to collect his ransom]. They came to Shaykh Sīdī Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh, may God be pleased with him, who said, after greeting them, “How much is the ransom of your captive?” The sharif answered, “O Sīdī, it is 300 sultanic golden dinars.” AlQashshāsh said, “You are a sharif and of course your ransom will be in the sharifian dinars. But, in God’s name, come back tomorrow.” They left and on the following day, they returned, but the shaykh again said, “Till tomorrow.” The shaykh kept on delaying for three or four days, because that was his custom. Anyone who came to him with a request, or came asking him to ransom a captive, or even to visit him: he would procrastinate from four to ten days, eager to test the visitor and see whether the latter wanted just to visit or had a certain need. He wanted to know exactly what they needed. And so, as he procrastinated with the captured sharif, the Christian who came for the ransom said, “This shaykh whom you sought for ransom does not want to give you any money. Tomorrow, we shall return to the land of the Christians.” They went in to see the shaykh. The sharif said, “O Sīdī, the Christian told me that we shall both be returning to the land of the Christians because this shaykh will not save [ yukhaliṣuka] you.” The shaykh, may God be pleased with him, said, “Tomorrow, God willing, I will save you.” The Christian said something to the sharif who turned pale. The shaykh

43 44

Ibn al-Qādī, al-Muntaqā al-maqṣūr i, 107. One source maintains that the price for ransoming the 700 captives was “2,835 kgs d’ or” (of gold): Gafsi-Slama, Les chrétiens 141.

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write, and act in order to gain their freedom or the freedom of their kinsmen. In August 1668, after the son of the Algerian Fāṭima bint (daughter of) Muḥammad Mūsā had been taken captive to Spain, she paid 200 pieces of eight to Francis de Ajalla to ransom him, promising to pay the money eight days after the arrival of her son in Tunis.105 The encounter with the Christian invaders sometimes forced changes in gender roles that resulted in defiant, public actions. In August 1719, an English factor in Algiers described how the local “Women daily fill the Consul’s house clamoring some for their husbands, some for their children; he [consul Hudson] is called ill names in the streets.”106 Women were assuming social responsibility toward their kinsmen in captivity: they were going out into the streets and into residences, in a group momentum that resembles very much the English petitioning women of a century earlier, who pounded the streets near Westminster demanding support for their captive husbands from both king and parliament.107 Muslim and Christian women assumed the same roles when their breadwinners were seized into slavery. One Moroccan woman in Tangier at the end of the sixteenth century, Mubāraka al-Sharīfiyya, was abducted by the Portuguese and enslaved in their colony of Tangier. Mubāraka’s name shows that she was blessed—perhaps because she was saved by a miracle. However, her story also shows her tenacity, literacy, and courage. From her captivity, she wrote—thus she was literate—to Riḍwān al-Janawī, “time and time again, asking him to intercede for her with a qāʾid in the palace … He wrote and wrote to the qāʾid about her as she clung to hope. Finally, victory was granted by God … and she came out from the hands of infidelity.” She promptly traveled to see the shaykh, who was overjoyed and asked her how she had been freed. She told him: “a man, accompanied by two or three other men, helped her escape. The man came to her at night, having agreed with her on a time during the previous day. They met and lowered themselves, one after the other, from the wall of the city until they were free.” Everything that happened, commented Mubāraka, was a result of the miraculous intercession of the shaykh.108 And her courage: that she was able to climb down a wall in Tangier is impressive. The walls of the city were forbidding. The voice of a Moroccan woman captive survives in two unique letters from Malta that were composed in 1798. Who wrote the two documents and why is not clear: the documents do not celebrate God or His mercies, as would be 105 106 107 108

Grandchamp, La France en Tunisie vi, 145. TNA, FO 113/3/185. See my Wives, captive husbands, and Turks. Tuḥfat al-ikhwān wa mawāhib al-imtinān fī manāqib Sīdī Riḍwān [al-Janawī], Rabat, National Library, MS Kāf, 391.

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dinars; I will return 100 to him as alms for God almighty.” The shaykh said, “May you die in the religion [Islam], which God loves most.” The Christian left 100 sultanic sharifian dinars for the shaykh and left. The shaykh said, “This hundred was given for the cause of God. Buy clothes for this sharif.” The narrator who told me this tale added. We went to the market and bought with the 100 sultanic gold dinars a full wardrobe of malaf [broadcloth] and silk, and we brought them back in a bundle. When we entered, the shaykh said, “Clothe this sharif with this bounty.” So, we did, and he left happy and joyous. Praise God.45 He performed so many karāmāt that even an English captive who was in Tunis wrote about him.46 He even performed a karāma with a man who tried to deceive him. After he told his followers that he could detect honesty or mendacity in people, Abū al-Ghayth was visited by two men who wanted to swindle him out of some money. They said, “The shaykh ransoms captives with the money that God has given him. Let us go to him, one of us posing as a captive and the other as his guarantor. He will surely give us money and we will then spend it.” Therefore, they went to him, kissed his hand, and told him about the need for ransom money. Abū al-Ghayth stretched his hand under the carpet and took out 300 dinars. As they were leaving, he called to them, “You will be captured, God willing.” They turned back to him and confessed their deception. Nevertheless, he insisted, “You shall be taken captive, God willing. Now go away.” A few days later, they left Tunis by sea and were seized by the Christians. “This is one of his blessings [baraka], may God be pleased with him.”47 The biographer continued with another miracle that celebrated the liberation of a captive: One year, I went to visit Sīdī al-Shaykh Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh, may God be pleased with him, and found a man with him called Muḥammad al-Mustaghānemī, who came from Algeria. I inquired about him and was told he had been a captive. So I asked him, “How did you get out of the land of the Christians?” He said, “Sīdī Muntaṣir. My mother and I were taken captive in Oran and we stayed for a long time in the hands of the Christians. They de45

46 47

Al-Qafṣī, Nūr al-armāsh 152–154. In July 1609, Spanish pirates attacked the Tunisian fleet; it is possible that the captive was seized at that time. The story appears again, in a shorter version, in al-Ifrānī, Ṣafwat man intashar 57–58. Pignon, Un document 166, 207. Al-Qafṣī, Nūr al-armāsh 156.

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manded a ransom for us of 300 dinars. So I paid 150 dinars and left my mother a hostage and came to the Shaykh to ask him for the remaining 150 dinars.” He sent his servant who asked me, “Where is the ransomer so I can pay him and where is the contract you have signed?” I said, “Sīdī, I left my mother a hostage among the Christians until I could return with the rest of the money.” He fell into silence, saying nothing to me. The servant then told me to write a letter to the Shaykh in the hope that when he sees something in writing he will answer. I did as he told me and sent the letter with him at night, but I heard nothing from the Shaykh until a few days later. This was his usual way when he received a letter: he did not reply for a few days. Sometime later, he sent his servant back with the answer, “Did not I ask you for the ransomer and the contract—so I can pay the sum?” I [the biographer] left him in the Shaykh’s lodge and went to Gafsa. He served the Shaykh by cleaning and sweeping the lodge. The following year, I found him there and he was now baking bread. When I asked him about his condition, he wept and said, “Sīdī al-Muntaṣir, plead for me with the Shaykh to take pity on me and my mother.” So, I wrote another letter which he sent to the Shaykh. But the latter did not respond. I returned to Gafsa and when I next inquired about him I was told, “The Shaykh ransomed his mother from the lands of the Christians and she came to Tunis after which he [the captive] returned with her to his homeland.” This is one of his good deeds.48 Another karāma, reported by another Tunisian historian, shows how much the power of the walī extended beyond his region—perhaps the most important power that captives in European lands needed: 2.4

Shaykh Abū al-Qāsim ibn Khalaf Shaykh ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq said, I was told by Shaykh Aḥmad who was told by a man from Qairawan: I was poor but had a rich brother. A son was born to me but I had no food at home and I had no money with which to buy anything. So I went to my brother and told him about the newborn and about my condition

48

Ibid. 157–158.

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and so he walked with me to his house and gave me some oil and wheat. His wife said to him, “To whom are you giving the food?” He answered, “To my brother because he has just had a baby and he had nothing at home.” She said, “By God, he will have nothing of that.” My brother turned to me and said, “Brother, turn to God for help.” I returned broken-hearted with tears pouring down my cheeks. I then decided to leave Qairawan. On the way, I passed by the pious shaykh and the perfect qutb [a high Sufi station] Sīdī Abū al-Qāsim ibn Khalaf, may God be pleased with him. I saw him standing at the door of his lodge, turning to the Qibla [in Mecca]. When he saw me in distress, he called me and said, “Son, what is the matter?” So I told him my story whereupon he, may God be pleased with him, turned right and left to and fro and said, “Son, you shall go to Susa right now and enter the market place. You will find a man in a so and so store and you will say to him, “Give me this and that and what is needed”.” I agreed to go, and he walked with me and said, “Go with the blessing of God almighty.” In Susa, I entered the market and found the man in the store. Before I said anything to him, he said, “Welcome to you. Were you sent by Sīdī Shaykh Abū Al-Qāsim ibn Khalaf for the provisions?” I said, “Yes.” He said, “Take this dirham and buy what you need to eat and come back to me.” So, I took the dirham and bought bread and oil and returned. I then ate them and went to sleep. A ship of the Christians arrived and lifted me,49 while I was sleeping, and it sailed away. I felt nothing until I was on the ship in the middle of the sea. When they reached their country, they sold me to a Christian who took me to a store and said, “I bought you so you would stay in this store and take care of buying and selling. Be a man.” So I used to buy and sell and he would bring me dinner at night saying, “Close the store.” In the store, I saw a jar full of gold. One night, someone knocked on the door and said to me, “We found a ship heading to Susa, so come out and let us escape.” I left and took that jar full of gold and we boarded the ship and sailed. By dawn, we reached Susa where we disembarked and headed to Qairawan. When I reached it, I found the shaykh, may God be pleased with him, standing at the entrance of the lodge. When he saw me, he smiled and then laughed, saying, “Son, you searched in the east and the west, the south and the north, but you did not find your provisions except in the lands of the Christians. That is why I sent you there.”

49

The word that is used is rafaʿūnī—which is often used in captivity accounts.

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Ibrāhīm Librīs, 1802

Throughout the period under study, the three North African regencies and Morocco negotiated with but also fought against European powers: Spanish, French, English, Maltese, Genoese, Dutch, Livornian, and pirates operating in the many islands of the Western Mediterranean. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, a new naval power had arrived in the Mediterranean and, like the Europeans, also became engaged in captive taking. Like the British and the French, the Americans wanted to take part in Mediterranean trade, but for the Moroccans and peoples of the regencies, they were just like the Europeans: well-armed aliens who monopolized trade and cut out the North Africans from their livelihood by the firepower of their fleets. With their advanced navies, they could blockade or bombard harbors, at the same time that they could control the movement of ships by issuing the Moroccans and the Algerians with passes that limited seafaring.112 For over a century, the seas that had been the seas of the North Africans and had provided them with income from trading, fishing, and limited transport had now become the seas of the Christians, resulting in loss of revenues, mobility, and maritime freedom. Another consequence was the acceleration of economic and infrastructural decline in Morocco and the regencies—which historians of the American encounter with “Barbary” ignore, ever blaming North Africans for their piratical activities, which then supposedly forced American military reprisals.113 As Jean Mathiex noted, the economic and technological decline of the Muslims vis-à-vis Western Christians was hastened in the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries largely because of Christian piracy.114 Further, as the early nineteenth-century historian from Rabat, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Salām al-Duʿayyif (d. 1818) showed, one of the serious problems that Moroccan rulers faced with the British, the French, and others was that these countries, especially at times of war, took

112

113 114

In 1711, for instance, English merchants petitioned Queen Anne to stipulate that “no Ships or other smaller Vessels belonging to any of those Governts [Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli] … (Particularly with regard to the Part of Tangier then in the Possession of your Majesty’s Royal Uncle King Charles the 2nd) … should remain cruising near or in sight of any his then Majesty’s Roads, Havens, Ports, Towns and Places, nor any way disturb the Peace & Commerce of the same” TNA SP 71/21/12v (4 June 1711). After all, as Earle noted, as far back as the 1730s, “a concerted effort by [European] navies and governments had largely eliminated the long-standing problem of piracy,” Sailors 109. “Le retard économique et technique des pays musulmans sur l’ Occident chrétien appelé à s’ aggraver si rapidment du xvie au xixe siècle est largement du à la course chrétienne,” Mathiex, Trafic et prix de l’homme 157. See also Corrales, Les repercussions de la course espagnole.

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Hassūn continues to be venerated.52 Similar appeal to holy figures continues on the Christian side of the Mediterranean, too: in a festival in Malta, congregants pray in gratitude to the Virgin Mary who protected them during one of the captivity raids by the “Turks.”53 Karāmāt were transnational and transreligious and were thus so memorable that in the eighteenth century, a karāma of a time before the middle of the fifteenth century was remembered about a Sufi master: Some of his grandchildren told me the following: The master, God have mercy on his soul, was sitting when a griefstricken and distressed man came and told him about his son who had been taken captive to Great Constantinople before it had been conquered by Islam [in 1453]. He said to the shaykh, “Sīdī, I want you to write to the sultan of the Christians in Constantinople to release my son from captivity.” The master said to him, “My son, he is an enemy of Islam and we have no power to do that.” He said, “Sīdī, just write me in your blessed hand a letter and give it to me so I can do something that God may free my son from this terrible situation.” So, he wrote [the letter] for him and the man sailed to Constantinople and stood at the Porte of the sultanate, asking for permission to enter. He was asked, “Who are you?” He said, “I come from the sultan of Tunis,” and so, he was granted permission and entered. The translator asked, “Who is the sultan of Tunis?” He said, “Sīdī Muḥriz ibn Khalaf.” They said, “We have not heard of him. Does he have armies and soldiers”? He answered, “No.” They said, “Does he have vast wealth?” He said, “No.” They said, “So how does he rule?” He said, “With men and jinn.” They said, “Do you mean he is one of the holy men of Islam?” He replied, “Yes.” They said mockingly, “So this letter that he has sent must have been blessed by his hand?” He said, “Yes.” They said, “If what you say is true, here is the daughter of the sultan of the Christians: she is blind. Place the letter on her eye and show us the power of your master.” He said that he would submit to almighty God and rely on Him. So he placed the letter on her eye and immediately she was able to see. They said, “Here is another who is paralyzed.” So he went to her and laid the letter on her knee and, 52 53

During my visit, I was given pieces of wax from the large candles hanging in the shrine and was told that they would protect me against all evil, from land and sea. See Vann, The virgin and the Turk. During other religious festivals on the island, the vari (religious effigies) are brought out, sometimes showing the Virgin pushing a spear into a crescent—or trampling on an effigy of Luther.

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by God’s power, she stood up. The two girls were taken to the sultan who said: “Read to me again the letter.” In the letter was the order for the release of the aforementioned captive. He sent the public caller to ask if anyone had a captive from Tunis, male or female, young or old, or anyone. He then released everyone who was in captivity, not keeping a single captive for ransom. He put them on board a ship and sent them to the master, may God be pleased with him. When they reached the master, they found him teaching. They told him about what had happened. He started crying, whereupon everyone became agitated and so he concluded his lesson and left, God be pleased with him.54 The power of miracles remained much more effective among North Africans than among Europeans, although in Spanish literary and hagiographic works of the sixteenth and seventeenth century, miracles abounded. No miracles appear in Protestant memoirs of the English or the Dutch captives where the emphasis was always on individual effort, divine protection, or election. Differently among North Africans, belief in miracles that saved or changed lives was part of daily prayer, fear, and hope, reflecting the growing powerlessness of the people against the devastating European navies and presidios. Karāmāt defied and defeated the dangerous Naṣārā and remained effective well into the nineteenth century, by which time descriptions of miracles had been replaced in European records by down-to-earth and empirical accounts. In the Islamic context, karāmāt continued to confirm the authority of holy men from Salé to Tunis, ever assuming a central role in North African maritime life. And even when the karāmāt were outlandish, and perhaps more magical than divine, they were an integral part of the Arabic history of captivity and liberation in the Mediterranean basin. 54

Al-Wazīr al-Sarrāj, al-Ḥulal al-sundusiyya iii, 342–343.

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Conversion and Resistance At the end of the sixteenth century, a captive lamented how other captives around him were converting to Christianity in order to gain freedom: “The clothes are clothes of Muslims, (but) the hearts, they are hearts of Christians.”1

∵ In the vast majority of cases, Mediterranean captives belonged to a religion or a denomination different from that of their captors and so, among all religious groups, there was fear that captives would be converted out of their faith thereby deserting their families and country. In this respect, captivity destabilized transnational and transreligious relations because it opened the door for a dangerous form of migration in which captives gave up their religion and “deserted” their homelands, taking with them, as in the case of early modern Europeans, vital skills or sensitive knowledge about shipbuilding technology and navigational routes. Both Muslims and Christians (and in the latter case, Huguenots, too) were urged to convert and sometimes were forced to do so by their captors: many Christian captives claimed that Muslim captors tortured them to convert, while Muslim captives faced the formidable conversionary skills of priests—many of whom were conversant in Arabic and trained in Islamic theology and jurisprudence.2 Some captives converted to gain freedom, and sometimes they did gain it, but at other times did not. Still, in all cases, conversion signaled settlement in a new land and community since no Christian or Muslim convert could return to resettle in his home community brandishing a new religion; in the case of the Huguenots, if they converted back to Catholicism, they “returned” to their home parishes.

1 Quoted from Brown, An urban view of Moroccan history 72. As Brown noted, the author of the quatrain described a fear that became prevalent in Morocco in the nineteenth century. 2 The bishop of Marseille, for instance, Jean-Baptiste Gault (1595–1643), used to send priests conversant in both Arabic and Turkish to convert captives. I owe this observation to Professor Gillian Weiss.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_007

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did you seize our ship at a time when we are at peace with your sultan? Is this not treachery on the part of the sultan?” The Christian searched Ibrāhīm’s ship saying, “Hand us the sultan’s document that shows the command to attack our ship.” Rayyes Ibrāhīm threw the sultan’s letter in the sea and said to the Christian, “The one who gave me the command is the governor of Tangier named ʿIshʿāsh.” The sultan then sent a letter to the English in Gibraltar saying, “I did not command the seizure of the American ship. It was ʿIshʿāsh who did that.” The American ship sailed on and when the English told the American to return the ship to the sultan, he answered, “I will not return it unless the sultan himself comes to Tangier and I sign a peace treaty with him. Then I will release his ship.” When the sultan heard this news, he decided to go to Tangier [arriving 6 October] to release the ship from the American—along with 100 sons of Rabat [captured from the Meshhūda and Mabrūka] who were on board the American ships [including the Constitution].123 They had been dispersed in the ships and had been tortured, robbed, shackled, and starved. They were in deep sorrow and distress, eating only once a day. I will write about them, God willing: how they were liberated from the hands of the Christians and how the sultan, may God make him victorious, went himself and effected their release. They would not have been freed had it not been for God’s benevolence to Muslims.124 As the author added, the whole episode took about three months. At the end of Jumada II/October 1803, Suleymān met with the al-Mirkān, renewed the peace treaty with them after which they released the Moroccan captives and the ship—all thanks to the intervention of the British in Gibraltar. Without power of his own, Suleymān declared that whatever negotiations the Naṣārā wanted to conduct with him would be handled by the British, who were given access to all the harbors of Morocco.125

123 124 125

As Allen explained, Suleymān was intimidated by the “show of force” of the American ships, Our navy 144. Al-Ḍuʿayyif, Tarīkh 326–328. Ibid. 329.

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of them att Portsmouth & part of them in the Isle of Wight in regard of the frequent allarmes they have given to these parts & for satisfaction of the [blank].4 But in the seventeenth century, England was not as active in conversion as France was. It had fewer captives and had not (yet) developed the financial and royal support for initiating missionary projects. Meanwhile, on the French galleys of Louis XIV as well as on the papal fleet, Catholic chaplains tirelessly preached among the oarsmen and “converted many non-Christian slaves.”5 From Rome to Paris to Venice to Naples to Valletta, there were systematic, well-organized, and choreographed campaigns by Catholic ecclesiastical institutions to convert Muslims (and Jews and Eastern Christians when occasion arose). Since Peter the Venerable, there had been calls for Christian mission as an alternative to Holy War,6 which gave impetus to the renewal of mission in the early modern period but in a different manner than it had been practiced or imagined before. Now, the conversionary effort was integrated into the epistemology of European education, scholarship, print, and empire. It is not a coincidence that the major powers that invested in trade in the Islamic Mediterranean were also the first countries (France, England, Holland, and the papacy) to build institutions for the study of Arabic and of Islam and to start collecting Arabic, Turkish, and Persian manuscripts of all genres. Imtiaz Habib documented the Moors/Blackamoors in London until 1677, pointing out, when possible, how and where the captives had converted, or where they were buried (in parish cemeteries). His lists show how much the captives-cum-converts were part of domestic labor and servitude. The lists of baptized Muslim captives collected by Wilpertus Rudt de Collenberg included references to birthplaces such as “Arabie,” “Afrique du Nord,” and “Espagne,” along with captives of Morisco/Andalusian descent.7 De Collenberg studied the records in Italy’s Casa dei Catecumeni starting 1614 and ending 1826. He counted 1,075 baptisms in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, 960 men and 115 women; 1,014 had been captives and 61 had been free showing the enormous power wielded over captives to convert. The converts belonged to all the regions of the Mediterranean basin, with the larger number coming from North Africa. Important among the converts were two relatives of Mulay Ismāʿīl, one of whom converted on 6 March 1733 in St. Peter’s Basilica in the presence of 4 5 6 7

TNA SP 16/334/130. Bamford, French galleys 151. Kritzeck, Peter the Venerable and Islam, and Hunt, Excommunicata generatione. De Collenberg, Le baptême des Musulmans esclaves.

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Pope Clement XII (reg. 1730–1740). No reason is given for his conversion, but if he was a relative of Mulay Ismāʿīl, then he might have feared for his life after the bloody conflicts in Morocco that followed the ruler’s death in 1727. What the lists further show is that most captives who converted came from the hinterlands—from villages and cities that did not have the same exposure to Christians as port cities with their multiple visitors. Also, more conversions occurred in the seventeenth than in the eighteenth century—three to one. The reason might well be that while in the seventeenth century, there was need in European fleets for rowers and sailors—and conversion was a means by which captives would be sure to stay—by the eighteenth century, as naval technology developed, and as personal rather than state ownership of captives declined, conversions declined.8 No such listings and numbers can be found in Muslim sources because once Christian captives converted, and unless their place of birth was kept in their titles (al-Inglīzī/the English, al-Janawī/the Genoese, and others), they adopted new names, integrated, and could not be traced. As such, Arabic sources do not describe conversion, perhaps because converts lost touch with their home communities and did not care to explain or justify their religious changes. Conversion to Islam took place before a qadi but there were no religious institutions that recorded names and dates of conversion. While the name of the convert would be removed from the lists of dhimmis to be taxed (only if the convert was a native resident), theologically, the convert was returning to his or her “natural” submission to God—Islam by fiṭra—the normal condition of humans.9 A public celebration might take place, but there was no need to describe the psychological or spiritual process of change. After all, conversion to Islam was guidance, hidāya, from God, which is why Muslim converts did not adopt the name of the person at whose hands they had converted—in the manner that many Muslim converts did in France, England, Spain, Italy, or Malta. The Christian who was guided to Allāh had not converted because of the work of man but of God. Of course, facing all such converts is the question that Jeffrey S. Shoulson raised in his Fictions of conversion: “When conversion is said to have tran8 Miège, Captifs maorcains en Italie. See also Bono, Schiavi musulmani. 9 Many European sources included descriptions, woodcuts, or engravings of the convert mounting on a donkey after which he was paraded around town. William Davies, who claimed that all he wrote was based on his personal observations, added that the convert held a bow and arrow with which he shot at “the picture of Christ.” There is nothing in the Arabic sources that corroborates this alleged practice—let alone having a picture of Christ in a society that did not allow representation, Davies, A true relation ii. See also the refutation of this claim in Pitts, Religion and manners 314.

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spired, how can one be certain that the transformation is complete, reliable, or stable?”10 In his detailed study, Shoulson focused on Jewish and Christian (Catholic to Protestant) conversions in early modern England. Similarly, Mediterranean conversions from and to Christianity and Islam, and from Judaism to Christianity, were always complicated because so many factors brought about conversion: captivity, allure, employment, marriage, despair, force, possibly genuine conviction, and the desire to “emigrate.” The example of a Christian Damascene and his captivities and conversions, as told to the son of Patriarch Makarios during the latter’s visit to Russia in the 1660s, shows some of the complexity around captivity-cum-conversion. While it is not a case of captivity by pirates in the Mediterranean that resulted in conversion, it reflects an amazing mobility for a Christian captive from Damascus to Aleppo to Istanbul to Isfahan to Istanbul to Homs to Kiev and finally to Moscow, at the same time that it shows the geographic regions to which captives could be taken and the religious changes that they must have often undergone. It is not possible to separate exaggeration from fact, but the anonymous Damascene was relatively accurate about all the names he mentioned, although he sometimes confused the chronology of events. Still, it is quite possible that this story presents a case where the captive spun a tale about conversion and reconversion, not unlike many of his European contemporaries who told tales about themselves and about Muslim converts: We [Deacon Būlus and his father the Patriarch Makarios along with the accompanying delegation] happened afterwards to meet in Moscow with a Voivode who was the son of an Arab of our country, and had become Voivode or Governor … He told us that his family was originally of Hirdain; that his great grandfather’s name was Khori [priest] Soleiman, his father’s Basharah Bin [ibn] Gabriel, and that the latter was at one time superintendent of the Mint. They were inhabitants of Hârat Aljadidah, or New Street, in Damascus [now known as Bāb al-Ḥāra]. At the time that Ibno Jambalât [ʿAlī Jumblatt, 1613] came to Damascus, he was fifteen years of age. He knew the Patriarchs Ibno Ziâdah and Ibno ʿLahmar, and the Sheikh Girgis Ibno Somor, and many others of the Damascans; and Khori Atlah [ʿAṭallāh], and Khori Nasr Allāh, in Aleppo. He told us further, that when his father died, the Pasha plundered his home, and carried him, yet a little boy, to Aleppo; and thence to Istambol, where he made a present of him to the Sultan Mahomet [Aḥmed I, reg. 1603–1617], of

10

Shoulson, Fictions of conversion 14.

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tion about captivity to the linguistic medium (notwithstanding translations), Arabic writers treated all Islamic captivities of the past as their own qiṣaṣ— regardless of where or when they had occurred. Captivity by the Naṣārā became part of the historical encounter in Arabic memory—its danger never forgotten. Al-Zayānī continued with another story: Shaykh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān alJāmʿī recalled how he met a scholar living with his family in tents on top of the mountain outside Oran and near the forests. At night, they all hid there, but in the daytime, the scholar stayed in his house and his mosque, reading and teaching his pupils. So he asked him why he did that. The scholar explained: “We have been living this way since the time of the Christians and for fear of them. We were not safe in our houses and feared they would enslave us, so we went to the tents so we could make our escape to the forests. Consider how much the Muslims had grown to fear those satanic despots [ṭawāghīt].” Another murābiṭ (coastal defender) told him “they could never sleep without having guards watching over them. And even in their sleep, some feared the raids of the Christians and screamed in terror.”129 In 2002, in a note on the preservation of the bodies of holy men, the editor of a book on the karāmāt of a seventeenth-century Sufi cited the following episode. “Twenty years or more ago,” he wrote, “the Spanish newspapers that were published in Tangier reported from their correspondents in Spain that as the government was repairing roads in Cordoba and Seville, corpses of Muslims with beards and white turbans were discovered. These captives had not decomposed even though they had been dead for more than 300 years.”130 Captives cast a long shadow in Mediterranean Arab history. 129 130

Ibid. 163. Quoted by the editor of al-Fāsī (d. 1052 AH/AD 1642), ʿAqd al-durrar 43, n. 1. For captivity as trauma (in the European tradition), see Helgason, Historical narrative as collective therapy; and Spindler, Identity crises of homecomers.

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All captives, Muslim and Christian, worried that they would be coerced into conversion, and so did their kith and kin, who feared that conversion would deprive the family of its breadwinner. That is why there are numerous firstperson declarations by Muslims describing their successful perseverance in their faith. “I was taken captive for six years, but I kept my religion and my body intact, thanks be to God almighty,” wrote the faqih of Fez, Muḥammad alYasītnī, after he was ransomed by his walī in 1540.13 As in the European captivity narratives, the purpose of recollecting captivity was to demonstrate religious victory, not defeat. Actually, the writing of captivity narratives by Europeans after their return to their homelands was frequently motivated by their desire to show, in print, that they had not converted or been tainted by Islam—and that, if they had converted by force, they had done so externally, not internally.14 The absence of similar written narratives on the part of Muslim captives returning to their homelands could suggest the unwillingness on their part to show that the temptation to conversion had ever been there—that firmly grounded in their faith, conversion out of Islam had never been a danger about which they needed to speak. Instead, they spoke, if they were jurists, about how they had defeated their adversaries theologically. Much as there were thousands of Muslim converts, only a handful wrote in Arabic about the journey to Christian conversion (discussed below). When Muslim captives gave up hope of freedom, they converted, becoming, in Arabic parlance, murtaddīn.15 Knowing that there were no commercial or religious institutions that would negotiate for their freedom, they opted for conversion and emigration to the lands of the Christians. Little did they know that conversion in Christendom did not open for them the doors that conversion in the lands of Islam did for their Christian counterparts. While in North Africa, converts could rise to become sea captains and governors,16 and in the famous case of Roxolana (d. 1558) in the Ottoman east, sole wife of the sultan, or in the case of the English woman captive (Balqīs) who rose to power as one of the wives of Mulay Ismāʿīl in Morocco,17 in Europe, both Catholic and Protes13 14

15 16

17

Al-Mannūnī, Malāmiḥ ii, 84. One of the rare descriptions of conversion to Islam by a Christian during captivity, and in his own words, is by Thomas D’Arcos, see Tolbert, Ambiguity and conversion; and Matar, Europe through Arab eyes 186–192. See al-Wazīr al-Sarrāj’s reference in 1718 to “Christians and ʿurbān murtaddīn,” in al-Ḥulal al-sundusiyya ii, 1:22. See the list of sea captains in Algiers in 1588 in Dan, Histoire de Barbarie 270–271. Of the 35 sea captains, only ten were native-born Muslims. See also the lists for 1581 reproduced in Bennassar and Bennassar, Les chrétiens 367–369. For an extensive study of the figure of Roxolana in European imagination, see Yermolenko,

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tant, there is no reference to Muslim converts gaining positions of political or administrative influence in their newly adopted countries and religious communities. The conversion of a Muslim captive to Christianity caused relatives at home deep concern since conversion led to a change of name that, within a generation or two, would lose all traces of its origin.18 The names that converted captives were given, sometimes combining the names of their owners/ransomers and their godfathers, would be totally inaccessible to their relatives, as “Ameth”/Aḥmad became Dominicus de Salvatore, and six-year-old “Fattmé”/ Fāṭima became Anna Maria Frangi, while “Abdelraman b. Abdalla” became Ferdinandus Corsini, and 20-year-old “Camar b. Ali”/Qamar bint ʿAlī became Teresia Gori.19 The new baptismal name marked the end of “Amet,” age 42, for instance, and the beginning of “Antoine Vuisence.” This convert took the first name of the merchant who had bought him in Marseille and at whose hands he had converted: Antoine Savournin. As Antoine, he was freed to start a new life after which his relatives back in Agadir would lose all trace of him. “Boissa” changed into Charles-Louis but had a different trajectory after regaining his freedom: for some reason, he seemed to have roused suspicion that he would try to escape back to his native Salé, and so he was kept under close watch. Evidently, the authorities—and even captives themselves—were aware of fake conversions. In Boissa’s case, Comte de Pontchartrain ordered him back to the oar—so he would make his living in the galley as a free man. “Ahmet Mahamet” was captured on 6 December 1707, age 25, and he converted into Jean-Baptiste but died in hospital on 1 October 1709. It is probable that he was converted while sick by one of the many priests at the galley hospital in Marseille who labored to convert dying Muslims (and Jews and Protestants) to Catholicism.20 In the case of “Mahamet” from Salé: after being captured in 1670 at the age of 28, he converted into Barnabel and was liberated by order of King Louis XIV on 4 May 1707. After more than 30 years as a captive, conversion was his only hope for freedom. And, there was the Christian who had turned Muslim but then decided to return to the religion of his youth. Again, conversion was his

18 19 20

Roxolana in European literature, the extensive introduction. In Morocco, English merchants were perfectly happy to ask for help and bribe the English wife of Ismāʿīl with presents, Matar, Britain and Barbary 100. See Dakhlia, Musulmans en France et en Grande-Bretagne 263–273. See the list in Miège, Captifs 170. De Cossé Brissac, Les sources vi, 58, 68. See for an illustration of the hospital at the beginning of the seventeenth century, Tournier, Les galéres 1, plate 4. The “hôpital des chiourmes” was poorly maintained since large numbers of captives died there: see the figures for the years 1680–1715 and 1716–1748 in Ẓysberg, Les galériens 349.

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only way out and again, it was the king who ordered that Mahamet Maron who had been Jean Chinqueta, be freed, 16 December 1711.21 Fear of conversion was prevalent among the relatives of Muslim captives, and not without reason. Against those who succumbed to conversion, however, there were those who resisted. In the middle of the sixteenth century, the inquisitors in the Canary Islands complained that rich Muslim captives refused to convert to Christianity, preferring to pay their own ransom in order to return home. The inquisitors also complained that captors frequently did not care about converting captives because the ransom of rich Moors was quite lucrative.22 Much as there was resistance to conversion among Muslims, no captive ever wrote or spoke about being forced into conversion, or having to fight back against the temptation of accepting Christianity—unlike the numerous European accounts where captives described their resistance, or finally submission, to conversion under torture. Many Christian captives described their heroic resistance to forcible conversion, perhaps to win buyers for their published accounts. Differently, Muslims would have been ashamed even to mention that they had been tempted or forced to renounce the religion of Truth. Father Pierre Dan, the French Redemptionist father, told of a captive who converted to Christianity but then returned to Islam. Perhaps his story was intended as a warning about the difference between inner conviction and outer adaptation. Sanson Napollon, who told Father Dan the story, reported how a young Arab, by the name of ʿAbdallāh, declared his desire to adopt nos moeurs (our mores) and embrace Christianity. He was sent to France, where he was given money and clothes, and where friends taught him la politesse (civility). He learned to speak notre langue (our language), and so “le sieur” Napollon brought him back to the bastion, certain that the convert was happy among the Christians and no longer wanted to live dans le libertinage des Maures et des Arabes (in the licentiousness of the Moors and the Arabs). But then came the big surprise. On returning to the bastion, nos Abdala (our ʿAbdallāh), as Father Dan put it, suddenly threw his hat on the ground, tore off his Christian clothes, put on an old burnous, and declared to his companions that he never tasted among the Christians as sweet a contentment as that of living libre en son pays, à la manière des Maures et des Arabes (free in his own country, like the Moors and the Arabs).23 Not only had this captive spoken, he had also spo-

21 22 23

De Cossé Brissac, Les sources vi, 75, 79. Cabrera, Rescates Canarios. The article offers extensive information about the attempts to convert captives, especially children. Dan, Histoire de Barbarie 291.

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years: as early as 1616, he had opened his harbors in the Sidon region to Maltese ships to dock and ransom Christian captives.6 Fakhr al-Dīn traded in captives through one of his Maronite advisors and liaisons, the distinguished scholar Ibrāhīm al-Ḥāqilānī (1605–1664). In 1626, the latter was in Mount Lebanon to oversee the establishment of a school sponsored by the Congretatio Fide.7 With the strong contacts he had both in Lebanon and in Rome, Fakhr al-Dīn decided to use him in business. In 1632, he gave alḤāqilānī quantities of silk, which the latter sold in Italy after which some of the money from the sale was deposited in a Florentine bank for the security of his children, as Fakhr al-Dīn indicated.8 With the rest of the money, al-Ḥāqilānī bought some Muslim captives in Livorno whom he took to North Africa where he sold them for ransom. But then followed some disagreement over the sum that was to be paid to Fakhr al-Dīn, and so, in September of that year, the Druze prince wrote to Ferdinand II de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany (reg. 1621– 1670), the following letter: [After the usual honorifics] If you inquire about us and our children, we are all well, thanks be to God. We invoke God that He fulfill all your wishes. The Maronite priest Ibrāhīm arrived here [Lebanon], praising God for the kindness that you showed him. He brought us the receipt for the money [he had deposited] in the bank, which was the price of the silk he had sold. The sum that you still keep is the price of the captives—which we have not received. Do give the money to priest [sic; he was not a priest] Ibrāhīm and let someone you designate buy for us some broadcloth and other fabrics and let him bring them with him. As for the money in the bank, we have received the receipt and so let the money stay in the bank and let the interest grow year after year until a time when we and our children need it. We will then ask for it with the interest that it had accumulated over the years. Every year, calculate the sum accrued by the interest and record it, and then add it to the principal in the bank so it can grow and nothing be lost. We are grateful to God. Do not delay priest Ibrāhīm so he can return to us with broadcloth and fabric equal to our money that he earned from the captives.9

6 7 8 9

Ibid. 140. Tabar, Les relations de l’Eglise Maronite 269–270. Gorton, Renaissance emir 163. Carali, Fakhr al-Dīn ii, 333–334. An amusing aside: in a recent article, Lebanese writer Ilyas Khūrī mentioned (adding, however, “God knows”) that the prince had “deposited the sum of 111 million dollars in a Tuscan bank” which a current Lebanese minister was trying to retrieve

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Al-Zwāwī was possibly a Maliki jurist,28 and so after he was captured, he was made to serve the Maltese monk/friar Patri Frangisk Flieles as a scribe.29 (When he knew that his master would read his work, as in one manuscript, which included Latin translations under the Arabic words, al-Zwāwī praised him as al-muʿazzam, the highly esteemed).30 Like other educated/literate captives, he seems to have gone through the oxymoron of a dignified captivity after he was put to copying Arabic Christian material by his master.31 Such work was not unusual for literate captives.32 The work was boring, and he did it for years, often adding some information about himself at the end of a completed manuscript. As he wrote at the end of a manuscript, which contained lists of “Nouns and Verbs”: “The end. Praise be to almighty God, from the hand of the poor, debased, humiliated, enslaved captive in Malta, May God release him and all other Muslims, ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā al-Zwāwī [which he] wrote for the great monk, the brother Frangisk al-Milkāwī. Praise be to God always. May God reveal to us His goodness and protect us from all future evil. Amen.”33 His master made him copy and copy, as there are numerous repetitions in the manuscripts, so much so that al-Zwāwī referred in one manuscript to another manuscript where he had explained the same material. As he copied material about Christianity, alZwāwī feared veering away from his Muslim belief; at the same time, he could not but be clueless about what he read. The New Testament is full of place names, which he did not know: the life of Jesus was recorded geographically, thereby combining revelation with specific locations in Palestine. This factor is alien to the Quran, which has only a handful of geographical references. And what al-Zwāwī would have made of the Christian theological terminology is unclear: what could “Rūm” mean to him (in the Quran there is one reference to 28

29

30 31

32 33

In a study of The prison experience, Gambin furnishes numerous examples of how captives often enjoyed wide latitude of movement and interaction. See also the two examples discussed above in ch. 1. Provincial Library MS A 11, 243v where there is mention of the jurist Ibn Mālik whose school was adopted in North Africa. I have not found any information about the captive, but there is a brief reference to one Abū ʿAbdallāh al-Zwāwī who went on the pilgrimage but returned to declare that the worst thing for a man was to leave his homeland, thinking he could find a better one elsewhere: al-Fakkūn, Manshūr al-hidāya 200–201. Provincial Library MS A 9, 215r. All subsequent references are to the manuscripts at the library. The reference to the master, who was the lecturer in Arabic in Malta between 1632–1633, occurs in MS A 11, 246r: Patri Frangisku Flieles, O.F.M. See Agius, The study of Arabic 29. For the list of all the manuscripts by al-Zwāwī, see Agius’s bibliography. See the reference to Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Karīm who copied in 1591 in Madrid a collection of thirteenth-century Andalusian poems: van Koningsveld, Muslim slaves 21n5. MS A 9, reproduced in Agius, The study of Arabic 48.

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“Rūm” in association with the Byzantines) especially when it was mentioned in the context of the raising of Lazarus—who does not appear in the Quran (although there is mention of Jesus raising the dead)? After Jesus raised him from the dead, the Jews said that the Rūm would go after the two men. Or, what would al-Zwāwī have made of the imagery of wine that is associated with Jesus and God: Anā huwa karmat al-ḥaqq wa abī al-karrm (I am the grape of truth, and my father is the vineyard)? Of course, the reference to Jesus as son of the Father would have doomed the text as heretical in his eyes. Furthermore, in the Quran, God commands with a voice that is transcendent and overpowering. But God/Jesus is a man who chats, eats, engages with people, weeps, and gets beaten and humiliated. Al-Zwāwī must have invoked God’s forgiveness many times when he had to transcribe how the Jews were smacking Jesus— yalṭimūnahū—given the Quranic and Hadith assertions that no prophet of God could be humiliated or defeated since he is God’s own. It would not be difficult to imagine how al-Zwāwī reacted to these references, which, in his view, were demeaning, sacrilegious, and false. And while the Quran prided itself on its Arabic purity, here was a text, in Arabic, but referring to God in the context of ʿibrānī (Hebrew), and rūmiyya (Greek). Al-Zwāwī could not but have recognized how the New Testament text had been distorted—a standard Muslim view—when the Jews called to Pilate to crucify Jesus, using the same words, but with a completely different meaning, Uṣlubūhu, irfaʿūhu, irfaʿūhu (crucify him, raise him, raise him). After all, the Quran states that Jesus had not been crucified but had been raised to God (Q 4:157)—using the same two words that al-Zwāwī now finds in his Arabic version of the New Testament verse. Against this onslaught of what he would have seen as false belief, al-Zwāwī developed strategies of resistance. While he mentioned nothing about himself and his ordeal in captivity, as it was expected of him not to, he indirectly revealed his spiritual struggle, his defiance, and his self-perceived victory over the captor. A close textual reading of his manuscripts reveals the hidden story of his captivity—not only of his body but also the feared captivity of his soul. Importantly, al-Zwāwī resisted, showing that some Muslim captives could and did resist, that they were not overpowered by their captors, and that they could preserve their religious identity and Islamic faith. Al-Zwāwī did not compose a detailed account about his resistance—in captivity, he would not have had occasion to do so; nevertheless, he resisted, and he did so in his transcriptions. For instance, he deliberately misspelled the Arabic form of the invocation to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which to al-Zwāwī was a false view of God. This strategy of misrepresenting false statements forced on him as a Muslim had appeared in a fatwa in sixteenth-century Spain, and it is interesting that it must have circulated widely and remained effective for decades. The

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fatwa had been issued in Egypt and had been in response to questions posed to the mufti by Muslims in Spain who had been forcibly converted to Christianity. The Muslims had asked what to do when the Christians forced them to curse Muḥammad and to profess Christian doctrines. The mufti replied as follows, “If told to curse Muḥammad, pronounce the name as Mamad, since that was how the Christians said it … If told to say that Jesus is the son of God, they might say so, intending to suppress the word governing the genitive, i.e., ‘is the son of (the worshipper of) the God of Mary, who is rightly adored.’”34 Forced to concede to the power of their rulers and to act against their beliefs, the Andalusians could revert to quibbles that preserved the purity of the inner against the sacrilege of the outer. And so, in one manuscript about the principles of Christianity, al-Zwāwī wrote: “Bism lāb wa libin wa rūḥ al-qudus, Allāh wāḥid.”35 Unwilling to write the correct Arabic form of the invocation of the Trinity, he distorted his Arabic so he would not appear to have admitted to a Trinitarian faith—and ended the warbled sentence with an Islamic assertion in the correct spelling of “God is One.” And he did that repeatedly. In other manuscripts, he translated accurately the instructions about Christian belief, sometimes coining words for which he knew no Arabic equivalent. When he copied the question about what needs to be learned about the worship of God, the answer included a reference to the rosary—which al-Zwāwī translated as wardat sitnā Maryam (the rose of our lady Mary).36 For him, the rosary was different from the masbaḥa that Muslims used, which is why he saw no connection between the two devotions. To a question about what it meant to be Christian, he gave the answer as “he who believes in the faith and law of Jesus,”37 which was clearly an evasive answer. In another manuscript, which included an Arabic version of the 150 psalms, along with various tasābīḥ (invocations), he repeated the same distortion of the recitation of the Trinity, and although he opened by using the proper Christian Arabic term for psalm, mazmūr, by the third psalm, he reverted to the Quranic term zabūr. In working on the psalms, al-Zwāwī was at ease, perhaps because the Quran includes some echoes of them;38 he was also at ease when writing about the Israelite prophets because the descriptions confirmed his Quranic faith: Moses, David, Samuel, and others were recognized prophets, and there was no problem about their propinquity to Islamic representation. At the end 34 35 36 37 38

Van Koningsveld and Wiegers, Islam in Spain 147. MS A 7, 26r. Ibid. 8v. Ibid. 26r. See the reference to 141 parallels in Neuwirth, Quranic readings of the Psalms 733.

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the regencies, English ship commanders sometimes freed North African captives from Spanish galleys and took them back to London. From there, they were sent back to their countries. When Richard Cromwell (reg. 1658–1659) assumed power after the death of his father on 3 September 1658, a few “Turkes” petitioned him for assistance to return home: on 16 September 1658, “Mahamet: Mustaoth: Hamat and Abdulbak: all of them Turke native borne,” sent a petition to “his Highnes Richard Lord Protector of the Comonwealth of England & Scotland and Ireland,” that they had been slaves of the Spaniards for twenty years. They had escaped to France and then received a “license to come here”—and so they requested permission to leave “by some of your shipping” to “Leghorn.”15 Whether Cromwell, in power for less than two weeks, paid any attention to them is not known, although a positive response from him might have been the reason that soon after, “Abducadir, Achmet Sillaw, and Hame of Sally” petitioned “for the same.”16 Perhaps captives were encouraged by the peace and trade treaties that the short-lived ruler had signed with the North African regencies (Cromwell left government under a year later, in May 1659). Soon after the restoration of Charles II (reg. 1660–1685) to the throne, the British gained control of the bastion of Tangier, and from 1661–1684, they were frequently at war with Moroccan forces trying to liberate the city. Captives were taken from both sides. The letter below belongs to a “Moor” (somebody must have translated it for him)17 who sought employment in the colony; he and others had been captured by the English in 1661, the first year of the colony, and forced to serve—thereby antagonizing the Moroccan fighters around Tangier. During a skirmish, his brother and all his companions had been killed. Finding himself alone, he converted to Christianity—thus “Peter”—and appealed in his letter for employment, either in the garrison or on board any of the ships of the British fleet. He had been cooperating with the British since their arrival and he was desperate to stay with them: 14 January 1666 To the Kings most Excellt Matie. The humble Peticon of Pet[er] ye Moore Sheweth

15 16 17

TNA SP 18/182/193–194 (iii). TNA SP 18/182/ (iii.1). Only the English version of the petition has survived. But there were Moroccans who learned English during their captivity: see the reference to a one-time captive from “Santa Cruz … he speaks English hauing among the many turns he hath made in the world been some time in England,” TNA CO 279/31/57v.

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(non-Arabic) names—rather odd given their appearance in the Quran in the same Arabic names that appear in the Arabic Bible. Sometimes, he realized the need to explain the Arabic equivalent of names, which might be unfamiliar to his targeted Arab readers: thus, Yerūshālim was a place name and “is al-Quds in Arabic,” or is “the Great al-Quds.”43 While he was comfortable dealing with material that had Quranic-Islamic relevance, other material that was strictly biblical was confusing to him: thus, al-Jalīl (Galilee) “is a place name, and it is singular. I think it is in Bilād al-Shām near the region of the ʿajam.”44 The manuscripts are long and repetitive, and toward the end, al-Zwāwī clearly got bored and left wide spaces between lines, writing in large script. Surreptitiously asserting his religious convictions must have supported alZwāwī in his captivity; perhaps, he came to believe that God had placed him in Malta to correct those errors and to defend the true knowledge of God. Although he was writing Christian material for a Christian master who intended to use it to convert Muslims, al-Zwāwī subverted the material by affirming Islamic views. He proclaimed Islam from the midst of the most anti-Muslim bastion in Christendom, the home of the Knights of Malta, and on the pages of Christian Arabic commentaries. Such a view of his work sustained him during his years of captivity, and may have given him hope, as he expressed on the last page of one of his manuscripts, that although his hand would wither, what it had written would endure, “May God have mercy on a servant who worked for [reward] after death.”45 Al-Zwāwī was defending Islam and himself by writing. Thus: Allāh is my love and upon Him I rely. God almighty is one in essence, attributes, and actions—against what the Christians believe. It is necessary that we believe that God almighty exists, but not as we exist, because our existence is limited and circumscribed. Almighty God is absolute. Also, what should be upheld is that God almighty spoke to Moses, who is His prophet and messenger; and ʿĪsā, His Spirit; and Muḥammad His love, may God’s prayer be upon him and upon them all … al-Ḥaqq [Truth, meaning also God], blessed and almighty, has no above or below, no ahead or before, no right or left … May God guide us, we Muslims, to what satisfies and pleases the prophets and the saints.46

43 44 45 46

MS A 10, 193v, 201r. MS A 10, 24 v. Ibid. 247r. Ibid. 184r–185r.

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Al-Zwāwī interjected his Quranic definition of God, sometimes repeating himself, as he admitted.47 He was earnest in arguing against the Christians, just like later captives would do. In the privacy of his scriptorium, he wrote against his captors and their false belief about Jesus, the prophet whom he always praised. Again, writing about God, he asserted defiantly: They have given Him a child and made ʿĪsa His son, and they claimed that God is one in eternity. No rational being can accept [this belief]: a God of three. He is without association or separation, neither in conjunction nor in disjunction or movement … He has blasphemed who has designated for God a place—He is beyond place or time … He is above and below, before and ahead, right and left. If you know this, you idiot [qalīl al-ʿaql], how do you ascribe a place to Him? But he whom God misleads has no guide, and they who are tyrants will be blinded.48 On numerous occasions during his captivity, al-Zwāwī prayed for the liberation of all Muslims. He clung to his faith by his counterwriting, as he did to his calendar, impressively citing all dates in the Hijri (how did he keep track of it, given its lunar derivation), and believing that his labor was serviceable to the cause of Allāh. For, as he wrote, although he would pass away, the work of his hands would endure.49

2

Muḥammad al-Tāzī and Bil-Ghayth al-Drāwī, 1656–1667

In 1651, a group of Moroccan pilgrims boarded an English ship on their way to Mecca. They would have disembarked in Alexandria and joined the Egyptian hajj caravan, but Maltese pirates intercepted the ship and took the pilgrims captive. A few years later, the captives were ransomed, but one of the pilgrims decided to convert to Christianity, after which he was baptized in the Co-Cathedral of the Order of St. John in Valletta on 31 July 1656—the date coinciding with the feast day of St. Ignatius Loyola. The convert was given the name Baldassare Loyola de Mandes. He then went to Messina where he stayed at the Jesuit College (Collegium Melitensia Societatis Jesu, established 1592), perhaps to help in the teaching of Arabic, which had been encouraged by Pope

47 48 49

MS A 10, 170v. Ibid. 170v–172r. MS A 11, 247r.

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Paul V for all Sicilian seminarians,50 and in September 1661, he went to Rome. To verify that he was a Moroccan prince, as he had claimed, the Jesuit order sent inquiries about him to Morocco, which came back as “favorables,” confirming that he was indeed “le fils de l’ empereur du Maroc” (son of the emperor of Morocco).51 From Rome, Mandes continued to Genoa, after which he went to Naples, arriving there in May 1666. He left Naples in March 1667 for Rome, where he stayed until the middle of April. He was preparing to go and preach Christianity in India, but on his way to sail from Lisbon, he died in Madrid on 15 September 1667. Mandes left a large body of letters and writings, and much was written about him in Jesuit circles, and in Spain, Calderón celebrated him in his play El Gran Principe de Fez.52 Although contemporaneous reports about him noted how little he spoke about his past, his story in European Christian sources and in twentieth-century studies, especially by Henry de Castries, emphasized how before his conversion, he had been “Sidi Mohammed,” the grandson of “Sidi Mohammed al-Hadj,” the “marabout de Dila” and “le souverain de fait du Maroc” (the present king of Morocco).53 The conversion of such a “roy de Feze et de Maroc, empereur d’ Afrique et de toutte la nation arabesque,”54 as one contemporaneous Jesuit writer described him, sustained hopes in Catholic circles that Muslim rulers were accepting Christianity, thereby opening the door for the conversion of their subjects (in accordance with the 1555 agreement of cujus region ejus religio—the people follow the religion of the king). So eager were the Jesuits to claim Mandes as their own Muslim “prince” among their converts that writers dramatically embellished his biography. Jesuit Father Jean Jallat, writing in July 1667 to a priest in Rhodes, described Mandes as having been the commander of his father’s army and author of “quarante tomes de diverses matièrs” (40 tomes on different subjects);55 another letter of the same 50 51 52

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Cassar, The Collegium Melitense 450. De Castries, Les sources i, 207. See the edition by Briones, Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca. The play was very successful and was performed in the royal palace in 1669. It is highly inventive with characters such as the wife of “Muley Mahomet,” his father, his teacher of Islamic law, and many others. It confirms Mahomet as the prince of Fez from the Dallāʾī lodge, and follows his life from his intended pilgrimage to Mecca, to his capture, his conversion in Malta, and then his travels to Messina and Rome until his death in Madrid. Anachronistically, the play shows Mahomet being welcomed in Rome by Pope Innocent X—who had died in 1655—and repeats the descriptions that contemporaries claimed for Mahomet-Mandes: his military leadership of his army into battle, his erudition, and his vision of Mary. De Castries, Les sources i, plate 2 and 204. Ibid. 229 in a letter of 8 August 1667 from a Jesuit in Bordeaux. De Castries, Les sources i, 211 (29 July 1667).

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Thus: Know that it is now clear to us that your words are not honest. I can only think that the people in your court have so deceived you that you have no authority over them any longer. The proof of what I am saying is that we have not heard any truth from you, and you have not agreed to anything. The Dutch, who have no leader and have only a diwān, gave their word, and we agreed to it and they have kept it. The English too gave their word, and we agreed to it, and they have kept it. When, upon their request, our servant [Aḥmad ibn Ḥaddū, who had been ambassador to London in 1681–1682] went to their country, they welcomed and hosted him, and he returned with 1,000 guns, 1,600 quintal of gunpowder, and 107 Muslim captives who were released gratis. They did all that good just for us, and they kept their word and fulfilled their promises. But you: you have kept neither your word nor your promises. As for those who went to your country from here: they were not sent by us and were not our servants or members of our court. Ḥājj ʿAlī Maʿnīnū had a son who was taken captive and therefore he turned to some of our servants, and went to you on behalf of those Muslims. However, he went without our knowledge. We said, if he reaches you, you must do what he wants and free those captives. He was duplicitous and just brought back his son, while you did nothing for the others, nor did you do anything that is worthy. Then, your ambassador came to our court bringing some tattered pieces of silk. Do you think we like or need that stuff? We Arabs know nothing but the truth and are not happy except in what is good for all Muslims. Even so, we released to your emissary 20 Christians who returned with him, thinking that you would reciprocate the good deed and send us at least 20 Muslims to calm our spirit and initiate negotiations with us. But you did nothing of the sort and did not reward good with good. In addition, three or four days before we had started corresponding with you, we detained one of your ships to inspect it. We did not allow anyone to seize anything from it and kept it safely for three years, just to honor you. We thought you would reciprocate our good-will gesture by releasing the Muslim captives, even though none of them is our courtier, soldier, or subject. Actually, they are none other than degenerate rabble, for none goes out to sea except those who are vagrants and outlaws. Even so, if you released them, you would do some good and somehow reciprocate me. Worst of all: one of our captains by the name of al-Tāj was given by your emissary a written assurance to buy a ship from Algiers on which [our] mariners and some Frenchmen would sail. As soon as he bought it

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why a Muslim renounced his religion and adopted Christianity has survived in the native Arabic idiom and cultural understanding of the convert.62 The case of Mandes and his correspondent are exceptional in that there are Arabic documents that present the narrative of conversion from within. These documents challenge completely the information presented in the Christian sources. At the same time, they delineate the conversion journey of another captive, BilGhayth al-Drāwī. In regard to Mandes, the documents show that, before his baptism, the name of Mandes was not “Muley-Mohammed-el-Abbas” or “Sidi Mohammed” from the Dallāʾīs, but rather, Muḥammad al-Tāzī. The surname shows that his family originally came from Tāza, a city northeast of Fez.63 Further, Mandes was not of royal descent since his father was not “Mohammed” (per de Castries, who gave no contemporaneous Arabic source for his view). Rather, and according to two of the letter writers who knew the family in Fez, the father was ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Tāzī. In the case of Bil-Ghayth, he, too, was not, as de Castries wrote, “Chogia Abuldgaith ben Faraq Assaid [Khodja Abulgaïth ben Faradj es-Saïd].” De Castries derived the name from a letter by Franceso Redi and from another contemporaneous letter by a Jesuit who had described Bil-Ghayth as the “Muphtu … qui est le grand-pontife des Mahumetans and qui passé pour le plus habile de royaume” (the mufti who is the grand pontiff of the Mahumetans and enjoys royal favor).64 The autobiography that Bil-Ghayth himself included in one of his letters reveals that he gave a false name and history to the Jesuit clergy and

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of Jesus. The questions then turn to the reason why the Turk has chosen English Protestantism rather than Catholicism, and the answer is not unexpected: the Catholics “adore a piece of bread, saying that it is God himselfe.” The last questions are about the Trinity, followed by the contrast between the ablution of Muslims and the baptism of Christians. The questions then come to an end with a sense of finality: Question: Do you renounce Mahomet and his Doctrine? Answer: Yes. Question: Do you promise to live holily, and religiously according to the word of God? Answer: Yes. See my Muslim conversion to Christianity for a rare Arabic conversion account of a Druze man in the first part of the eighteenth century. “Al-Tāzī” has been transliterated as “Attaz” or “el-Attas” in the European sources as well as in recent scholarship, without taking into account the derivation of the name. Using the name of a city or a region as a surname was normative in Arabic nomenclature. It is interesting that in his letter from Toulouse, Jallat wrote “Il s’ appelloit auparavant Serif Mahomet Astaci.” But de Castries commented: “Cette mention n’est plus de la main du copiste; le dernier mot Astaci est d’une lecture très douleuse,” de Castries, Les sources i, 210n2. Ibid. 225–226.

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to the Tuscan grand duke, all of whom were eager for him to convert to Christianity. While Bil-Ghayth did eventually convert and join the household of the grand duke, as Redi reported, he was merely a captured merchant, and certainly not the Muslims’ “grand-pontife.”65 Years after Mandes’s conversion, information was still limited about him, because he had left Malta and gone to Messina. Still, some news about him was trickling and an undated letter addressed to him in Arabic shows that his movements were being noted. The letter is emotional and interspersed with poetry, but in its opening, the writer stated that he had heard from one Mūsā al-Rayyes that he (he does not mention al-Tāzī’s Muslim name) was in Messina, where he was considered one of “the learned scholars of the Christians.” The unidentified writer tells Mandes that he spent three months in Fez with Hajj Muḥammad ibn al-ʿArabī al-Saqqāṭ, ʿAbd al-Salām Kassūs, and Aḥmad al-Shuraybī.66 He added that they informed “your father [Mandes] Sīdī ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Tāzī that you have converted to Christianity. But others stated that you had died, may God have mercy on your soul. Your mother sends you her greetings, as does your younger brother. Your brother al-ʿArbī is dead.”67 Whoever he was, the writer had visited Fez and had met the parents and siblings of Mandes in Fez. In June 1663, as an accompanying note in Italian confirms, Mandes wrote a brief autobiography in his native Arabic. A brief description in Italian was attached, describing the account as a Historia heroica that was addressed to “al Figliudo del Rè di Moroc,” or wild al-sulṭān imtāʿ Marrakesh (son of the sultan of Marrakesh, as the Arabic text states).68 To encourage the wild to convert to Christianity, Mandes described to him his own conversion, “one of the wonders of the age,” as he mentioned in the opening words.69 Mandes explained that he was in Rome and that his addressee was in “the land of the Christians, called Lisbon.” Mandes then turned to his first-person narrative: “I was in a city called Fez,” he began, “where I studied the Quran until I knew it by heart and read all that was available of the sciences of the religion of your Muḥammad, your lord.” At the age of 19, he continued, he decided to go on the pilgrimage to Mecca, but his father refused to grant him permission, telling him that he was needed for khilāfatahu wa warthahu (succession and inheritance). The year after, with sadness in his heart, he left his family and “children” to Tetouan and continued to

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See also the letter of 8 August, ibid. 232, n. 1. Adding the names confirmed the veracity of his statement. APUG 1060—I, 123 part 2. Imtāʿ is a Moroccan colloquialism meaning “of.” APUG 1060—I, 53–57.

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Tunis.70 After some delay, he boarded an English ship but was captured with his companions by four ships, and “we heard that we were sold.” They were taken to Malta, “May God protect it,” where they found a large number of captives, some Arabs, some Turks. They also found seven or eight mosques. He assumed the role of khaṭīb (preacher) in the mosque designated for the Malikis.71 He also became a scribe, making copies of the Quran. After four years, the English consul tried for six months to ransom the captives, but to no avail, because the “Maltese rulers and the sultan wanted us to stay there, and so we stayed captives in Malta”—thereby confirming the constant complaint by North Africans that Europeans tried to keep Muslim captives. During that time, “God sent me a serious illness,” and the plague devastated the island, blocking trade and the importation of food. At that juncture, the Maltese agreed to have the captives ransomed by the Tunisians. The captives sent a man to raise money, and a few months later, he succeeded. An agreement was reached about the fidwa (ransom) equal to 200,000 iwqiyya.72 Al-Tāzī was very excited about seeing his family again in Fez and going from there to Mecca. But on the day when he was about to leave for Tripoli in Libya, “God almighty in His mercy guided me to truth by revealing to me many miracles and wonders from heaven. He showed me that the only true religion was Christianity. Seeing those miracles, I could not go back, so, I made the declaration [shahāda] that I was a Christian [Naṣrānī] … Learn: truth and righteousness and the path to salvation [najāt] are in the religion of the Christians. Believe me, I had never intended to follow this religion, as I mentioned to you at the beginning of the story, because I did not know anything other than Muḥammad’s religion.” After seven years, Mandes continued, “the sultan and governors elevated my status and gave me money to last me for the rest of my life.” But, “after a short while, I decided to start studying the Christian sciences and realized that I needed nothing of this ephemeral world. I also realized that God did not want me to live a solitary life but to serve with jamāʿat al-ṣāliḥīn [his translation of 70

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How the Jesuit contemporaries came up with the report that he had left secretly with 400 or 500 persons is unclear, de Castries, Les sources i, 223. For someone in Fez to leave town, accompanied by so many “personnes” without anyone knowing about the departure, would have surely been impossible. Evidently, Muslim captives separated themselves according to their legal schools. The Moroccans were Maliki while the Turks were Hanafi. According to his Christian contemporaries, the high amount was evidence of his royal rank, “temoignages autantique qu’il estoit le veritable fils du roy de Fez et de Maroc,” de Castries, Les sources i, 216–217. The sum varies considerably in the reports from 45,000 escus (210) to 300,000 (216).

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well as the eastern shores of the Mediterranean. Whether the 58 captives were found and released is not known, but they were not the only ones to pay the price for an inter-European conflict. Throughout the War of the Spanish Succession, the fleets and pirates of France inflicted heavy damages,28 and even when the two superpowers reached a peace treaty in Utrecht (1713–1715) and suspended maritime hostility, other regional pirates started attacking Muslim ships at such an increasing rate that the French and the British declared that they really could do nothing about the situation. In a proclamation of 5 October 1717, the pasha stated that the consuls in Egypt of these two countries had declared, “there were numberless pirates at sea, of various nationalities, who were attacking the Christian ships and seizing every one they found. There was now fear for the travelers and their merchandise on board such ships sailing to the lands of Islam. Thereat, the consuls declared that they would no longer permit the transport of Muslims and their goods on their ships.”29 In the aftermath of the maritime instability generated by the war, pirates holed up in islands from the Balearic to the Aegean, along with the Dunkirkers and the corsairs of Zeeland in the Netherlands, launched relentless attacks on all shipping, regardless of nationality or religion. The ordeals of captivity that devastated the Mediterranean were not just experienced by the captives. They also touched relatives who would know nothing about the fate of their breadwinners at sea. Months could pass without any information until news arrived, usually from ship owners or emissaries or returning captives, reporting whether the ship and its crew had reached their destination safely, had sunk, or had been seized by European pirates.30 Once the location of the captive was known, relatives tried to send letters to him (there are no letters sent to women), conveying reassuring information about home and inquiring about his condition. In 1706, Aḥmad Qardanāsh, a lead-

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The number of prizes seized by the French during the War of the Spanish Succession was 6,577: Villiers, Les corsaires 39. Maḥmūd, al-Qarṣana 163–164. Captives who were taken to the Americas were beyond communication, unless they returned, as was the case of the “20 Turks” who were sent to Istanbul by Sir Walter Raleigh: see “The second voyage of Master Laurence Aldersey … anno 1586” in Hakluyt’s Voyages 182. A century later, Turkish captives who were no longer useful on the French galleys were sold in the American colonies, Mitford, The sun king, 36–37. In 1753, a Knight of Malta suggested that Muslim captives be shipped to Louisiana in order to increase the labor force in the American colonies: captives were moveable labor, be it across the Atlantic or into the various slave markets and bagnios stretching from Cadiz to Alexandria, Bamford, The Barbary pirates 14.

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his sight has been blinded and he has gone against the truth after knowing what God has conveyed to those whom He led out from darkness to light:74 our brother who has seceded from us, to him whose name was among the greatest scholars and sages, I mean, Shaykh Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd al-Wāḥid al-Tāzī. Brother, we have read your letter and reflected on its content and were mightily struck by what we found in it regarding your deed. But then, God almighty said, you need not guide whom you love, for God guides [to Islam] whomever He chooses [Q 56:28]. We have verified what we have known but never said anything but what is good about you, as God is my witness. Peace to him who follows guidance [Q 47:20]. Al-Drāwī concluded with greetings from the “children of the Arabs” in Malta (distinguishing them from the Turkish captives), after which he started anew by pleading with al-Tāzī to tell him the truth as to whether or not he has left the true religion and joined that “insipid” religion, and if so, why: If you have done so [i.e., converted] to protect yourself, we ask God almighty to help you; but if for another reason, then there is no power or succor except in God.75 Brother, we have known about you and your parents and ancestors and never said anything but what is good about you. What you have done has been a disaster, which our hearts did not believe, for others do this, but not you. So please answer. Answer. We ask you in the name of Him we worship. Answer. Peace. On the upper part of the page, he added the following lines of verse: Strange is Christ among the Naṣārā who said that God is his father, And that he is the son of God, and thereupon claimed to worship him; Then they brought in something even more outlandish—stating that he was crucified. I wish I could understand about his father: Was he absent and did not see, or do they claim to have defeated him? They have wandered away from the Lord in all things, but He sees through all that they have alleged to Him. Peace on him who follows guidance.76 74 75 76

This is a recurrent expression in the Quran: 2:257, 5:16, 14:1. Cf. Q 18:39. APUG 1060—I, 327. Revealingly, the last salutation is specifically designed for nonMuslims.

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Al-Drāwī was polite and nonjudgmental. Still, he was disturbed by the news about al-Tāzī’s adoption of such a false theology, and he decried Rome (“May God destroy it”), which he believed had made a Muslim renounce his faith. In the next few months, al-Drāwī learnt that Mandes was using his native Arabic to convert Muslim captives. And so, in writing his next letter, he changed his tone because he started thinking how Mandes could help him gain his freedom. In the middle of December 1663, he addressed his letter to him in the following words: “To reach, God willing, and with His might and power, to the greatest of teachers and the grandest of refuges, Sīdī Muḥammad al-Tāzī in the city of Rome, and now his name has soared as Signor Baldassare Loyola, may God be with him in this and the next world. Amen.” The tone in these Arabic words reflects a major shift in attitude as al-Drāwī realized that after his conversion, Mandes became a man of influence in Christian circles. Fearing that the Maltese would never release him, and hoping that Mandes would help him, BilGhayth addressed him in the highest praise and most elaborate and flattering rhetoric. Significantly, he did not mention the issue of conversion—except in one accommodating sentence: Praise be to God alone and the prayer and peace on His followers whom He has chosen [deftly not mentioning the name of the Prophet Muḥammad]. Amen. Our lord and master, the greatest scholar, the supreme shaykh among the Arabs and the ʿajam [non-Arabs], the supreme branch of balāgha [eloquence], the last of the learned, the great teacher whose soul has sought the Christian religion: Sīdī Shaykh Muḥammad al-Tāzī whose name is now known as Baldassare Loyola, May God keep you safe and may He grant that you attain all that you seek in both this and the next world. Sīdī, how are you and how are things with you? … May God bestow His blessing on you through His great name and in the rūḥ [spirit] of Jesus son of Mary. He continued: Your noble letter has reached us, and the men here [captives in Malta] have read it. It was brought to me at the mosque of the captives because I am their imam who leads them in prayer. They said, Read what this man says, the one whom you praise and describe as one of the most learned. I said, Yes, I stand by my words. They, Sīdī, are ignorant and not one of them knows how to read. They venture out by small boats from Tunis and Bizerte and are taken captive, after which they claim to be dignitaries.

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Evidently, al-Drāwī had been talking favorably about Mandes—or he wanted him to think that way—but the captives were hostile because of his conversion, and because he had been freed while they continued to languish. Al-Drāwī defended Mandes by demeaning the men who were criticizing him, avoiding altogether the issue of conversion. He then turned to tell Mandes about himself since, as he stated, the two had never met. He told him that he was captured and taken to Malta, but after Mandes had left the island to Rome. Al-Drāwī made inquiries about him from the many Moroccans who had known him. He learned that when al-Tāzī first came to Tunis, on his way to Mecca, he, al-Drāwī, was living in Tunis, “with Sīdī Muḥammad Shūshān and always congregating with Ibn Suleymān, who used to copy books in the Zaytuna Mosque, and with Sīdī Muḥammad al-Sharīf ibn ʿAbd alHādī al-Wādlī.” By adding the names, he confirmed the truth of his words: there are men who can corroborate what he is saying. He then left Tunis for Algiers, with the intent of continuing to Morocco and from there to join the pilgrimage caravan. The year was 1055/1645. He, however, stayed in Tripoli for a year, and then went back to Tunis where he lived for 17 years. Afterwards, I went to Algiers where I met a compatriot, Sīdī Manṣūr al-Sūsī, a copyist who transcribed the best of books. He knows you well, sir. Then I continued onto my pilgrimage, but God determined that I be taken captive, we ask Him for khalāṣ [liberation] … Sīdī, I am a captive for three years this coming [month of] Ramadan, may God bring about my liberation. I am submitting myself to your noble personage in the hope that you will do good in liberating me. For this merkanti [merchant, instead of the Arabic tājir], who is your highness’s friend, is esteemed by the duke and he can buy my freedom for a smaller ransom, and then he will send me to you so I can serve your highness to the best of my ability. I implore you, Sīdī.77 Interestingly, al-Drāwī explained that the merkanti had told him to write to Mandes in Arabic so that the latter would answer him in Arabic, too. Evidently, they were discussing a matter about which they did not want the Italian hosts to know. On the address page of the letter, al-Drāwī added, “A reply, Sīdī, a reply, for God almighty’s sake, do not forget us because we have none but you. The reward will be yours.”78

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Al-Drāwī must have confused his dates because he was taken captive c. 1660. APUG 1060—I, 328.

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28 March 1707 To the dear sir, the glittering gold, our sayyid the grand vizier Ibn Sharṭān [Pontchartrain] may God make joyous your days and may He lengthen your life and make every day for you a thousand years of greatness and honor.34 Know Sīdī, I am a Tunisian man and came to your country to the city of Marseille to trade. In that city, I found my brother, a captive of yours on the ship al-Iskātāntā, who had been a captive for 33 years, serving the sultan [French king] on that ship. He is 54 years old and was seized by ships from Toulon at a time when there had been a truce between you and us. He had been on a ship of janissaries belonging to Tunis. Now, Sīdī, may God make you victorious and glorify your days and defeat your enemies: we ask you to be gracious and free my brother. We implore you by God almighty and we implore you by our master ʿĪsā ibn Mariam [Jesus son of Mary] and we implore you by our lady Mariam daughter of ʿImrān [Q 19:28]. We implore you, Sīdī, by all the prophets to be gracious to my brother and make things right for him by ordering whomever your highness commands [to release him]. Know, Sīdī, that the captain of the aforementioned ship likes the captive very much because the latter has personally served him for the past five years and has not been at the oar. Now that I am in your country, do not disappoint me in my brother, may God almighty never disappoint you in anything. My brother’s name is Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad the Tunisian, on the ship al-Iskātāntā, and his number is two thousand four hundred and forty-six, 2446. If you will be willing to free my brother, know that I live in Marseille in the canton of Dalbro.35 Release came only after the payment of the ransom sum. On 9 November, “Moustapha Mahamat” was released: “Royal order, Marly, 9 Nov 1707: liberty for Moustapha Mahamet de Tunis, No. 2446 by paying 400 liv.”36 At the beginning of the age of nations in Europe and by refraction in North Africa, regional/ national identity appeared to captives as a useful way of appeal. Because

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A few months earlier, Ḥusayn Dey (reg. 1705–1735) sent a letter to Comte de Pontchartrain (7 January 1707) seeking the release of six Algerians who had been captured by the French on board a Saletian ship, see Plantet, Correspondance des deys d’ Alger ii, 61–62. AN Paris, Marine B/7/223/BIS 3. The information about his release was graciously furnished to me by Professor Gillian Weiss: AN, Marine, B6 40, fols. 388r–390r.

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urge him to write the letter, al-Drāwī added the following words on the side of the page: “I told them that your son [wilduka] is the present sultan and ruler of Fez because they have received letters from Morocco. You must, Sīdī, reply to us.”81 Evidently, even ten years after Mandes’s baptism, the question of the royal claim was still being discussed in the Tuscan court, so much so that further verification was needed from Morocco.82 Al-Drāwī wanted to warn Mandes about what was transpiring and, at the same time, to assure him that he was active in defending him—and, therefore, ensuring that Mandes would write and support him in his own claims. Coming from Morocco, and in contact with so many captives from all around the region, al-Drāwī knew that Mandes had no sultanic connections, but he wanted to assure him that he was promoting those claims nevertheless. After all: if questions were still being raised about his sponsor so many years after his baptism, and if correspondence with Morocco was in progress, then the authority of Mandes could be weakened, and with it the status of his protégé at the Tuscan court. Al-Drāwī feared that his ruse as the “grand-pontife des Mahometans” (great pontiff of the Mahometans) might be exposed. Like all converts, he was hoping for some rewarding employment.83 The situation was further complicated because Moroccan merchants, too, were undermining Mandes’s claims. A certain al-Sharīf al-Zwāwī Muḥammad sent a letter in Arabic to “the Great and most distinguished Commander of the Faithful, Muḥammad al-Tāzī, the imam in the bagnio and mosque of Malta, may God destroy it.”84 The name of the recipient in Malta is the same as that of Mandes before his conversion, and in Italian, the letter is addressed to “mameto attasi papaso della prigioni di malta in valeta” (Mameto Attasi, imam of the prisoners in Valletta, Malta).85 This repetition of the name suggests that another jurist by the name of Muḥammad had been captured and had assumed the role of imam; his surname, “al-Tāzī,” was the usual addition derived from the place of origin. The letter is dated “Friday of the tenth month” but without a

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The word could also be read as “father,” as it appears in the Quran. Without the vowels, it is not possible to determine exactly which word he meant. A priest from Malaga went to Fez for this verification. As de Castries noted, the report is of tremendous importance for identifying the origins of Baldassare, but it has not been found, de Castries, Les sources 211n2. De Castries noted that further favorable reports were deposited in the Vatican but they could not be found 207. See Rothman’s discussion of the social implications of conversion: Becoming Venetian. Al-Zwāwī was (and still is) is the name of a big family in Salé, originally Andalusian. Dr. Afaf Hamzaoui graciously furnished me with this information. Evidently, and as early as the seventeenth century, Muslim captives in Malta had been organized enough to choose a papas and had been given space for worship. The papas resolved conflicts among the captives and presented their complaints to the authorities.

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year, and in it al-Zwāwī reported that he had been in Malta, where he met some of the Muslim captives there, including the imam of the mosque, to whom he was sending the letter. Afterwards, he sailed to Naples, where he was treated very well by Muslim merchants, “may God reward them for the good they have done to us.” It was while he was in Naples, he continued, that he learned two things: that al-Tāzī had converted to Christianity and that he was claiming royal descent. Al-Zwāwī continued that as he was preparing to sail to Livorno, the merchants gave me money and paid for the ship rental, may God reward them for their good deeds. They send their best wishes, and bitterly complain about that cursed Fezzan who has been taghaṭṭaṣ [submerged/baptized] and whose name had been al-Tāzī, but today is Balṭazar Damandes. He came to us while we were in Naples and was telling the Christians that he is the son of the sultan of Fez. And the Christians believe him. Every day he goes out to the captives and baptizes them: since the day he arrived, he has baptized more than 200 captives, women and men.86 Today, we complained to the Pasha of Naples telling him, God forbid that he is the son of the sultan. The Pasha asked us about him and his origin. We said that his father and grandfather were Jews. The Pasha said, If that is so, bring us evidence that shows he is Jewish, and then we will know what to do with him. For the love of God, please send us letters with the proof that he is Jewish, in Arabic and in Frankish, attested and signed by Christians, and confirming that he is Jewish. When you send us the letters, the Pasha will do unto him fiʿlan ʿazīman [a mighty deed].87 Al-Zwāwī added greetings to other merchants known to his recipient and to the captives in Malta, and he repeated the request regarding this “cursed Fezzan dog” who is baptizing Muslims daily. Do send us the evidence, he continued, that al-Tāzī is “from the Fezzan tribe of Khaybar with his complete story, and 86

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A letter by a Jesuit in Toulouse in August 1667, mentioned “cinquante Turques qu’ il y a convertis” (50 Muslims whom he has converted), de Castries, Les sources i, 225. See Selwyn, A paradise 88–94, for the Jesuit emphasis on mastering the language of the converts, although her discussion is of the earlier period in Jesuit work in Naples. See also Mazur, A Mediterranean port 224, where he mentions that between 1583 and 1664, “2,365 slaves were baptized”; and Mazur, Combating “Mahommedan indecency.” In 1662, an English observer confirmed how “many Turks and Moors are brought as slaves to Naples,” Calendar of the Clarendon State Papers v, 262 (August 29/September 8). APUG 1060—I, 144–146.

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we will reimburse you for the money you spend on the witnesses.”88 Evidently, the captive recipient of the letter, along with others in Malta, kept in touch with their home communities and wrote for information as well as pleaded for ransom. As was the case among captives in the Mediterranean, they kept informed about affairs in their home countries while awaiting information about their ransom and release; they sought intelligence about political events relating to changes in rulers or governments, and about other captives and their whereabouts and conditions. As a Moroccan, al-Zwāwī knew about al-Tāzī’s background, but going as far as falsely accusing Mandes of Jewishness was intended to malign Mandes to the “Pasha.” After all, it was very unlikely that al-Tāzī could have been called by the name of the Prophet of Islam.89 Also, had Mandes been Jewish, al-Drāwī would have picked up on that religious factor when he mentioned al-Tāzī’s father, as would the anonymous writer in the first letter who had met the family and confidently mentioned the father, the mother, and the brothers; Bil-Ghayth, too, knew the father’s name. Had the Tāzī family been Jewish, he would most certainly have alluded to them as dhimmis—a common practice. In his anger, al-Zwāwī wanted to punish Mandes—and he knew that, as a Jew, Mandes would be treated quite differently by the pasha from someone claiming royal descent from the kings of Morocco.90 Mandes did not know about the merchant’s letter or the Neapolitan pasha’s request for information. From Florence to Naples, questions were still being raised about him. On 14 May 1666, al-Drāwī sent him another letter, thanking him for his letter but pleading with him to write and to thank the duke and his son for their kindness. He was afraid of the duke’s “family” that was intent on halākī (destruction). He, however, was not afraid because he trusted in God “who has covered his heart with His love and guided him with His light.” He continued that he was planning to convert at the end of the month, naʿmal Naṣrānī (to “make” Christian), with “a heart as pure as a mirror and as white as milk.”

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Khaybar was a city with a sizeable Jewish population, which was attacked and defeated by the Prophet Muḥammad. In the North African Jewish names analyzed by Corcos, Quelques aspects, the name “Muḥammad” does not appear at all. I am grateful to Professor Wadad Kadi for the following remark: “I know of no law prohibiting a non-Muslim from using Muslim names. Indeed, most of them did (as in Andalusia), although for the moment I cannot think of someone called Muhammad specifically, but I would not be surprised if I encountered one,” communication on 19 July 2019. Was the merchant influenced by the legend of Ibn Mishʿal, “a rich Jew, in the Tāza region, who gained control over the Muslims, became their ‘king’,” until he was defeated c. 1666 by al-Rashīd, the future ruler of Morocco (until 1672)? Hirschberg, A history of the Jews ii, 251.

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corrections, suggesting a final draft with carefully planned wording. The tone of the letter, however, is not that of pleading and groveling, as might be expected, but of anger and defiance: 1707 We, the captives in Marseille, write to complain to you and to God about what has happened and what is happening to us at the hands of the overseers of your government whom you have assigned over us. They have tyrannized over us and so we turn to our master with our complaint. If you are our master, you will redress our grievances, which is what we want; but if you do not redress them, we will send a letter of complaint to our lord, Mulay Ismāʿīl, and to others in Algiers and in Tripoli, and to all other cities to wreak vengeance on the Christians there, both merchants and captives. However, we are writing to you so you can issue your command. If you do not do that, we shall write to our countrymen to exact vengeance—as we have duly informed you. What has happened is the following: we are captives and you graciously granted us land in which to bury our dead. We have built and paid for it [cemetery], and whenever one section of it has needed repairs, we have done so.40 Whenever one of us falls sick, we look after him, and if he is admitted to the hospital and recovers in accordance with God’s will, we furnish him with some of the alms [ṣadaqa] until he regains his full health. If one of us is liberated, we give him some of that money so he can return to his country. The alms are collected from the possessions of dead captives. When one dies and leaves behind him some money, we use it for charity in those matters we have just described such as repairing the cemetery if it collapses, helping the sick, and assisting the old shaykhs and the blind. We use the charity money only in these situations. The same situation applies to Christians who are captives in Muslim cities.41 They do the same thing, collect money from each other and help 40

41

For Algerian cemeteries in France, see Belhamissi, Les captifs 59–61; and Dakhlia, Musulmans en France et en Grande-Bretagne 289–293. For the cemetery in Marseille, see Bertrand, Les cimetières des “esclaves turcs.” The cemetery for the “Turcs esclaves du roi” had been built a few decades earlier when the arsenal was being enlarged. The repairs which the captive mentions were often done on the wall that separated the Muslim cemetery from the cemetery of the Christian “forçats” 207. See also ch. 18 in Anselme des Arcs, Mémoires; and Hershenzon, The captive sea 130–132 on complaints about the desecration of cadavers. For European cemeteries in North Africa, see Soumille, Le cimètiere européen. The cemetery in Algiers was named after Saint Antoine. There were also cemeteries in Tunis, Tripoli,

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companions who had once known al-Tāzī-turned-Mandes “threw themselves on the ground at his feet, and confessed that he was none other than the son of the Emperor of Fez and Morocco,”93 Bil-Ghayth could not but have treated him similarly. Furthermore, at no point, before or after the conversion of Mandes, did al-Drāwī mention the Dallāʾīs, and only once did he mention that the son of Mandes was the “sultan” of Fez—a very specific piece of information that was not repeated—or emphasized—by the Christian writers who had used vague and bombastic titles for the convert. The two other letters by Moroccan coreligionists who had known al-Tāzī and his family confirmed by their silence Mandes’s nonroyal origin: not once did either of them use royal titles, mention when Mandes (or his son) allegedly ruled in the “kingdom of Fez,” or allude to the Dallāʾī dynasty. It would have been impossible for any Moroccan from Fez not to have known such information had al-Tāzī-turned-Mandes been the “empereur d’ Affrique, roy de Fez et Maroc.” After all, as Ḥajjī noted, the “Dallāʾī dynasty was famous and its members were known to Moroccan historians and genealogists.”94 But, by 1661–1662, and as Mandes was proclaiming to his Christian hosts his royal association with the Dallāʾīs, the dynasty had been ejected from Fez, and by 1668, the Saʿdian aspirant, Mulay al-Rashīd, had conquered and occupied Tāza, a Dallāʾī stronghold. The pro-Rashīd contemporaneous historian and jurist, al-Ḥasan al-Yūsī (1630–1691), wrote how the sons of Muḥammad al-Ḥājj had shown fear during the battle—resulting in their defeat and withdrawal. Had there been a son who had reneged to Christianity, al-Yūsī would surely have made a point of castigating the dynasty for that heinous deed.95 Throughout the years when Mandes was proclaiming his royal descent, the power of the Dallāʾīs was declining: the final defeat of the dynasty occurred a year after the death of Mandes in June 1668.96 Was it because such information about the Dallāʾīs was circulating in the Jesuit circles that prompted them to send for information from Morocco? Finally, Mandes had not been “a fils unique” (only son), as a Jesuit writer in Toulouse claimed (6 August 1667);97 he had brothers, as the writers confirmed.

93 94 95 96 97

had attained under Muḥmmad al-Ḥājj, Mandes’s supposed grandfather. For an exhaustive study of Dallāʾī history, see Ḥajjī, al-Zāwiya al-Dallāʾiyya. Blunt, Black sunrise 161. As Blunt explained, he relied for his information on the letters edited by de Castries. Ḥajjī, al-Zāwiya al-Dallāʾiyya 225. See a description of the defeat of the Dallāʾis in the account by al-Qādirī, The chronicles, 5–6. Ẓarīf, Muʾassassat al-zawāyā 104–105. De Castries, Les sources i, 221.

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Not only is there no mention of al-Tāzī’s princely background in the autobiography or the letters, there was no mention of how or why he had converted either—unlike the numerous Christian accounts, which reported about vision/s that led him to Christianity.98 What Mandes mentioned in his autobiography was that his conversion was a result of witnessing miracles, the likes of which never happened to the followers of “Muḥammad’s religion.” But al-Tāzī came from a region where karāmāt abounded: to say that no miracles happened in Muslim society—ignoring the countless hagiographies of awliyāʾ in Moroccan history, with their numerous miracles, especially in Sufi circles— could not have been convincing. Most problematic, however, about all the claims about Mandes is what the language of his autobiography reveals: it is in poor Arabic, and the sentences include numerous egregious grammatical and gender inconsistences (al-sayyid Maryam umm al-sayyid ʿĪsā, or al-sayyid al-karīma Maryam), casting serious doubt on the author’s linguistic abilities. If al-Tāzī had trained in the Quran and the Islamic sciences, as he, along with the Jesuit writers stated, and if he had been a great scholar and a learned prince writing 40 tomes, his Arabic would have been flawless and elegant. The Maghrebi script that he used in the autobiography was used sometimes in North African diplomatic correspondence: Mandes deliberately used it to convey a sense of grave stateliness. But the numerous colloquialisms and errors in the account would have undermined that stateliness: Mandes was not whom he claimed to be, and he was not the “only Muslim prince who became a Jesuit.”99 He was not a prince. Meanwhile, the case of Bil-Ghayth-turned-Ferdinand draws attention to the complexity in the interpretation of Muslim conversion in the early modern Mediterranean. The inner motivation of converts will always be difficult to gauge, especially in the case of the thousands of Muslim captives who converted under mental or physical duress. Also difficult to gauge is how much converts were able to overcome their previous religious sensibility and come to terms with the complicated new theology of Christianity. Even Mandes, who became deeply committed to his Christian mission, retained an Islamic mode of thinking. In his autobiography, he added the word bās after the name of Jesus—transliterating pace, or peace: as there was always the addition of “God’s prayer and peace be on him” after the name of Muḥammad, so now there was a

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For the vision/s that he repeatedly described, see Colombo, A Muslim turned Jesuit 486– 491. But as de Castries had noted, the account about visions was reported by Mandes’s “biographes chrétiens,” Les sources i, 152. Colombo and Sacconaghi, Telling the untellable 287.

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similar addition in accordance with the practice of Arabic Islam, where the name of Jesus was always followed by “peace be upon him,” ʿalayhi al-salām. Al-Drāwī’s letters open a window on the conversion of one Muslim as he wrote about his experience in his own words. They raise the question about the “sincerity” in conversion on which the Council of Trent had insisted,100 at the same time that the transposition of theological beliefs from one language to another reveals how Bil-Ghayth, a Muslim captive seeking freedom and employment, understood—or did not understand—what his baptism meant. The Arabic term for baptism used by Muslim writers was taghṭīs (submersion), which appears widely in contemporaneous sources. But Bil-Ghayth had not been submerged: the Catholic rite of baptism did/does not include such a practice, neither for infants nor for adults.101 Instead, Bil-Ghayth would have answered the priest’s questions by rejecting his previous religious error after which he would be led into the church. Having associated baptism with submersion, and having not been submerged, Bil-Ghayth was confused. Unable to use taghṭīs, he transliterated a foreign word—as he also translated the Christian calendar into his own Islamic vocabulary. After all the theological preparation that he said he had undergone to convert to Christianity, what did batzānī mean to Ferdinand, or the “hijra of the immaculate Christ”? How much did this convert become a “mediator or translator between cultures: a ‘trans-imperial subject’ ”?102 While in the rare case of Mandes, a convert was recognized for his missionary role among Muslims, there is no evidence that Bil-Ghayth or any of the many, many thousand converts played a similarly “mediating” role or furnished a “cultural and linguistic continuum” between the two shores of the Mediterranean.103

100

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102 103

See the discussion of “sincerity” in Krstić, Contested conversions esp. 102. See also Asad, Comments on conversion, who argued that in post-Tridentine Europe, the emphasis was on sincere commitment to faith. See the reference to a ceremony of baptism in Rome in 1645: “The ceremony was performed in the church of Santa Maria sopra la Minerva near the Capitol. They [Jews and Turks] were clad in white; they exercised at their entering the church with abundance of ceremonies, and, when led into the choir, were baptised by a Bishop, in potinficalibus. The Turk lived afterwards in Rome, sold hot waters, and would bring us presents when he met us, kneeling and kissing the hems of our cloaks,” Evelyn, The diary i, 170. Norton, Introduction 1. Van Gelder and Krstić, Introduction 95.

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munity or even local contacts; arriving poor and destitute, they were unable to leave. They became captives of their poverty. 5 March 1731 A letter from Ḥājj Muṣṭafā al-Tlimsānī is addressed to the sulṭān of England, George II. As all letters in Arabic have to start with the name of God and of the Prophet Muḥammad, prudently, the writer of this letter just mentioned God, without mentioning the Prophet. But he added “Alone, who has no associate”— a reference to the Quranic emphasis on the absence of associates with God (especially associates from a Christian perspective). Praying to God that the rule of mawlāna al-sulṭān would last forever, he explained that he had appealed to Sir Robert Walpole (1676–1745), the prime minister of Great Britain, in a letter of 26 July 1729. Since nothing had resulted from that petition—Walpole was busy in preparations for the Treaty of Seville in November of that year— Muḥammad was now presenting another directly to the king. Although the petitioner was technically free, he was still a captive, as he was unable to leave the island without the assistance of the British authorities.47 The petition is in poor colloquial Arabic. The writer did not know of a formula to address a European ruler. “O sultan,” Muḥammad started after a very brief (and from a Moroccan perspective, blunt) opening, “I am a stranger in your country and I have come to complain to you about what has happened to me under your banner. I am a man from Algiers and had been in Tripoli sailing to Crete” when my ship was attacked by the French, who stole all my and my fellow travelers’ merchandise. So, I wrote to “Basha Walpole” from Paris to tell him about what had happened. At this point, Muḥammad lost his composure and burst out angrily, “How can they seize us from under your flag, but do not seize Spaniards, Maltese, Genovese, and Valancians.” He then described how he had come to England seeking restitution according to the law, sharʿ, “for I have left wives and children without anything [to sustain them]. May God have mercy on the souls of your parents (Allāh taʿālā yirḥam wālidayk) … Peace.”48 Without the fleets, which European countries possessed and with which they could wield power, the Muslim only could rely on invocation and appeal. And while he realized the need to evoke pity for his situation, he still emphasized the justness of his case: he had been rendered poor and destitute, and compensation was his due after so many months spent in trying to reach the right authority.49 47 48 49

Both the Arabic and the English versions of the petition survive. TNA SP 71/23/ 50. At the same time, North Africans who were pillaged or captured by the English tried to go

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Praise be to God that He proffered upon us the gift of Islam and selected this umma [community] above all others because of our belief in the One Alone who has no equal—and I distance myself from him who blasphemes. From the slave in need of God’s mercy, Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad ibn Aḥmad al-Masārī, to my nephew Qāsim ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Ḥammūd: peace be with you and the mercy and blessings of God. Thus, I praise God for you who is the One beside whom there is no other. We received your letter and were extremely happy because we had not heard any news about you for a long time. We thought you had drowned. When we received your written missive we rejoiced in life because death is a calamity greater than everything, but there is hope for the living, God willing. Endure, for God has so ordained. I urge you to cling to faith in God and to praise the Prophet repeatedly, God’s prayer and peace on him. If you are able to pray, remember the five prayers, even if you pray with your eyes, and when the month of Ramadan comes, you must fast—but we pray to God you will be freed before then. This letter is meant for all the captives with you. By God beside whom there is no other god: if ransom is set, you will not remain there where you are, God willing, either with our money, or our negotiations, or any other means available to us. If you write to us, write also to the qāʾid as well and restrain your language and do not repeat what you had said previously in your letters. All our sons, our daughter-in-law, ʿĀisha, and your sons send you greetings. I tell you, she is staying in al-ʿArāʾish with her daughter: she is faithful, patient, truthful, and so do not worry about her at all. She has not changed and so let your heart rest assured, and if you hear otherwise, don’t pay attention. Meanwhile, try to write to us if you can, and greet all the captives with no distinction and everyone else who sees this letter. May God grant you patience. Always keep your hope in God for God almighty has said: “If our servant thinks well, he will find good and if he thinks evil, he will find it.” Peace be with you. We received your written message in the middle of God’s holy month of Dhul Hijja and I am writing to you on 23 Dhul Hijja in 1118.106 The fear of conversion was prevalent among families of captives—which might explain why the uncle was proactive in ransoming his nephew. The uncle 106

De Cossé Brissac, Les sources vi, 371–373.

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stressed how much the wife was still awaiting her husband’s return: at times of so many dangers at sea for sailors and travelers, a wife could not afford to remain without a husband to support her. Otherwise, as in this case, it would be the duty of a male member of the family to take care of her and the children— which the uncle was doing. In 1708, the chaplain on one of the French galleys described how he tried to convert a dying Muslim captive. The latter, who spoke French, agreed to renounce the “imposter” Muḥammad and accept baptism but then, another Muslim, who also knew French, threw himself on the sick captive imploring him not to convert—and so, he did not.107 But, while one man resisted conversion, others did not because the Propaganda Fide offered them opportunities to start life anew after conversion—and they were warmly welcomed when they were seen to be able to serve in the church’s missionary effort to Muslims. Clemente Caraccioli (1670–1721), formerly Imam Ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣaʿīdī, was one such convert, and uniquely, he wrote to explain the process of his conversion. As he recorded, he converted because he was impressed by the poverty and abstinence of Christians. His account is significant in that it shows conversion as a process; the imam did not convert after a Paul-like vision, but after reading and observing and comparing.108 And he was willing to write about it, curiously, using the Quranic language to which he had been accustomed: While others did not convert, I decided to change to the religion of Christianity for these two reasons. First, because those who preached it were poor without wealth to dispense to those who would follow them. It is impossible for them to possess wealth, because their book urges the renunciation of wealth and selfish possessions. They do not permit pleasures, because their book commands abstinence from food and drink, and withdrawal from the world and all its pleasures. They do not convert from difficulty to ease [echoing Q 94:5], because their book commands the opposite. … When I saw all that, and I discovered that the Greek philosophers had converted to Christianity, and so had the Byzantines [Rūm], the ifranj, 107 108

Bion, An account of the torments. As also in the case of al-Drāwī above, Muslim captives did not invoke the model of Paul’s conversion, very much a trope in Christian writings. Paul and his story do not appear in the Quran.

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the Bulgarians, the Copts, the Nubians, the Armenians, the Syrians, the Persians, the Turks, the people of China and other nations, not out of fear or desire for gain. I realized that they had converted because of a divine miracle. This led me rationally [min al-ʿaql] to recognize the truth of Christianity.109 It is possible that Clemente was one of the 422 Muslims who converted in Rome’s Casa dei Catecumeni between 1650 and 1699.110 His statement reflects the deep personal belief that led him to Christianity; and by and large, Muslim conversion to Christianity was always described as resulting from rational deliberation and not emotional spontaneity. When a century earlier Muṣṭafāturned-Jean Armand wrote to thank Cardinal Richelieu for his patronage, he too explained that he had converted to Christianity because he wanted to join a religion where each person was responsible for his own salvation and that none was damned except for his own sins.111 In his account, Clemente alludes to, perhaps unwittingly, how Rome viewed him: his account could be used to draw Arabic-speaking Muslim captives or slaves on the galleys to Christianity. Was his confession of faith to serve as one of the various examples of conversion that the church presented to Muslims? Clemente knew, and so did the church, that after his conversion he would not be able to return to his homeland and would have to stay in/immigrate to the lands of the Christians. For the Propaganda Fide, someone like Clemente would be more credible as a preacher of Christianity than, perhaps, an Italian or a Spanish priest; did the office still think back on the successes of Mandes half a century earlier? At times of inter-European commercial and religious contentions, the convert was not just a saved soul, but a new servant of the church, and of the crown, the trading company, and the missionaries-in-training. And so, after conversion, the new Christian changed allegiance and served his new religious, political, and commercial masters as a member of the most powerful institution of conversion (to Catholicism) in the world. Like al-Zwāwī before him, Clemente was tasked with copying/editing Arabic books that were used in the conversion effort:

109 110

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Samir, Un imām Égyptien 150. Clemente finished writing his account on the last Saturday of October 1718. Bono, Conversioni di musulmani 439. As Miège observed, the Casa contains 313 volumes and 132 dossiers, from 1614 to 1826, Captifs 166. But it is also possible that he was converted in Naples, thus adopting the name of a famous Neapolitan family. Armand, Voyages d’Afrique Epistre.

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may God extend his days” (accompanied by a letter from the British “consul Laurence”) to retrieve the eight leather skins, two bags of coffee, one bag of cotton, a small amount of raisins, twelve barrels of dates, a barrel of ʿaraq (arak?), a small quantity of botarga, and some clothes, a mattress, and copper belongs. It is not known if Muḥammad Ibn Muṣṭafā the emissary did get these items back; again, the list shows the scant goods that were being traded by Muslims.53 19 February 1713 In 1713, perhaps the strangest “captivity” occurred. Bentura de Zari, at least that is how he wrote his name,54 was an Armenian Christian who was sent as ambassador to London by Mulay Ismāʿīl in 1710.55 In the October 1709 letter to Queen Anne (reg. 1702–1714), Mulay Ismāʿīl had introduced him as “Bentura al-Armanī” (the English translation reads “Venturo the Armenian Merchant”). Bentura described himself, rather unproblematically, as representing Mulay Ismāʿīl, calling Morocco “my Country.” How an Armenian came to be in Morocco is unclear, but there were Armenians in the Mediterranean who traded in silk and who had established churches in Livorno, Venice, and Amsterdam. These communities could well have started from the Armenian migrations from Istanbul and Thrace at the beginning of the seventeenth century and that joined the “trade and information exchange of the Mediterranean Basin.”56 A small community was in Cadiz, where Bentura might have been based and from where he could have traveled to Meknes; the only letters that survive in his hand are in Spanish. Why Ismāʿīl chose him as his emissary to London is unclear, since Bentura did not seem to have any contacts in England. Although there was a small Armenian community there, at no point did Bentura refer to it or appeal to it for help during his stay.57 After arriving and having his audience with Queen Anne, Bentura learned that Moroccan pirates captured an English ship. In retaliation, the English authorities ordered him “confin’d” to his house, just behind Westminster, where he spent his time writing letters of complaint to the secretary of state. He was not a captive in the usual sense of the word, enslaved to the oar or to hard labor; nevertheless, house arrest deprived him of his freedom, his servants, and most importantly, his cook. None of the letters that have survived by him were writ53 54 55 56 57

TNA 71/28/345–346. I am grateful to Mr. Levon Nazarian who confirmed that the signature is Armenian, but difficult to read. For a brief account about him, see Rogers, A history of Anglo-Moroccan relations 77–81; and my The last Moors. Shapiro, The great Armenian flight 89. Aslanian, From the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean 77–82.

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his soul in paradise.” He then informed the king that he was a sharif, descendant of Mulay Idrīs in Fez, and that he was a faqih, too, who had taught the Arabic language to young and old. “We know what God has ordained for me and which obligates me in my religion, which is the religion of our Sīdī ʿĪsā, peace be on him, and so we thank God who guided us to the true religion. Our hope is in him, because I have no one other than He. I trust that our master will offer me a ḥasana and give me a place in the Escorial in the monks’ school or any other place, for I am eager to study Latin and learn more about the true religion so that I can be guided to truth and to writing [Latin].”114

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Many Muslim captives converted, adjusted, and somehow integrated—but only to the extent that European society permitted. Lewis Maximilian, a Muslim-Turkish captive to England, shows his adjustment to Anglicanism. The publication of his Memoirs of the life of Lewis Maximilian Mahomet, gent. late servant to his majesty in English in 1727 was clearly aimed to show Anglican progress in proselytization to London readers. His account was the first published memoir of a Muslim captive in England. As the English began to push their conversionary efforts into the Levant, they met with a highly organized and well-financed Catholic effort that was gaining converts among Eastern Christians—and sometimes, clandestinely, among Muslims and Jews. And of course, there were the large numbers of captives who were converted in the bagnios and arsenals and hospitals of France and Malta and Italy. There was need in London to show that Protestant Anglicanism could prove appealing to Muslims, too.115 The account was written by “Himself”/“Mahomet” (although the first part is a brief biography written about him after his death) and includes his confession of faith, his “Acknowledgement of ROYAL Favours,” and his final will and testament. Given the jokes that had been hurled sometimes at King George I for having a Muslim in his court, the conversion account would vindicate the monarch by showing how instrumental he had been in leading an infidel to Protestantism. There had been, after all, something propitious about the conversion of Mahomet: he had been captured during the “remarkable … Siege the Turks laid to Vienna, in the Year 1683,” after which he converted, married “a Hanoverian Gentlewoman, of a very good Family,” had children, and 114 115

Razzūq, Dirāsāt fī tārīkh al-Maghrib 181–182. For a discussion of earlier conversions of Muslim captives in England, see my Islam in Britain ch. 3.

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prospered. He served King George I, and when he died on 1 November 1726, he was buried in the “Vault belonging to the German-congregation in the Savoy.”116 His will shows the usual gratitude to God for having guided him to the “Evangelical Truth” of Christianity. While this captive-convert met with success and apparent acceptance, another captive-convert met with tribulation and rejection. The case of James Bashaw, as the Muslim convert became known in England, reveals the difficulty he faced, even after his marriage to an English woman, Elizabeth Fornish on 16 April 1776. In the memoir he dictated (and which was subsequently published), he described his transformation as he shed his Turkish clothes, Turkish mustachio, and Turkish religion, but not, presumably, his Turkish complexion. For his account showed the difficulties he encountered in finding employment and gaining acceptability. Still, he survived and was able to have all his children baptized: Jinny, John, Alice, and James Bashaw were all baptized in Great Mitton, Yorkshire; Ann in Spalding, Lincoln; Maria in Ipswich, Suffolk; and John, the last, in Colchester, Essex on 24 August 1795 (but many of them died shortly after).117 Ishmael met with tremendous difficulties and was not accepted in British, Christian (Anglican) society. Again, like Mahomet, he had been captured, “taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and made a wonderful escape to England. Where, having become a Convert to the Christian Faith, he was publicly baptized, with the approbation of the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Lincoln.” Still, he remained an outsider, sometimes harassed, often ostracized, and unable to find secure employment. Thus, he wrote his account as a “Turkish Refugee” and after having it printed, he went around selling it himself. Converted as he was, he did not meet with the royal praise that Mahomet had received earlier in the century: was he a “swarthy” Turk while the former was not?118 Captives in the early modern Mediterranean were the most vulnerable to conversion. What is interesting is that Christian captives repeatedly wrote about the severe attempts to convert them to Islam, even though in their own accounts, they often described the chapels or worship spaces that their Muslim captors allowed them to have, and the regular religious celebrations and, in Catholic accounts, masses that they celebrated. How much the claims that many captives-turned-writers described of forced conversion and torture are 116 117 118

Memoirs of the life of Lewis Maximilian Mahomet 5, 8, 10. See also Aljenfawi, Mahomet and Mustapha. The Turkish refugee. See also Fisher, The travels of Dean Mahomet, for another example of a Muslim convert, an Indian, and the difficulties he faced in adjustment to life in England and Ireland.

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difficult to verify, but it was a trope that many captives repeated. Meanwhile, Muslim captives who described their ordeals among Christians never mentioned either the offer or the enforcement of conversion. This reticence is paradoxical because the lists and missionary records amply show conversion in a manner that did not occur among Christian captives who had monarchs and religious orders with large financial resources to ransom them. Significantly, vast numbers of Muslims converted to Catholicism, rather than to Protestantism, notwithstanding what Edward Pococke noted in 1639. As he was watching a Catholic procession in Genoa, “he was surpriz’d with the Discourse of some Persons, at a little Distance, who talked in Arabick. They were a Couple of Slaves in Chains, who being confident, that no Body could understand the Language they spake in, express’d their Opinions of what they saw, with all Manner of Freedom … They took Occasion to ridicule Christianity itself, and to load it with Contempt. So unhappy has the Church of Rome been in her Practices on the Christian Religion: For whilst, to serve some worldly Designs, she hath laboured to engage the Minds of the vulgar Sort, by empty Shews, and superstitious Solemnities, she hath, by those corrupt Additions, expos’d what is infinitely rational, wise and good, to the Laughter and Reproach of Infidels, who will not take the Pains to distinguish in the Professors of Christianity, what hath, indeed, the Warrant of the Gospel [Protestantism], from what hath not.”119 The question therefore will probably remain unanswered: how many captives turned into Christians of Allāh, and how many into Muslims for Jesus? 119

Pococke, Theological works 18.

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Ransom and Return I have called my report, The journey of the vizier for liberating (iftikāk) the captives. Al-Ghassānī (c. 1691).

∵ If—when—miracles did not prove effective, captives awaited help from their rulers who sent ambassadors and emissaries to negotiate ransom payments. All surviving Arabic descriptions about journeys to European countries in the period under study, except the account about the five-year escape of the Lebanese prince Fakhr al-Dīn to Italy (1613–1618), were written by emissaries on negotiating missions, and all were by Moroccans. Some Ottoman officials went from the regencies to France to ransom captives, but their records were in Turkish. In general, Arab captives from the Eastern Mediterranean had no Ottoman official traveling from Istanbul or Cairo to Western Europe to ransom them, while regency officials always negotiated for Turkish captives. As various accounts show, both from the Arab and the European sides of the Mediterranean, negotiations for the liberation of captives were lengthy, and ambassadors and Redemptionists sometimes had to travel multiple times to conclude satisfactory deals. The disagreements always centered on the sums to be paid in ransom, the number of captives to be exchanged, or the inclusion of a commercial and/or peace treaty with the release of captives—the last something on which North African rulers often insisted. As a result of the delays and confusions, many European and North African captives remained for decades in bagnios awaiting freedom. In the case of North African captives, and when conditions at home were unstable and rulers were busy with their own internal affairs—rebellions, famines, or court intrigues—the captives had to take matters into their own hands, raise money on their own, and find an intermediary who would negotiate for them. Some Muslim captives granted non-Arab Christian merchants power of attorney to sell their property at home and raise the ransom sums. On one occasion, a Frenchman went from Istanbul to Malta to ransom captives; on another in 1617, “Paulo a merchant from Venice” took money from the mother of Mahmut to ransom her son; on a third occasion in 1689, it was “Kornelis a Dutchman” who was to try and ransom “Recep” who was

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Bentura discovered firsthand how Christians could mistreat fellow Christians and confine them in the foggy cold of London. Perhaps that was the price he paid for crossing boundaries between two religious communities: Christian and Muslim, and between two “nations”—Armenian and Moroccan. His diet was of Armenia and the Levant—on one occasion, he mentioned a very Middle Eastern trait then of eating melon seeds to pass the time during his house captivity—but his duties were to negotiate for Morocco. His will of September 1716 shows his multiple identity: his possessions included European clothes, “One paire of Cloath Breeches Embroidered with Gold,” along with “Outlandish Bookes,” “One Silver Snuff Box,” alongside a “Damask Table Clothes,” and “One Parrott.”59 Despite the cultural mix, to his English captorscum-hosts, he remained a Moroccan, and therefore when the Moroccans seized a British ship, he paid. That he was a Christian wearing breaches meant nothing to them, for his transnationalism from Armenia to Morocco was as much of a joke as Daniel Defoe suggested in 1720 when his fictional king of pirates, Avery, dressed as an Armenian merchant in Basra and crossed through hostile territory without anyone detecting his subterfuge.60

Conclusion A large amount of the correspondence between North African rulers and their counterparts across the Mediterranean divide dealt with captives: their conditions, their nationalities, the prices of their ransom, and their return to their countries. While matters of trade and diplomacy were central to national interests, captives were frequent subjects. As appears especially in the exchanges between Morocco and the regencies on the one hand and France on the other, the North Africans were ever eager to bring back their coreligionists, even if they were Turks, but the French negotiators tried to keep them for their galleys and domestic building projects.61 Negotiations with Spain, Malta, and Naples were also difficult; England was the least problematic because it never had large numbers of captives, having moved beyond reliance on captives for its ships. The letters by and about captives record voices in suffering and humiliation, but also sometimes in defiance. Even when written by rulers with haughty 59 60 61

TNA PROB 32/60/23: 28 September 1716 signed by Davidis Chiriaco. Defoe, The king of pirates 76, 82. See Kaiser’s note about Sanson Napollon in 1627—how the latter found great difficulty in retrieving and buying Muslims on the galleys because they were considered property of the captains, Négocier la liberté 520.

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about captivity and ransom comes from official correspondence and from Moroccan ambassadorial reports. On 22 November 1691, Mulay Ismāʿīl wrote to King Louis XIV asking that one “Christian” French captive be exchanged for one “Muslim” Moroccan captive. Interestingly, he specified that the Moroccan captives should be from Salé, Rabat, Tetouan, Fez, Meknes, and al-Qasr al-Kabir—but only those captured less than ten years earlier.4 Either he did not want the sick, or he feared that captives with so many years among Christians would have lost their true Muslim commitment. But the Maltese and the French were reluctant to return captives because they needed them for service on the fleets. And so, many letters by North African deys and beys explain that one of the reasons why their privateers continued to seize Christian captives and keep them was because that was the only way to force the return of their own. Finance minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert and King Louis XIV were building what would become a formidable navy and they needed rowers more than the ransom payments for the captives. After forcing sub-Saharan Africans and Native American Indians on the galleys, they discovered that the North Africans were the most able at the oars. Algerian rulers, along with the rulers in the other regencies, wanted to establish commercial ties that would permit them to trade at sea and grow their local economy; much as they depended on agriculture, they were beginning to realize the importance of the sea as an avenue for trade and investment. But the repeated attacks on their fleets and ports by the British and the French, and the repeated seizure of sailors and fishermen by the Maltese and the Spanish, left them with few opportunities for economic ventures other than the seizure of Europeans for ransom. Holding captives became one way to ensure either hard currency or trade, but then, they exposed themselves to terrifying bombardments—from Salé to Algiers to Tripoli.5 In the 1680s, the French fleet repeatedly bombed Algiers, deploying firepower that the Algerians could not confront. North African rulers entered a vicious circle. Humiliated about their inability to bring back captives to the lands of Islam, and unable to fight back without the superior technology developed in the French and British arsenals, the dey of Algiers, Ḥajj Muḥammad, could do nothing but implore King Louis XIV to return “nos frères Musulmans esclaves en France” (our Muslim brethren held as slaves in France), explaining that he had been keeping French captives in order to exchange them for his own subjects (letters of 17 February 1675, 21 December 1675). In an earlier letter of 23 September 1674, he wrote to 4 Al-Naṣirī, Sallā wa Ribāṭ al-Fatḥ iii, 104. 5 See the eye-witness account of the bombardment of Tripoli, Libya, by Aḥmad ibn Khālid alNāṣirī in 1685, in my Europe through Arab eyes 210–213.

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the French king asking him to protect the Algerians who flee to France because of the peace treaty with France. The Algerians had been captives in Genoa, Livorno, and Spain and made their way to France only to find themselves seized to the galleys. Just put them on ships and send them back, he wrote.6 By then, there were already around 2,000 “turcs” serving on the French fleet.7 In a letter sent in the early 1680s, the Algerian diwan complained that seven Algerians escaped from Spain and were found at sea by a French ship. They were enslaved and sold in Marseille. The captives wrote to their families and complained to the diwan. “Such an action does not conform to the terms of peace … And, two Algerians traveling on a French ship were captured by the enemy. Since France is at peace with all Christian countries, it is her duty to force the Spaniards to release the captives.”8 But the French navy was in need of rowers since most of the Blacks they had brought from Guinea had died, allegedly of “mélancholie,” unable to adapt to the brutal conditions of the fleet.9 Ḥajj Ḥusayn, who succeeded Ḥajj Muḥammad, was told that 56 Algerian captives would be released only after 56 new captives were furnished for the fleet:10 there was little that he could do to avoid having coreligionists in French chains. Similar concern for captives was shown by Mulay Ismāʿīl in Morocco. Between 1690 and 1691, the Moroccan ambassador, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd alWahhāb al-Ghassānī, wrote an account about his experience of ransoming captives in Spain. He included firsthand description of various parts of Spain, thereby abiding by the command of Mulay Ismāʿīl who wanted him to report as much information about the country as possible.11 Al-Ghassānī wrote both about geography and infrastructure as well as about the European history that influenced social and political life in Spain. (He was the first to write an account about the Protestant Reformation, but based on his hosts’ Catholic perspective). He also described captives, although briefly, unwilling to focus on the humiliation and despair of Muslims in infidel hands. After he and his delegation arrived in Cordoba, he wrote how the captives came out proclaiming the shahādah (witness)—and therefore confirming that they were still Mus6 7 8 9 10 11

Letter quoted in Vannān, Nuṣūṣ wa wathāʾiq 78. Bamford, The procurement of oarsmen. See also Boyer, La chiourme turque; Fontenay, Chiourmes turques au XVII siècle. Vannān, Nuṣūṣ 79. By 1680, as Bamford showed, 45% of the slaves on board the French fleet were North African, particularly Algerian, The procurement 45. As Fontenay showed, by 1679, of the 140 Blacks who had been brought, 60 had died. By 1682, only 16 remained, Figures de l’esclave galérien 130. Plantet, Correspondance des deys d’Alger i, 116. Al-Ghassānī, Riḥlat al-wazīr 45, 67. See the translation of the major part of the travelogue in my In the lands of the Christians 113–195.

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lim and that Islam was still being professed in the land that had been, by then, completely Christianized. And to flatter his master, he added how the captives called on God to grant victory to him: it was important for al-Ghassānī to show that the welcome afforded to him by the desperate captives was really in honor of his lord and master. To further magnify that honor, al-Ghassānī mentioned how Spanish children running after the captives repeated the words of the captives. Even in Spain, he implied, the glory of Islam and of Mulay Ismāʿīl was recognized, although it is very likely that the children were making fun of the Arabic they did not understood. Al-Ghassānī repeated the same words when he arrived in Madrid: all captives, he confirmed, were grateful to their Muslim lord and master and loudly proclaimed his name. Whether he succeeded in ransoming all the captives is not clear because other emissaries were sent years later on similar ransom missions. Al-Ghassānī was the first Arab to describe Muslim captives in Christian Europe—even if circumspectly. In 1700, King William III assured Mulay Ismāʿīl that the Moroccan “subjects” who had come to “the Royall City of London” were “kindly treated” as they negotiated the release of Muslim captives.12 A quarter of a century later, on 25 Shawwal 1135/28 July 1723, Mulay Ismāʿīl wrote to King George I praising the inglīz as afḍal ajnās al-Naṣārā (the English are the best of Christians), not only because their kings have always corresponded with Moroccan kings but also because the English did not take Muslim captives for their galleys. Ismāʿīl had been greatly impressed by the British emissary Charles Windus, who had negotiated the release of British captives in 1721 as part of a peace treaty, “may God keep it between us.” That is why, Ismāʿīl concluded, he was sending his own ambassador to London, ʿAbd al-Qādir Perez, a man who truly loved the English and “always mentions them with favor.”13 But Perez failed in his mission, and so Ismāʿīl sent another ambassador, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī Abghalī, to confirm the maḥabba (loving kindness) between the two monarchs. The letter by Mulay Ismāʿīl to King George I again opens with lines and lines of unrestrained praise for the monarch, “possessor of the victories of England and its provinces, the great one of the fortifications and the captains of Britain’s ports,” as well as master of France and Ireland.14 Ismāʿīl then pleads with George to effect the release of one of his ships, which had a valid passport, and which had been seized to Spain (Gibraltar) by a ship flying the British flag. The cargo was stolen and the crew and passengers on board sent into slavery. Once finished, on 8 July 1726, the Moroccan ambassador asked for a ship to carry him back to his country. He also 12 13 14

TNA SP 71/14/505. TNA SP 102/2/96. See the report by Windus about his journey in 1721, A journey. TNA SP 102/1/5 (29 March 1725).

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Divine Intervention: Christian and Islamic When you step on board a ship, repeat the basmalah and the fātiḥa seven times, and invoke God against Satan: for these will protect you from drowning, burning, or being taken captive.1

∵ In Spanish literary accounts, God intervened in the liberation of captives through the Virgin Mary, whom captives invoked and sometimes saw in visions and dreams. For Protestant writers, God spoke through the silent prayer of the captives and their reading of the Bible; and for Muslims, there were dreams of the Prophet and interventions of holy men who with their karāmāt were able to effect the captives’ freedom even from faraway distances. Arab authors remembered these karāmāt for generations and repeated them in their biographies and hagiographies of holy men and women. As with the Stories of the saints in the Catholic tradition, the lives and miracles of Muslim holy men and women inspired later believers and demonstrated the continuing efficacy of visiting tombs and shrines. Both Christians and Muslims believed in miracles, not only to effect freedom but also to demonstrate the truthfulness of their religion and the power of their God.

1

Christian

Only one account has survived in Arabic that tells of the miraculous liberation of Mediterranean Christian captives from Muslim hands. It is poorly written, but it includes the report on the captivity of three monks from Italy who remain nameless. The episode seems more hagiographic than historical, but interestingly, it does not end with a Christian victory of converting the Muslims. There is a kind of amity, and of course, admiration on the part of Muslims for the miracle-performing monk—but the monk denounces the infidels at the end

1 Al-Zayānī, al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā 153.

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was familiar with the diplomatic codes of Europe, he was sent on a mission to Spain to ransom Muslim captives. The journey lasted eight months in which al-Ghazzāl also negotiated a successful peace treaty with King Carlos III (reg. 1759–1788). In 1771, Ibn ʿAbdallāh attacked the Spanish outpost of Melilla but was forced to withdraw because of the terms of the treaty that had been written by al-Ghazzāl. Ibn ʿAbdallāh accused his ambassador of disobedience and removed him from office. Al-Ghazzāl joined a Sufi lodge but became blind and died in 1777. His account sheds light on the condition of captives—much more so than the account by al-Ghassānī. Al-Ghazzāl observed, for instance, that captives were not allowed to use Arabic in writing—although they must have spoken it with each other, even though, after years in captivity, they would have acquired some Spanish terms and sentences to use with their captors. Some captives escaped, although where they would have gone is difficult to tell: they were kept inland and so reaching the coastline in order to cross over to North Africa would have been dangerous, if not impossible. Did they hide and then settle in what had been Andalusian villages where some of the Muslims-turned-Christians lived who still remembered their history and would have taken pity on the captives? One fear that captives had was that if or when they were released, they would not be able to return to their homelands with their children. The situation was not unlike what had happened during the expulsion of the Andalusians in 1609 when parents were forced to leave their children behind, who were subsequently baptized into Christianity. The captives remembered that past, repeating to the ambassador their fears: that their children would be turned into Christians. Although the title of al-Ghazzāl’s work indicated the jihad he had to conduct in the lands of the infidels on behalf of his master—and it was always his master who was mentioned and praised making the theme of captivity subservient to the latter’s glorification—the account was also an important report on the plight of Muslim captives in Spain through Arab eyes. Such was Ibn ʿAbdallāh’s Islamic vision that al-Ghazzāl was instructed to effect the release of all Muslims—including the Turks, even though Ottoman emissaries never bothered to ransom Arabs in this period. In La Graja, and preparing to leave for Madrid, al-Ghazzāl set down the terms for the release of the captives to his Spanish hosts. First there was to be The release of all aged and disabled captives, along with the learned ones and their like, from whichever region [of North Africa] they came; 2. The release of all the captives from the region of our master [Morocco], after writing down their names and titles; 3. The release of two Algerian men, one a student [of religious sciences] and the other one a sayyid (as

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appears by his dignified stature). Our master, may God support him, had received letters asking for his release from captivity, accompanied by a letter specifically about the aforementioned scholar, Sayyid Muṣṭafā ibn ʿAlī al-Bābā Dughlī. Our master, may God advance him, insists on their release from captivity—which is why I included them in the roster I presented. I concluded my roster with some of the captives’ complaints, which are the following: 4. That if a captive dies, he should be buried by his Muslim brethren; 5. That no [Muslim] convert to Christianity be made overseer over the captives because such a man is worse than all other Christians; 6. That captives not be prevented from writing in Arabic; 7. That they be treated kindly and not be given labors above their capacity; 8. That the sick be treated in the hospital just like other patients and that the patient not be forced to attend their [Christian] prayers nor be denied food or clothing. That all the above [terms] not be kept from the tyrant [the Spanish king] nor ignored: invariably, overseers eat the captives’ food and treat them unjustly. They also hurt them because nothing is reported to the tyrant. After we read the terms word for word and understood every article, he [Spanish king] realized his ignorance, and having been informed, he agreed to all the terms. Immediately, he [Spanish king] ordered new garments for all the captives, kinder treatment should they be put to work, and compassion until God found them a way out. We trusted his words. As we were about to leave, the tyrant said to his vizier, “Ask the emissaries of our master the sultan [Sīdī Muḥammad] what they need so we can fulfill all their desires and not fail in honoring them and doing what is right.” We replied, “You have fulfilled all that we had hoped for in releasing the captives of our master’s land, along with the aged. Nothing remains except what he [the Spanish king] had promised through his friar: to honor us with the books of Islam that he possesses, to show kindness to our brethren in faith; and to identify the scholars of the Book of God almighty [jurists] by some kind of sign so they be respected and protected in their dignity. These are the most important things we desire. What he has already fulfilled has been completed; we await his fulfillment of the rest. Everything else of the ruins of the world does not interest us. We don’t even want to discuss them. We have enough gold, silver, and diamonds. We wish to keep our dignity.” … Twenty-one miles from Madrid, we met with our brethren the captives and rejoiced to see them. We consoled them and told them that our master, may God make him victorious, was deeply concerned about them and

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that he, may God promote him, was striving to effect their release from captivity. We gave them what our master had sent them [alms], as was his benevolent custom every year, but we found many of them heavily shackled because they had repeatedly tried to escape.17 Promptly, I wrote appealing for the removal of their shackles and for the release of one man who had was blind in both eyes by gunpowder. The tyrant agreed and released the blind man and removed the shackles from our Muslim brethren. We pleaded with the overseer to be kind to them and we did all we could in honoring [bribing] him, as we had been ordered to do, so he would be kind to them. The result immediately became apparent, as our master, may God make him victorious, had anticipated. After the cursed one was honored, he started treating the Muslims kindly and took pity on them, promising to do so as long as he was the overseer. Most of the captives labored in digging the road from Madrid to the Escorial. They were 204 captives; earlier, they had been 300 but some had escaped while others had been martyred. The vast majority of the captives were from Algiers, and some were Turks. We ask God to hasten their release, for He is the One who can. As they were counted, we learned that thirteen captives were sick and were being treated for their ailments in the hospital in Madrid. The next day, we reached Madrid and went to visit our sick brethren, taking with us what our master had graciously sent them, as he had sent the others. We greeted them and enjoyed their company, telling them about the promise of our master, may God support him, to effect their freedom. They were all convinced that their own [Algerian and Turkish] compatriots were not going to help them and the only hope they had for release lay in our master, may God support him. We then left them as they thanked our master, may God make him victorious. Meanwhile, we turned to the overseer in the hospital, a Christian friar who was intelligent and enjoyed a good reputation in his community. He treated the patients kindly, offering them food and drink and ensuring the cleanliness of their clothes and beds. Numerous Christians reported to him, and everyone looked up to him. We asked him to pay special attention to our brethren, to which he conceded; actually, we were told that he treated them better than his own kind. And so, we honored him [with a gift] after which he promised to be even kinder. He was very welcoming and sin-

17

Ortiz compared the conditions of the captives to “campos de concentración,” Un embajador Marroquí 54.

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monk fasting every day, praying, and constantly preaching to the monks about salvation. They reached an island with no drinking water, but they could not leave it because the wind was against them. They remained there for many days and finished all the water they had, and for four days, they were hot and thirsty. When the monk saw them in that condition, he told them to fill all the jugs with seawater and to bring them over to him. They did and he went down on his knees in prayer saying, “Our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God and His true word, You who turned the bitter water of Saint Elisha sweet [2Kings 2:21] and during your life turned water into wine [at the marriage in Cana, John 2:1–11]: make this water sweet. Let the believers and the unbelievers with me marvel mightily and let them recognize your power, first and last, and let them praise your holy and almighty name—with your Father, of course, and with your true Spirit that is holy.” After he finished his prayer, he drew the sign of the cross on the jugs and instantly, and with wondrous power, the captives and the Muslims were able to drink, and they praised God for His bounty. They stayed there for days drinking the water until it was finished but the wind continued to prevent them from sailing. So they went to the monk asking him for his blessing because they had become weakened with thirst. He told them to fill the jugs again with seawater, which they promptly did and he prayed and drew the sign of the cross whereupon the water became sweet. Everyone there marveled and thought him the angel of God. Then, the wind rose in their favor and they left the island and reached the destination of the monks and the captives. The sailors returned to Africa and reported all that they had seen to their prince who wondered at hearing what they told him. He struck his breast and said, “I was a fool: for God sent me this great man and I did not keep him to observe the miracles he performs.” Immediately, he wrote a letter to the monk in which he asked him to come over to him because he had a question for him. He promised to give him as many captives as he wanted. When the monk received the letter, he said to the messengers, “What I did by leaving the holy monastery was out of necessity— and in consideration of my soul brethren who were enslaved. As of now, God does not want me to leave my monastery until the day I die. If the prince wishes to do himself good, let him manumit captives as many as his goodness dictates. But he should not hope to see me in his presence.” Having failed in their mission, the messengers returned to the prince and repeated the monk’s words to him and to the Muslims there. They all

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The governor, sea commanders, and dignitaries met us near the city entrance in their coaches. As for the rest of the people, they were numberless, and all welcomed us as we rode into the city. They walked ahead of us without their sombreros, as if they were in the presence of their great one—all to glorify our master, may God succor him. We crossed the city amidst the crowds, with the soldiers and the governor pushing people away from us; the balconies and roofs of buildings were full of women and children. From the time we arrived, people called out loudly, fell into silence, then called out again, the meaning of which was “May God make victorious the sultan of Marrakesh.” We arrived at the house designated for us, one of the best in the city. The governor ordered soldiers at the door with instructions to prevent anyone from entering unless one was granted permission. Dignitaries continued to greet and welcome us, even more than others had done before, because they had been ordered by their tyrant to do everything to ensure our happiness, and to consider what could be done in releasing the aged from among the captives, along with the disabled, the blind and the lame, and others like them, and to treat with kindness the rest of the captives who were not from our master’s dominion. Those from his dominion were to be released and those among them who carried the Book of God were to be respected and esteemed. We knew that orders had been sent by the tyrant, but we did not know if they had been received and obeyed or if some terms had been forgotten. We had not seen the letter that had been sent with the terms and so we had to delay meeting our Muslim brethren for three days to find out exactly what the tyrant had determined. We did not want to hear them say that they [hosts] had not been informed. I was assured by one of the captives, an intelligent and noble man, that the tyrant had ordered the sea commanders to release the aged and others like them who were no longer useful. The proof lay in their singling out sixteen aged men, along with the same number from our master’s dominion, may God make him victorious. But there were many more aged captives than the ones they released and there were also captives from our master’s dominion, may God uphold him. They thought that you would not find out or raise the matter of the captives with them—after they had seemingly obeyed the orders of their tyrant and released the captives before your arrival in their city. But they had done that on their own initiative. I thanked the captive who had conveyed the information to me and started thinking. I had told the sea commander who was in charge of the captives, and the one who communicated with his tyrant about them, that I wanted to meet our brethren on the following day. So on the evening of

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that day, I told him to delay the meeting with the captives till the third day, God willing, because of illness. He agreed after which I took to my bed and every infidel who came to visit us in the morning and in the evening was turned back at the door: they were told that the ambassador was not well, and so the visitors left. Then I called the head doctor to come and see me. I greeted him warmly and after he had examined me he said, “There is nothing to worry about. You are just suffering from travel fatigue.” I continued conversing with him about medical issues, praising the knowledge of physicians, their honesty and truthfulness in dealing with the human body, and how they were celebrated among both kings and common peoples: for they were monarchs over the body. He was very pleased with what I said, adding, “I have never heard anything like this. You Muslims have sharp and perceptive minds.” He took me for one of the learned although I really did not know anything. My talk was all drivel and nonsense but I had to say what I said at the time. He then started asking me about the land of Islam and about the scholars there, after which we talked about the kingdom and the glory and greatness of our master, may God make him victorious—the numberless soldiers and armies he commands on land and the vast number of ships at sea. He also inquired about the truce that our master, may God support him, had granted to his great one: was it like truces with other peoples? He had learned that his [Spanish] nation was favored over others by our master. I answered, “Yes, it is so, which is why it is crucial that your tyrant abide by what our master, may God uphold him, has demanded in releasing the captives of his blessed iyāla [state], and in treating kindly the other captives. For to him, may God support him, all Muslims are alike. Since he [Spanish king] had done what our master, may God support him, had ordered him, he, in turn, released a large number of Spanish captives, along with captives from other nations. He also released the aged who were no longer useful and he, may God support him, wrote to Governor Carlos [sic] urging him to release the aged who were not useful, for there was [Godly] reward in so doing. But you have missed an important matter which only those with royal insight can see: when we were ordered to select the aged, and those who could no longer work, we found that some were able-bodied and others were not so that it was not a matter of age but of ability. The condition for releasing captives was incapacitation, either because of age or of chronic illness, including those who were crippled, blind, or intestinally sick. We mention them in some detail in order to be clear that they were like the rest of the incapacitated. Our lord, supported by God

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almighty, had told me to have such men examined by physicians. In due time, they and we finished with this troublesome matter. I remembered all this when I saw you and realized how good and efficient you were. We did not mind having you around when the men were being examined— every old man, the blind, the cripple, the intestinally sick, and anyone who claimed illness and required attention. Whoever was fit, we did not claim, but whoever was useless was to be released, in accordance with your judgment about the healthy and the sick.” He was very pleased and said, “May God reward you. I am sure you will be satisfied. Ask for me when you need me and you will find what you desire.” After he took the gift, he left. On the following morning, we went to our brethren in faith in five ships full of Muslim captives. When we arrived, they called out the [Islamic] Witness, hailing our lord, supported by God almighty. Muslims came down from the first ship and we greeted them and told them that our master was earnestly working to effect their freedom; and that he, may God uphold him, had given orders to liberate all of them and had sent a blessed ṣila [monetary gift] to them, they being our brethren in faith. “Look after your ṣila, grit your teeth about your religion, and be patient, for patience brings relief. Soon, God will release you. The tyrant has given orders that you be treated kindly and has sent garments to all of you—all because of our master’s instruction, may God reward him.” I wrote down the name and surname of each of the captives. Every time, however, an old man came up to us, there was an argument: he would claim that he was weak and useless but the sea commanders disagreed. And so I took the man in charge of the captives aside, a man called tenient, and asked him to call the doctors and promised that we would abide by their determinations. All of us would then be fair to the captives. Instantly, he called the doctors and read to them the letter from his tyrant, which ordered the release of the aged, the intestinally sick, the cripples, and the blind. He was pleased with my suggestion and realized that it was an excellent decision. We got what we hoped for, without disagreement or discord, through the blessing of our master, supported by God, praise be to God. Sixty-two aged captives were released. When others heard that only those from Morocco were to be released, they started claiming to belong to the iyāla of our master, may God make him victorious. We were so annoyed and confused that I wished I had not been there. If I conceded that they were from our iyāla, I would be exposed by those captives who had earlier claimed to be from other regions than Morocco—not knowing

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sea pirates, attacked the Palestinian port of Jaffa and ʿamilū aʿmālan, or committed many deeds, including the seizure of two small ships.9 In retaliation, the people attacked the local French monastery and looted it saying, the ifranj have looted us and so we will pillage your monastery. Brayk continued: “During that time, pirates landed in Tyre, and pillaged and looted, and took men and women captives.” And as Orthodox Christians paid the price, so did Jews, too. In that same year, 1757, Dawūd Mūsā Munsiyus, ʿibrānī, or Hebrew, from Izmir, as he wrote in his short memoir in Arabic, was traveling on board a ship from Sidon when Catholic pirates attacked and carried off the passengers as captives to Cagliari in Sardinia—where he was converted to Christianity and adopted the name of Būlus.10 Earlier in the century, on 24 February 1701, Eftīmos, the bishop of Sidon and Tyre, wrote to Pope Clement XI (reg. 1700–1721) to congratulate him on his ascension to the throne of St. Peter. In the letter, the bishop announced the happy resolution of some local ecclesiastical conflicts and the conversion of some Orthodox Melkites to the Catholic faith. However, as he asked the pope to help confirm them in their faith, he urged him to remove “all dangers from the attacks of the pirates who assault them at sea and rob them of their property.” Clearly, the pirates were not Muslim but French/Maltese. “We wanted to inform your holiness,” the bishop continued, “so that you convey your wishes to his majesty the glorious and supreme sultan of France, to order the sea pirates [qurṣān] to stop attacking the Christians of Sidon. We shall also write directly to his majesty the sultan of France informing him about this crisis and imploring him on behalf of the Christians of Sidon.”11 The depredations committed by these pirates were described in some detail by an English sailor who wrote an account about French and Italian corsairs between 1692 and 1693. Having served on their ships he confirmed the violence committed by the Catholics on the Orthodox:

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Bāsha, Wathāʾiq tārīkhiyya ii, 34, 39, 57. The attack occurred even though the Grand Master had prohibited his corsairs in the 1740s from cruising in the Levant, Earle, Corsairs 120. For the danger of European pirates to inhabitants of the Levant port towns, see also Cohen, Ottoman rule: the incursions of the Maltese corsairs were “presques journalières” (almost daily) 164. It is not clear why Bernard Heyberger described the danger on the “chrétiens syriens” as “tracas” when the pirates were so dangerous that Muslim ships did not dare sail near Jaffa, Securité et insécurité, 152–153. St. Joseph University Library, Beirut, Lebanon, MS 551. See entry 86 in Cheikho, al-Makhṭūṭāt al-ʿArabiyya. Bāshā, Tarīkh i, 167–168. See the reference to this piracy in Jābir’s three-volume novel, Bayrūt madīnat al-ʿālam i, 202.

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We then started negotiating with the governor about the liberated captives who were kept hostage because of lack of funds. The judge and other friars came and inspected the documents relating to their liberation and when they found that they were accurate, we paid what the captives owed for their freedom. We found a liberated woman with two daughters but the father was in captivity. The woman and her two daughters kept coming to see us, pleading with the master of intercession to ransom her husband. He was only released by the generosity of our master, victorious by God. She would not leave with the others to the land of Islam [without her husband]: we found the situation unacceptable and could not but ransom him and join the part to the whole. Our lord and master, protected by God, had ordered us to ransom all the aged and other captives who were not under the authority of the tyrant. He gave permission to his representative [al-Ghazzāl] that if the sum required for ransoming the captives from the lands of the infidels was more than what he had, he should borrow it from the Christian merchants who would then be repaid by our master, May God make him victorious. No sum of money was too big for his servant [to spend on captives]. We were blessed that we completed all our tasks, and there was money left from the bounty of God almighty and the blessing of our lord, supported by God. May God accept the works of our master and fulfill for him all his desires here and in the hereafter. After we finished with the captives, we inquired about Muslim captives by other Christians in Cartagena. We wanted to continue dispensing the generosity of our master, may God elevate him, so that none would remain there who professed that “There is no god but God, and Muḥammad, God’s prayer and peace on him, is His prophet.” For our master, may God uphold him, had firmly ordered his servant [al-Ghazzāl] to do so. One of those who came to us was a girl who had reached puberty and was owned by an aged lime worker who had prevented her from coming to us before he heard that we would pay her ransom. The moment she came to us, she started crying and pleading for manumission and mentioned that one of the Christians wanted to buy her from her owner and to take her to a faraway land. She had also been told by her mistress to convert but had refused; the mistress kept after her but to no avail. I praised her perseverance and reminded her of the duties of her religion: she was steadfast in her Islam, neither deceived nor confused. Weeping, she repeated, “I do not want anything except the religion of my beloved Muḥammad, God’s prayer and peace on him.” All the Muslims there started weeping with

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her. She came from near Tlemcen and so I immediately sent word to the governor of the land by means of one of the friars to negotiate with the Christian who owned her about ransom. The latter said that he deferred to his wife. So they sought out the wife and she finally agreed to free her, after great hardship. And so, praise be to God, we were able to liberate her and add her to the other women and pay her expenses. The tyrant had ordered that the captives be sent on board a flagship in the harbor of Cartagena that was awaiting an easterly wind to sail to Cadiz. When the time came for departure, we went to the overseer of the harbor and asked him to pay special attention to the captives, and to take them on board immediately because the [Spanish] ambassador was awaiting our arrival in Cadiz. We told him that we could not go with him until the other captives arrived. He agreed, “It is easy, and everything is ready. We just have to wait for the easterly wind. Be assured: we are ordered by our great one to send the captives immediately.” So we pleaded with him to take the women captives and their children alongside their Muslim brethren even though the tyrant, not knowing about them, had not ordered that. He answered, “That cannot be done. The ship is full of soldiers and it is not wise to take women on board. Soldiers are soldiers and so if the women board the ship there will be immodesties leading to altercations with the husbands.”18 I found his words convincing. And so I asked him to charter another ship to carry the women and to join it to the flag ship for safety. He agreed and paid the captain of a ship in the harbor 250 riyals. When I sent him the sum in repayment, he swore by his false religion that he would pay the rental fee from his own pocket. I thanked him for his generosity and invoked God to lead him to the right religion. I then appointed a sharif of dignity, intelligence, and piety, one who was also familiar with sea matters, to take charge of the captives and their spouses. I determined that each needed eight [riyals] after I saw the condition of their garments, and I made sure that the weakest among them was included. I paid the overseer what was due to him and left them all awaiting the wind to make the crossing … [On arrival in Cadiz, they stayed in the house of a very affable and generous merchant,] We ask God to guide him to Islam, for he was extremely

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Fear of soldiers, all soldiers, on board ships was wide-spread: when al-Zayānī was told to board ship with his slave women and boys, he refused because he feared the Turkish soldiers might abuse them and perhaps throw them overboard, al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā 282.

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gracious. To honor us, he sent one of the captives to serve us. After we settled in the house, the captive was happy to converse with fellow Muslims. He remembered his family and country, his heart dripping with sorrow, but soon after, grief turned into persistence and he started asking to be released and invoking the master of the universe to effect his liberation from captivity. I promised him that his freedom will be by God at the hands of our victorious master, and quite soon, God would liberate him. He was like many others whom we could not forget, but he did not heed our words nor did he believe our promise. He repeatedly wanted me to negotiate with the Christian for his purchase, but purchase needs discussion, and I realized that were I to discuss his purchase with his owner, I would dishonor the owner who had shown us so much welcome and hospitality. He had so respected us that had I been asked to pay twice as much for the captive as I had paid to ransom others, it would have been less than what he had shown us. I decided not to broach the topic with him. But then the Christian learned what the captive wanted and how I refrained from discussing the subject with him. He came to me bringing the captive with him, saying, “Here, take him. He is a gift to you.” He swore by his religion not to take one dirham for him. I refused and insisted on paying whatever sum he asked for. He said, “I want to visit your country and I want you to help me when we discuss Berber matters. That will be my reward.” So I accepted the gift and gave him my word. The name of that Christian was Don Arturo González. On the following morning, one of the sailors brought a very old captive and said, “This is another gift.” The name of the Christian was Anacleto [Bashklīṭ].19 I expressed my deep gratitude and he left satisfied. The overseer of the harbor prepared a few small ships in which he laid carpets of cloth shaded by white brocade and lined with gold. He then filled five large ships with soldiers and instructed them what to say to each of their corsair ships as we sailed by them.20 The account shows the process of ransom, the deliberations and discussions, and the nature of the Spanish captors—which comes across quite positively, so much so that al-Ghazzāl always offers them his best wish: that they be guided 19 20

The names are unclear in Arabic. As Travis noted, it was the first editor of the Arabic text who suggested the Spanish equivalents, The fruits 215, notes 187 and 188. Al-Ghazzāl, Natījat al-ijtihād 141–143, 153–155, 177–188. See a full translation of this travelogue text by al-Ruwaishan, The fruits of the struggle.

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to you from the depths of the sea and you saved him—be merciful to your worshippers and followers.”19 Danger from the sea was manifold and so afraid were travelers that some jurists forbade traveling alone, lest travelers be seized into captivity. Fez-buried jurist Aḥmad al-Wansharīsī (d. 1508) declared that even if one wanted to perform the duty of pilgrimage, one should not travel alone, and if one could not travel in a group, then one need not abide by that religious farḍ (duty).20 Jurists like him confronted the immediate problems of their communities as they faced the ordeals and consequences of captivity—of families seeking help in liberating captured relatives, of raising money to pay ransoms, or simply, of finding out the whereabouts of their kin. Jurists and awliyāʾ tried to resolve the numerous complications that arose when men and women disappeared as they sailed on board a ship or while fishing near the coastline. What were the legal decisions that ensured obedience to religious law while confronting unprecedented conundrums? Was it permissible, asked the seventeenth-century jurist ʿĪsā ibn Ḥasan al-Ḥasanī al-ʿAlamī, for a captive to leave son or brother or friend or slave or another man’s slave as hostage to the infidels in order to travel to the lands of the Muslims and raise money for his own as well as their ransoms? What happens if he is unable to raise the money? If a captive swears to his infidel master not to escape, should he abide by his oath?21 Such questions had been raised as far back as the twelfth century by Ibn Rushd,22 as jurists consulted their predecessors trying to resolve and address the complicated social and religious consequences of captivity. For centuries, jurists also discussed the manner in which captives from among the Christians should be treated, and they raised questions about who could or could not be enslaved and whether a captive could be killed or not.23 Such concerns contrast with the views of the Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), the grand theoretician of laws of the sea in Europe. Grotius focused on the legitimacy and the status of the captive, rather than, as in the Muslim texts, on the social and religious results of captivity. Both Muslim and Christian legal experts condoned the captivity of the enemy, although no Muslim jurist would have agreed with Grotius, who quoted Seneca that there is “no suffering that he [captor] may not inflict on him [captive] with impunity, no deed 19 20 21 22 23

Quoted in al-Tāzī, Ḥizb al-jaww 37. Al-Wansharīsī, al-Miʿyār al-muʿrib i, 433. For a discussion of his views in the context of piracy, see Tucker, Piracy of the eighteenth-century Mediterranean 127–131. Al-ʿAlamī, Kitāb al-Nawāzil ii, 38. Ibid, 39. Ibn Rushd, Bidāyat al-mujtahid wa nihāyat al-muqtaṣid, iii 412–414. See also the views of ʿAbd al-Hādī ibn Ṭāhir al-Ḥasanī in Fulk al-saʿāda bi-faḍl al-jihād wa-l-shahāda, Rabat, Royal Library, MS 2992, part I (no pagination).

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later, 7 Shaʿban 1191/10 September 1777, and in a treaty with Genoa, he urged that shaykhs above 40 years old should not be taken captive, nor any woman, young or old.22 In writing later to Carlos III, he pressed him to identify the learned clerics from among the Muslim captives: they should be separated from others, so that none would insult or humiliate them. We do the same, he continued, to your priests/ farāyila and do not put them to labor, nor do we force captives to work more than their capacity. “Consider all this: act accordingly and command your subjects to do the same.”23 Notwithstanding all his ideals and efforts, Sīdī Muḥammad found that his subjects continued to be taken by European privateers and pirates from all around the Mediterranean. And so, between 1779 and 1783, he sent another ambassador, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān al-Miknāsī, on two missions to ransom captives in Spain, Malta, and Naples.

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Ibn ʿUthmān al-Miknāsī (1779–1783)

Al-Miknāsī was the most widely traveled writer in the early modern Arab world. He left three travelogues that described Spain, Malta, Sicily, the Kingdom of Naples, Ottoman Anatolia, Syria, Palestine, Arabia and its holy sites, Tunisia, and finally Morocco. No Arab traveler left as much information about the Mediterranean world—its geography, peoples, customs, and political divisions—nor did any other Muslim traveler acquire as much firsthand knowledge of (Catholic) Christianity as he did. In 1779, Sīdī Muḥammad sent him to Spain in order to ransom captives and negotiate a peace and trading treaty. After his success and return, al-Miknāsī wrote the first of his three surviving travelogues, al-Iksīr fī iftikāk al-asīr (The elixir in ransoming the captive). Most interesting in his account is a description of the return of the captives from Malta and Naples. Obviously eager to praise his ruler, as all ambassadors were, he focused on the welcome that his ruler prepared for the returning captives, and, in turn, the captives’ deep gratitude to him. Although there was no regulated procession of returning captives in North Africa, nor accounts about them, as in France or Spain or (later) England, where captives were marched to elicit sympathy and

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ransom all Muslims, and not just Moroccans, Caille, Les naufrages. A year earlier, 1775, the Moroccan ruler had demanded of the French consul/chargé d’ affaires that if the French king did not have any Muslim captives to return to Morocco, he should search for them in Tuscany and Malta, Host, Histoire 89. Dawūd, Tarīkh Tiṭwān i, 1:271–272. Ibid. 1:308–309.

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donations, on this occasion, al-Miknāsī described public celebrations in all the villages and towns through which the freed captives passed. People and soldiers joined together to welcome the returnees from the north coast of Morocco all the way to Meknes. We left Tetouan. At reaching the Kharrūb River, we were met by soldiers from the outpost of Tangier, may God protect it, with all the Rīf servants of our master, God make him victorious, and the leader of the aforementioned outpost, Muḥammad ibn Bella al-Shaydhāmī. They greeted us and welcomed the Muslim captives as men on horses galloped while firing in the air, and they continued doing so until we reached our destination. We spent the night there, and in the morning, we left with all who were there to Wādī al-Makhāzin where we spent the night and then traveled to alQaṣr where we were met by the tribes of Khalṭ and Ṭalīq with their horses and men and leaders, along with the servant of our master, God support him, Qāsim al-Sarīdī. We slept outside al-Qaṣr, and when we reached Sīdī ʿĪsā ibn al-Ḥasan, we were met by members of the tribes of Safyān and Banū Mālik, their countless horses, and their leader, al-Hāshimī ibn Muḥammad. They all accompanied us until we reached our master and lord, commander of the faithful, who was waiting outside Salé. From two miles away, we saw his felicitous person, our lord, may he ever be honored. He was riding with numberless soldiers in valleys and mounts, may God almighty protect them so he would defend the land and spite the stubborn infidels. We approached our lord, commander of the faithful, with the captives carrying Muslim books, which we had retrieved while we were among the Christians, including the Holy Quran, which should be glorified. We met our master and lord, victorious by God, and the voices of the captives and other Muslims rose in praise of our master and lord. He alighted from his horse and said: “May God, accept this deed as a gift” and then he fell on his knees in gratitude to God. He stood for some time with the Muslim captives, asking them about their tribes and clans and the duration of their captivity, saying, Thank God that He saved you from the hands of the infidels and brought you back among co-believers. You should thank God for His gift, for the more you thank Him the more generous He will be. You will remain our guests until we send you back to your communities and birthplaces. It was the eve of the Night of Power [in the month of Ramadan, 25 September 1780]. We stayed there to celebrate Eid al-Fitr and after two days, we rode back with our lord, may God honor him, to the aforemen-

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tioned place where we had pitched our tents. The captives stood in line in front of him and he gave each a gift in accordance with his need, condition, weakness, or strength. He did that with his own hands, counting and dispensing, eager to receive God’s blessing and approbation. He then ordered us, may God ever be with him, to travel with the captives to Fez, and to give them enough horses and mules to get them to Tlemcen, from where they would go their separate ways. I accompanied them until we reached Fez where all their affairs were settled. We bid them farewell, thanking God for His blessing. Praise be to God.24 Elevated to the position of kātib (vizier), al-Miknāsī was sent between 1781 and 1783 to Malta and to the Kingdom of Naples, with a stop on his return journey in Sicily. The goal was to ransom Muslim captives from Naples and from there to go to Rome and meet the pope25—a meeting that, had it taken place, would have been unprecedented in the early modern history of Christian-Islamic relations in the Mediterranean. On this journey, he ransomed 610 captives, as he wrote in his second travelogue, al-Badr al-sāfir (The unveiled moon), and like al-Ghassānī and al-Ghazzāl, al-Miknāsī described in great detail what he saw, adding various poems in praise of scholars or Sufis he met or whose shrines he visited. The captives were important, but he knew that intelligence about the region was also important to his master. In the two travelogues, al-Miknāsī observed how similar Christian institutions and customs were in Spain, Malta, Naples, and Sicily. In Naples, a kingdom about which no Arab traveler had written, and in Sicily, he was overwhelmed by the progress of Christian technological and organizational innovations. As in Spain, so in Naples and other locations, his hosts prepared exhibitions and shows to entertain him and his delegation, lodged them in the best accommodations, toured them around sites of historic interest, and presented them with new technological and scientific inventions. Al-Miknāsī often did not know how to come to terms with them: after watching dissection in an anatomy class, and staring at skeletons and human organs, the only thing he could do was invoke Quranic verses; as he had done, too, after seeing the shipbuilding docks.26 What added to al-Miknāsī’s

24

25 26

Al-Miknāsī, al-Iksīr 193–194. See my introduction to the translation of parts of this travelogue in An Arab ambassador. This description of the return of captives can be compared to the processions of French liberated captives from Marseille to Toulon, Avignon, Lyon, Bourgogne, all the way to Paris, Weiss, Captives and corsairs esp. ch. 5. Freller, “The shining of the moon” 314. Al-Miknāsī, al-Badr al-sāfir 119.

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back to an escaping captive’s village and community, and since captives were often kept inland so they would not run away (unlike many Christian captives who were able to escape and write about their flight precisely because they had lived near the sea), the awliyāʾ used their supernatural powers to free captives, and even make them “fly” home. The authority of the awliyāʾ was strengthened by the fact that many of them had been themselves held captive. A Sufi master “wandered around the land and entered Ceuta, most likely he was taken as a captive, but because of his trances, the Christians honored him and gave him food and did not put him to labor.”33 Sīdī Shuʿayb ibn al-Ḥasan al-Andalusī, a jurist who had migrated from Al-Andalus to Morocco, was once walking near the seashore when the crew of a Spanish ship abducted him and chained him to other Muslims. As soon as they did that, the ship no longer moved. The Spaniards realized that they could not continue whereupon some suggested that they release the captive because he was a qissīs (priest) who was favored by God. However, he refused to leave unless they released all the Muslim captives too—which they did.34 To be credible as a walī, Shaykh Abū Suleymān ibn Muḥammad al-Dādsī was told that he had to be taken into captivity. Soon after, he was, and was ransomed by some Christians who were actually secret Muslims.35 Captivity authenticated authority. Numerous qiṣaṣ of captivity include karāmāt. While in the European narratives, the stories of captives stand on their own, telling of the endurance, heroism, and intelligence of the captive, in the Arabic context, many episodes about captivity are found in the lives of the North African Sufis-cum-saints. Shaykh Abū ʿAbdallāh Aḥmad (1648–1698) was once in his lodge. He entered a state of ecstasy after which he stood up and he went to one of the houses of his followers and said: “Give me a mawzūna [old Moroccan coin] and your son will return.” For their son had been captive in the land of the Christians, may God destroy them, for twelve years or thereabouts. They gave him the money and just a month later or thereabouts, a messenger came with the following happy news: The captive had been in Tetouan and had gone to the seashore on an errand where he found a ship with captives preparing to escape. The captives took him on board and they all got away. He returned to his fam-

33 34 35

Al-Fāsī, Mumtiʿ al-asmāʿ 86–87. Al-Sharrāṭ, al-Rawḍ al-ʿāṭir al-anfās 315. Al-Ifrānī, Ṣafwat man intashar 174.

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learned of the importance of history in religious and national identity; and he expressed high regard for the king, Carlos III, who was son of a king, but who still took on the labors of his attendants and servants to share in their fatigue and exhaustion. There were clearly worthy qualities among the Christians that had nothing to do with their theological errors. Was he suggesting to his master the replication in Morocco of some of what he saw?28 Al-Miknāsī ransomed 613 captives, but he had to leave, as he wrote, over 700 in Malta, in the hope of future ransom.29 He returned to his master and to festive public welcome. As in the previous account, the image that he presented of his master was of a truly caring and benevolent ruler who was not unwilling to spend as much money as was as needed to bring the captives back and to rehabilitate them by means of financial assistance: We traveled to him, God support him, in Meknes, and spent our last night in the valley of Fara, two hours away from the city. On the next day, our lord, may God ennoble him, sent us his horsemen to meet us, along with military leaders and others, and he showed immense joy at the return of the Muslims. May God record that deed among his glorious deeds, reflecting his pure intentions and his untainted spirit. Horses galloped and shots were fired in the air, and as we were entering the city, our master, God uphold him, sent us a messenger telling us to lead the aforementioned captives to the tomb of his grandfather, the blessed leader, our master Ismāʿīl, God have mercy on his soul, may God lighten the burden of his grave, and admit him to His everlasting gardens. We were joined by the jurists, the ashrāf [descendants of the Prophet Muḥammad], students, and city dignitaries and we all recited passages from the Quran and invoked God for our master. Then, our master sent food to the captives and ordered us to settle them in houses prepared for them in the city. As for us: he told us to rest and return to him in the afternoon. After prayer, we went to his Porte and the felicity of his presence, and we took to him the present, which the despot of Naples had sent him. We found him near the Sawānī Gate and he was joyous to see us and thanked God for our success. Then we handed him the letter of the despot and the peace agreement we had concluded, along with the despot’s gift, which he had sent in fear and trepidation. We also handed him the receipts for

28 29

Ibid. 131, 134–135, 116. Ibid. 157, 162.

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all that had been paid in ransom, along with the signatures of the Christians from whom the captives had been ransomed, and with the rental fee of the ship that we had used. On the following morning, we led the captives to him in al-Dār alBayḍāʾ [a palace in Meknes], where he asked them about their tribes and clans and the length of their captivities. He chatted with them for a long time, just to make them feel happy, saying: “Thanks be to God that He hastened your liberation and by bringing you back, completed the happiness of Muslims.” Then he ordered beasts of burden to carry them instantly to Fez, and they left him joyous, their voices raised in gratitude.30 The intermediary between Morocco and Malta had been the Spanish king who oversaw the payment transaction for the captives and ensured their delivery to the Maltese—since his ships would not be attacked by marauding privateers. Initially, the Maltese negotiators told al-Miknāsī that the sum proposed for each of the 512 “esclavos” was not acceptable to “la Religión.” But then, after agreement was reached, on 4 April 1783, Sīdī Muḥammad wrote to King Carlos— whose son was the king of Naples and with close ties to Malta—complaining about the Maltese and their perfidy: To Rey Carlos, peace be with him who follows guidance. Learn that our scribe Ibn ʿUthmān informed us that he had agreed with the Maltese to ransom the captives, as the letter to the Grand Master shows. We sent 271,358.5 riyals and he received confirmation from them along with the names of the intermediaries and of the captives, their numbers and their ransom prices. He is here with us and we can send them to you. But after you sent them the money they reneged on the agreement and started procrastinating and finding excuses [not to free the captives]. This kind of behavior is not acceptable in our religion—nor in theirs. Consider what they have done. Had the sale not been finalized, our scribe would not have written to us about it for he cannot lie; I don’t know

30

Al-Miknāsī, al-Badr al-sāfir 257–258. Sīdī Muḥammad continued to ransom captives from European countries: in 1788–1789, he initiated the ransoming of 600 captives from Malta, see Arribas Palau, Un rescate. It is very unlikely, however, that he ransomed 46,000 as the nineteenth-century historian Aḥmad ibn Khālid al-Nāṣirī (d. 1897) stated in Kitāb al-istiqṣā iv, 121. The third travelogue by al-Miknāsī, Iḥrāz al-maʿālī (Attainment of the heights), described his journey between 4 November 1785 and 4 July 1788 to Istanbul. There he stayed for about a year, and in May 1787, he joined the pilgrimage caravan to Mecca and Medina, returning via Acre to Tunis by sea and then on land to Morocco.

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if they were infected by diabolic whispers. The sale had been agreed upon and completed and finalized and they cannot go back on it. Now, either they honor the sale, keep the money, and release the captives, or if they have really broken their word and reneged on the sale, then you keep the money. Peace. 1 Jamadi I 1197 [4 April 1783].31 The Maltese were assured that the ransom money had been deposited in Cadiz. But by summer, Sīdī Ibn Abdallāh learned that the excuses which the Maltese had made—that they did not have ships to bring the ransom—were false and that the real reason why they broke the agreement was because they wanted to keep some of the captives to serve on their fleets. So, on 30 July, he sent another letter to the Spanish king telling him—again as in the earlier letter, in a rather polite but blunt manner—that since the Maltese reneged on the sale, he too would break the agreement. He repeated that the king should keep the money, and if he had sent some of it to the Maltese, to get it back and wait for future instructions.32 In another letter of 9 August, he complained that the Maltese wanted to keep 200–300 captives even though al-Miknāsī had negotiated the return of all the captives. Greedy for more money, they claimed that they could not free the captives for sums less than what “La Religión” stipulated. Exasperated, he wrote the king saying that he did not want the money back and was sending two emissaries to carry it to the Ottoman sultan so that the latter would send it to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina as a gift to be distributed among “our relatives, the sharīfs.”

3

Conclusion

All ransomers, whether European or North African, faced challenges and dangers as they carried out their missions in foreign lands. Negotiations were not without pitfalls: relatives of captives could become aggressive, and given the hostile image of Muslims in the religious and political imagination of Christians, ambassadors could face mortal danger. In 1623, an Algerian delegation to France, led by Sinan Agha, was attacked and all the 60 members killed, “even though they had committed no crime.” And to add insult to injury, continued the dey in his letter of complaint to the Marseille officials, a French captain

31 32

Reproduced in Palau, Rescate 317–318. Ibid. 321.

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I will always obey his every command. Then he turned to the jinni and said, What made you do what you did? The jinni gave no answer. And so, he ordered that he be executed and crucified in that same spot. When the man returned with his daughter and told the shaykh what had happened, the latter said, Go in peace but do not tell anyone about what happened as long as you live. Then the aforementioned man continued: I walked away near the place where the jinni was crucified and I saw something like a beetle hanging on a twig.40 The biography of Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh (1551–1622), Nūr al-armāsh fī manāqib abī al-Ghayth Muḥammad al-Qashshāsh, written by his disciple Abū Luḥayya al-Qafṣī, consists of 50 chapters and presents the life of a Tunisian Sufi. From his twenties, Abū al-Ghayth became a central authority in the region on legal positions: about tobacco, for instance, he judged that it was not permissible, because it grew on the “devil’s tree” and was addictive: man yashrabuhu lā yakād yaṣbir ʿanhu.41 It is interesting that his third wife (the first two marriages had been unsuccessful, the first lasting only one day and the second ending in divorce because the wife would not wear a hijab and insisted on riding horses) had been a ʿilja, a European captive whom he bought and married after she converted to Islam. He lived between Gafsa and Tunis, where he was active in two Sufi lodges and for two years oversaw affairs at the Zaytuna Mosque.42 The fame of his miracles reached as far as Marrakesh where Ibn al-Qāḍī heard about him. Ibn al-Qāḍī met him in Tunis in 1580 and wrote in praise of the devout, pious, ascetical, Tunisian walī with his numberless miracles and revelations … He liberated large numbers of Muslim captives from the hands of the infidel enemy—may God destroy them—and he performed well-known miracles … among which was his liberating a sharifian captive. When he [Abū al-Ghayth] reached his town, he said that the sharif would not be ransomed except by sharifian gold, meaning minted under the reign of Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Manṣūr. The sum [required for the

40

41

42

After every biography, Ibn ʿAskar mentioned the date of the death of the subject. In this case, ʿAlī died in the third decade of the tenth century AH/sixteenth century AD and was buried in Fez, “where his tomb is famous,” Dawḥat al-nāshir 60. Al-Qafṣī, Nūr al-armāsh 191, 193. For a biography of al-Qashshāsh and a brief description of his work, see Abedesselem, Les historiens tunisiens 149–153. See also the entry about him in al-Fakkūn, Manshūr al-hidāya 199–200; and the reference to him in Ibn Qāsim, Kitāb 140, and note. Ibn ʿĀshūr, Jāmiʿ al-Zaytūna 53; see also 38. See for a photograph of his tomb, 55.

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political structure (or the lack thereof), the fauna and flora, the custom and religion of the societies where they were to conduct negotiations. Additionally, they had scholars at court or at the universities who knew the language of their counterparts—Arabic; there is no evidence that anyone knew Amazigh. These scholars of oriental languages, as they were known in the universities where they held designated chairs, translated and interpreted documents, furnished historical background, and drafted international agreements. European emissaries traveled with money, valuable gifts of modern technology, foods (tea, cheese, sugar), and consumer goods (mirrors, pistols, chandeliers, cutlery, clocks)—unlike the North Africans who always sought financial help from their hosts and offered them presents from their “natural” resources: exotic animals such as deer or lions—if they survived the journey—animal skins, hand-woven carpets, wax, and honey. The Europeans had much more autonomy, had bribes and trinkets that they could distribute, and most importantly and effectively, they had fleets with firepower that could—and did—bombard harbors and cities in North Africa with impunity.

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chapter 6

Captivity of Books The Great Mosque was desecrated … its library looted, its books trampled under the feet of the infidels, and the volumes of learning scattered in the streets. It was said: east of the mosque, you walk on books.1

∵ As victims were captured by pirates, both Christian and Muslim, so were their belongings. In the case of traveling scholars and jurists, these belongings often included manuscripts of poetry, legal injunctions, scriptures, commentaries, and chronicles—as had been the case of Ibn al-Qāḍī or the Capuchin missionary, Agathange. The latter was sent from Egypt to the French antiquarian and savant, Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc, with a copy of a polyglot psalter (Coptic, Armenian, Abyssinian, Arabic, and Chaldean). After pirates seized it, Peiresc spent two years searching for it until he retrieved it from Tripoli (Libya).2 But no collection of books involved as much international negotiations and bargaining as the library of Arabic manuscripts that were stolen during the reign of the Moroccan ruler Mulay Zaydān (d. 1627) at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Zaydān’s father, Mulay Aḥmad al-Manṣūr, was a bibliophile and persistently tried to retrieve the Arabic books, which had belonged to the dispersed Andalusians/Moriscos of Spain.3 He wrote to King Philip II “de la lectura moruna quo los naturales andaluces tenian acerca de los ritos y cermonias de su ley.”4 Exiles and escapees from Spain had told him how after the 1569–1571 revolt of Albujarras, the Spaniards ransacked villages and pillaged libraries and madrasas after which they heaped the manuscripts in piles. On 5 May 1573, Ibn Zenbal (d. c. 1575) asked a Spaniard about Cordoba, and was told that the Grand 1 Ibn Abī Dīnār, a Tunisian chronicler (d. 1698), describing conditions in the Zaytuna Mosque in 1572, al-Muʾnis fī akhbār Tūnis 157. 2 De Gonzague, Les anciens missionaires 464n3. 3 For al-Manṣūr as a bibliophile, see Rasāʾil Saʿdiyya, ed. Gannün 81, 104: “books for our massive libraries of knowledge”; and 182 and for books from Egypt. 4 Quoted in Rodriguez, Cartas del sultán Marruceos 38: the Arabic books that today are in your possession.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_009

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Mosque had been turned into a church and the books, which had belonged to the Muslims in all parts of the former Muslim territory, had been collected inside a building near the church and kept under lock and key. If you put your ear to the keyhole, you could hear the cockroaches chewing.5 But the search for the Islamic books that would engage Moroccan rulers and other North Africans for generations began in 1612. In that year, Mulay Zaydān had to flee Marrakesh to Asfi during the conflict with his brother over succession to the throne of their father. From there, he was to sail to Susa to prepare his counteroffensive. Cherishing his father’s collection of manuscripts, he packed 2,000 of them in 73 boxes and sent them onboard a French ship that arrived in Agadir on 16 June 1612. When the ship’s French captain did not receive his pay from Zaydān, he sailed off with the cargo aiming to reach Marseille. But four Spanish ships intercepted him near Salé, seized him and the ship, and took them to Cadiz where the books were confiscated on the grounds that Zaydān was at war with King Philip III (reg. 1598–1621).6 Zaydān was desperate to get the manuscripts back, and may well have asked his emissary, Aḥmad ibn Qāsim, to inquire about them when, in 1613, the latter visited Holland and stayed with the Arabist Thomas Erpenius (1584–1624).7 In 1616, thinking that the French monarch was in possession of the books, Mulay Zaydān turned against him (Louis XIII, reg. 1610–1643), accusing him of being able to retrieve the books but not doing so. As Erpenius recalled: “It is five or six years since the Arabic library of the King of Morocco was treacherously abstracted to Spain by a certain Nearcha, a Numidian, and transferred to the King of Spain’s library. According to the Ambassador of that same King of Morocco, it consists of seven thousand eight hundred separate and distinct manuscripts.”8 The king had written repeatedly to Zaydān regarding French captives in Morocco, but in his reply, the Moroccan accused the French king of deceit, iḥtiyāl, and of not doing anything about the stolen ḥawāyijnā wa dhakāʾirna (our goods and treasures).9 “The bottom of the business,” wrote a French visitor in 1671, recalling the events early in the century, “was, the [Moroccan] King desired to recover his Household stuff, but chiefly his Library … for in it there were several Manuscripts of St. Augustin, whom they call Cidy Belabech … These Manuscripts the King valued above all his Household stuff.”10 5 6 7 8 9 10

Tohfat el-Molouk in Fagnan, Extraits 136. Similar destruction and looting of Arabic books by European invaders took place in Ceuta, Tlemcen, and Tunis. For a detailed description, see al-Tāzī, al-Tārīkh viii, 177–180. Jones, Piracy, war 103. Jones, Thomas Erpenius 19–20. The letter is in al-Tāzī, al-Tārīkh viii, 180–181. Antoine Charant, A letter 58–59.

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dinars; I will return 100 to him as alms for God almighty.” The shaykh said, “May you die in the religion [Islam], which God loves most.” The Christian left 100 sultanic sharifian dinars for the shaykh and left. The shaykh said, “This hundred was given for the cause of God. Buy clothes for this sharif.” The narrator who told me this tale added. We went to the market and bought with the 100 sultanic gold dinars a full wardrobe of malaf [broadcloth] and silk, and we brought them back in a bundle. When we entered, the shaykh said, “Clothe this sharif with this bounty.” So, we did, and he left happy and joyous. Praise God.45 He performed so many karāmāt that even an English captive who was in Tunis wrote about him.46 He even performed a karāma with a man who tried to deceive him. After he told his followers that he could detect honesty or mendacity in people, Abū al-Ghayth was visited by two men who wanted to swindle him out of some money. They said, “The shaykh ransoms captives with the money that God has given him. Let us go to him, one of us posing as a captive and the other as his guarantor. He will surely give us money and we will then spend it.” Therefore, they went to him, kissed his hand, and told him about the need for ransom money. Abū al-Ghayth stretched his hand under the carpet and took out 300 dinars. As they were leaving, he called to them, “You will be captured, God willing.” They turned back to him and confessed their deception. Nevertheless, he insisted, “You shall be taken captive, God willing. Now go away.” A few days later, they left Tunis by sea and were seized by the Christians. “This is one of his blessings [baraka], may God be pleased with him.”47 The biographer continued with another miracle that celebrated the liberation of a captive: One year, I went to visit Sīdī al-Shaykh Abū al-Ghayth al-Qashshāsh, may God be pleased with him, and found a man with him called Muḥammad al-Mustaghānemī, who came from Algeria. I inquired about him and was told he had been a captive. So I asked him, “How did you get out of the land of the Christians?” He said, “Sīdī Muntaṣir. My mother and I were taken captive in Oran and we stayed for a long time in the hands of the Christians. They de45

46 47

Al-Qafṣī, Nūr al-armāsh 152–154. In July 1609, Spanish pirates attacked the Tunisian fleet; it is possible that the captive was seized at that time. The story appears again, in a shorter version, in al-Ifrānī, Ṣafwat man intashar 57–58. Pignon, Un document 166, 207. Al-Qafṣī, Nūr al-armāsh 156.

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insult to him, and how much the Turks in Algeria were taunting him about it. He also expressed anger that the English merchants trading in the outpost were helping his rebel nephew in Susa while holding 400 Moors captive, “within our own Countrie.”14 Inside the bastion, Kirke was having to manoeuvre between internal exigencies and external danger, and was hoping for some stratagem to neutralize the military dangers besetting the bastion.15 His hopes were realized in a visitor. In a letter of 15 June 1682 from Tangier, Kirke wrote to Secretary of State Leoline Jenkins about Sir Martin Wescombe who wanted Kirke to write to Mulay Ismāʿīl and alert him to a buried treasure. Wescombe, who, under William III (reg. 1689–1702), became consul in Cadiz, told Kirke the following: that in 1632, Muḥammad al-Shaykh al-Aṣghar (reg. 1635–1653), son of Mulay Zaydān, contacted a Christian trader, known as the “Merchant of Pearles,” and told him to locate in the Escorial “an Arabick book, which had been taken from him, with great riches, by the Spaniards … or at least, the first leaf of the said book with the picture of a certain Moorish King on the one side, and containing, on the other, in various characters a key whereby the great treasures of many Kings his predecessours were to be discovered.”16 That leaf contained directions to the treasure of one of his ancestors, whose name he carried (Muḥammad al-Shaykh, d. 1557). The mysterious merchant of pearls went to the Escorial but was denied entry. The Inquisition, he reported, prohibited access to the Islamic manuscripts—a fact that was confirmed by later Moroccan ambassadors to Spain. Despite his failure, the merchant clung to the hope of locating the book and finding the directions to the treasure, and 50 years later, he remained persistent. After some priests granted him entry to the library, he was able to acquire the map and was eager to sell it to the Moroccan ruler. Kirke continued that Sir Martin had told him this story, having arrived in Tangier with two men, one of whom was “an old man and the same that was called in Barbary the merchant of Pearles.” They brought with them the “pretended Leaf which they have deposited in my keeping, and I have dispatched a Gentleman to the King [of Morocco] with the notice of it.” Although he was sceptical about this whole business of a treasure, “dreams of covetous men,” as he called it, Kirke was eager to use it in consolidating ties with Ismāʿīl whose army was surrounding Tangier. He was delighted to report to Jenkins that Mulay Ismāʿīl expressed great interest in the matter.17 14 15 16 17

TNA CO 279/30/369 r–v (25 March 1682). For a discussion of relations between Kirke and Ismāʿīl, see my Britain and Barbary ch. 5. TNA CO 279/29/277v (15 June 1682). Ibid. The letters by Kirke are in English and the letters by Mulay Ismāʿīl are in Arabic, some of which are accompanied by contemporaneous English translations. I shall use the translations unless the Arabic is the only version.

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How far this letter and all the talk of gold was a hoax concocted by Wescombe or by Kirke or the two of them together to divert Ismāʿīl from attacking Tangier is not clear. But, in the correspondence that followed, and until the final months before the colony was abandoned, the Moroccan ruler not only expressed friendship to Kirke, but halted his army’s attacks on the bastion. Meanwhile, Kirke sent (a copy of?) the paper to England with naval Commander Edward Russell for examination and possible authentication. Russell was in the Mediterranean to protect English shipping from North African attacks, and by 1680, he was commanding the fourth-rate HMS Newcastle. Soon after, Kirke reported in a letter of 10 July 1682 to Jenkins that he had received an emissary from Mulay Ismāʿīl who wanted to investigate the matter of the treasure. The emissary quizzed the merchant of pearls about how he had come to learn of “this secret,” to which the merchant of pearls replied that “so many years ago,” the information “had been imparted to him by King Mahamad Shee.” The merchant must have provided convincing answers while describing the great difficulties he had faced in obtaining the letter. He then “produced the paper, which is one leaf in small quarto, having ye picture of a Moorish King on the one side, and, on the other the writing that discovers the hidden treasures of many Princes.” The Moroccan emissary, after careful examination, was convinced that “it was the real paper so much desired formerly by Muley Mahamad Esche and now by Muley Ismael.” The merchant stated his price for the paper: fifty years earlier, Mulay al-Shaykh had offered him two million pieces of eight; now, he was willing to agree to the same terms. The Moroccan emissary unsuccessfully tried to borrow the letter in order to take it back to Meknes and show it to Ismāʿīl, but after failing to convince the merchant to travel back with him, he left with letters from Kirke describing the whole situation. Both the merchant and Kirke were afraid to put themselves in the hands of Mulay Ismāʿīl, far away in Meknes, and so they came up with the excuse that there was a partner involved in this matter who would not permit that the letter leave the Tangier grounds.18 Kirke was eager to negotiate with Ismāʿīl about an English ship that had been seized by Moroccan privateers, but he was not sure what to do about the treasure. Although Ismāʿīl had been conciliatory in his letter, Kirke was afraid to raise his hopes. After all, the treasure could be a hoax of con merchants and he realized he would be prudent to convey to Ismāʿīl in his reply some sense of uncertainty about the whole matter. He complained that there were “some persons” who had “enformed you [Ismāʿīl] very

18

TNA CO 279/29/325r–v.

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ill when they induced you to believe, that I looked upon the leafe as a thing that really contains what the owners allege it doth.” Evidently, there was a Moroccan faction that wanted to sour relations between Ismāʿīl and Kirke and was trying to expose Kirke as a liar; or they wanted to have a share in the treasure. Kirke admitted that he had not been able to confirm the information about the treasure and that he had written to Ismāʿīl exactly what he had been told by the merchants. With an English ship in Moroccan hands, Kirke realized that he needed all the credibility he had to win it back from Ismāʿīl, and to prevent an attack by the Moroccan forces surrounding Tangier—forces that were always kept there by Ismāʿīl. Appearing to be a liar or a dupe would definitely undermine his negotiating position.19 Meanwhile, the four-year treaty between King Charles and Mulay Ismāʿīl, which had been signed in 1680 regarding Tangier, had proven to be rocky because the English were continually breaking one of its articles: building new fortifications and extending the mole in the harbor. Kirke always remained worried that Ismāʿīl would attack the bastion, and he hoped that the allure of a treasure deal might soften his position regarding the British presence. In this calculation, Kirke was correct: Ismāʿīl seemed to have ignored the detractors, intrigued by the prospect of a treasure. And so, he wrote to Kirke assuring him of his “affection,” adding: “I have had the news of a certain writing concerning the treasure of Muley Mahamet Shee. If it is the money that was hid under a lemmon tree in the presence of a Christian in Morocco, which was eighteen pots of dollers, and was afterwards found by Garomel Hadji by the means of the said Christian, I am certain that can never be found again.”20 There is no information about who this “Garomel” was, or about the Christian who had witnessed the burying and the discovery of the treasure (unless it was the merchant of pearls himself). Still, and perhaps hoping that the map might lead to another treasure, Ismāʿīl continued his letter by offering Kirke a bribe. “If it be the money of Muley Zidan, Muley Bufars [Abū Faris, brother of Zaydān], or any of the former Kings it still remains undiscovered. I have sent a trusty servant that will not reveal any secret you shall repose in him, and if you send me the paper of those discoveries, you shall be sure to have your share in them, and that I will do anything you can desire of me.”21 This letter was followed by another, and longer, letter in which Ismāʿīl told Kirke that Tangier was safe only because he liked him; otherwise, the “Moors”

19 20 21

TNA CO 279/30/132v. TNA CO 279/30/342r. Ibid.

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The man returned to his house and found women sitting with his wife. They said, “You are late.” So, he told them the story and they laughed at his words. He then went to the market and bought all he needed and dedicated some money to the shaykh.50 While this karāma was Tunisian in its provenance, it extended beyond the hometown and the borders of the walī, reaching the lands of the Christians. With the awliyāʾ, captivity had a happy, but sometimes tearful, ending since the power of karāmāt could be used for punishment as with al-Qashshāsh above. In another case, Ḥamdūn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Malāḥify, the blanket-maker, a man of karāmāt, punished a companion who had offended the poor: he prayed that the man be seized into captivity in barr al-Naṣārā (land of the Christians). Ten days later, the man, Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd al-Zarārī, sailed out in a ship from Salé and was taken captive. Muḥammad’s father went to Ḥamdūn begging him to effect the release of his son: “You were the reason he was captured, and you alone can bring him back.” Ḥamdūn told him to wait a few days but the father grew angry and threatened to find another way to bring his son back. Angrily, Ḥamdūn swore that the father would never see his son until the Day of Judgment. The father died and never saw his son.51 Karāmāt worked in mysterious ways. 2.5 Conclusion Karāmāt witnessed to God’s power in his awliyāʾ and reached all around the Mediterranean world. Importantly, the miracles showed power over the infidels, and they helped the communities living near the coastlines and always exposed to attacks by the zamantūt. This is why the stories of the karāmāt include many allusions to local holy figures who lived or maintained lodges near the sea and were believed to be effective in warding off attackers at the same time that they could effect the freedom of captives. Many episodes describing Arab captives appear in the biographies and the hagiographies of the awliyāʾ of Morocco, which has the longest coastline of all the North African countries. The names of dozens of asyād (title of Sufi masters) and of awliyāʾ still dot the coastline, attesting to their piety and miracles. In Salé, which was a center of maritime activity and from where local seamen sailed out—and were captured by European pirates and privateers—the site of Sīdī ʿAbdallāh ibn

50 51

Al-Qairawānī, Takmīl al-ṣulaḥāʾ 35–36. Al-Sharrāṭ, al-Rawḍ al-ʿāṭir 308. The story was repeated by al-Ifrānī, Ṣafwat man intashar 249.

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tions in Tangier.26 The king did not send anyone, and Kirke feared that if Mulay Ismāʿīl attacked the bastion, the result would be disastrous since there was a serious shortage of supplies. On 25 January 1683, Kirke reported to the secretary of state about the need to avoid open conflict and about his attempts to “infuse into these people the thoughts of peace and of living within the bounds of good neighbourhood.”27 Soon after, he grew emboldened by the presence of Rear-Admiral Arthur Herbert in the straits and by the men and supplies that were brought to the colony to strengthen its fortifications, but still, he did not want to provoke the Moroccans, lest they wage a land attack on Tangier, and so he urged that Admiral Herbert be instructed to refrain from hostile naval activity against Salé.28 On 3 March, Mulay Ismāʿīl wrote to King Charles a harsh and blunt letter. The Moroccan was angry at Charles because the latter had accused him of breaking a sea treaty between them, which had never been signed. As Ismāʿīl argued, “the sea hath not been treated of as yet … Wee having nothing to loose by sea, and though thy ships continue never so long before these places thou canst do us no hurt.” Ismāʿīl then told Charles to “repent of what you have done in this business.”29 On that same day in which Ismāʿīl wrote to Charles, he wrote also to Kirke, reminding the Briton that the only reason his forces had not attacked Tangier was because he, Ismāʿīl, liked Kirke very much: he had been impressed with him when, along with sixty Christians, he arrived to the court of Meknes, for “thy discretion courtesie and wisedome has given the [sic] an entrance into my heart.” He had grown fond of him so much that he truly wished to guide him to Islam, seeing that he could offer him no higher gift. And so, if Kirke wished to continue the four-year land truce on which they had agreed, he should send him “a hundred or a thousand quintalls of powders arms or cloth” that he had demanded. Kirke found the letter disturbing, as it ended on a threatening note: “Be not neglectfull in sending my answer without delay and if thou hast power from thy Master do thou answer me in these things.” He realized that his only hope of pacifying the Moroccan ruler was by bringing up the matter of the treasure. But he was not too sure about it: as he wrote to Secretary Jenkins on 21 March: “I have formerly given you an account of a paper, which had been deposited

26 27 28 29

TNA CO 279/30/240r (27 October 1682). TNA CO 279/31/58v59v (25 January 1683). TNA CO 279/31/166r (19 March 1683). TNA CO 279/30/ 340v, 341r (21 March 1683). There are multiple copies of the Arabic original of this letter, CO 279/31/169r–170v; 279/33, not paginated, and 279/33/124r. I am quoting from the English translation which is dated “4 Rabi Nebahy 1682/83”; the Arabic letter is dated “4 Rabiʿ al-Nabawī, 1094,” /3 March 1683.

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in my hands, of some hidden treasures of the Emperour of Morocco.” In order to verify its authenticity, he continued, he had sent it “home by the ReserveFregat, which will then be delivered to Mr. Nicholson, and you may please to recommend the translation of it to Dr. Hide, and that is to be returned hither by the first safe opportunitie.” Since the only hard evidence he had of its secret location (there is no mention of Sir Martin or of the merchant of pearls in his correspondence at this point) was the “leafe,” he decided to give the treasure possibility one last try by sending it to Thomas Hyde of Oxford University (1636–1703), an expert in Arabic, Persian, and Syriac.30 The matter was of utmost importance and in the summary of the contents of the letter that was added on the cover sheet, the following words were written: “about the story of the Empr hiding his Treasure & touching the Translation of the King’s ltr into Arabicke done by Dr. Hyde.” Kirke must have realized that this would be the last time he could dangle the treasure negotiations before Ismāʿīl, and, therefore, he needed to be sure about the contents of the letter. Hyde was known to put his knowledge of oriental languages to both commercial and diplomatic use. In 1675, he wrote to Secretary of State Joseph Williamson suggesting that he be commissioned to undertake translations from Persian and Arabic of material that could be serviceable to his countrymen: “to translate out of Arabic the Geography of Abulpheda, Prince of Hamath in Syria, the most exact of all Eastern geographers, whereby for the Eastern parts the errors of our maps would be deleted and amended.”31 How solid his knowledge of Arabic was is not clear because in the context of North Africa, he had been accused of furnishing an inaccurate translation of a letter from Charles II to Mulay Ismāʿīl, he not having, as the complaint ran, “the true knowledge of the force and significancy of expressions.”32 Without prior contact with the Moroccan dialect and stylistics, he may have made mistakes. In a letter of 29 May 1683, Hyde explained that the writing in the leaf was quite cryptic and that he had translated it as best he could, leaving no “matter of moment not disclosed.” He then added, “What may be in that story of Mully Hamet hiding his treasures I cannot tell.”33 The reason was not his misunderstanding of the text, but the fact that the text did not describe a treasure and was merely the beginning of “a Booke containing the Life of some King, as appeareth by the Superscription under his Picture, which is, And this is his Picture, God preserve him” (bold in original). What was striking about 30 31 32 33

TNA CO 279/31/173r (21 March 1683). CSPD, Charles II, March 1st, 1675, to February 29th, 1676 (14 September 1675), 295. TNA CO 279/31/173r (21 March 1683). TNA CO 279/31/325r.

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the writing, he added, was that it was in Arabic written from left to right. Hyde then concluded that the whole story about the treasure was a hoax, “an empty story” without any truth, “upon my oath” about “the hiding of any Treasure.”34 The translation that Hyde rendered has survived, and is dated 30 May 1683: “An Account of the Arabick leafe on the back side of the Morocco Picture imperfectly omitting the words which could not be read.” It opens with a whole page of honorific titles separated by empty spaces: Justice, and revenues … which runneth the blacke Stormes … to whom Emperors doe submitt, when they come before his Crown, and fall down, & worship his gravebeard: with the height of Fame which flyeth through all countries, and filleth the ears of the world and cometh from all the wayes of the universe & is scattered/sown, in all the land of the Arabians. and … and in him rejoyceth all men who were found. It then concludes: An other description of him (whom God preserve,) taken from the most part from the Life of his Father the Imam to whom God be propitious. He was of a faire aspect, with glittering beauty as a Lyon in his pernoctation, adult in gravity, and meekness in all grave manners. He was broad shoulder’d of an handsome presence, bedeckt with pearly and splendid ornament. He was valiant stout, & strong and it was peculiar to him to have large Eyes and hairy Eyebrows. He was long of stature—yet moderate in proportion: of a broad make, of a full skin, glittering colour & mustaccio’s etc.35 No map, however, accompanied the letter. In the absence of the original document, it is not possible to verify whether the document was, as Hyde described it, a mere book opening, or a coded message with information about a treasure. How Arabic was written from left to right (was it the word sequence that was reversed or the letters in words; who would write in that manner; and why?) remains unclear.36 Strangely, 34 35 36

Ibid. TNA CO 279/31/381 r–v. Such reverse writing appears in some of the inscriptions in Alhambra Palace in Granada where some words are written from left to right, others from right to left: Nāṣir, al-Ṭalāṣim al-zukhrufiyya 130. Was the letter written by an Andalusian exile?

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Conversion and Resistance At the end of the sixteenth century, a captive lamented how other captives around him were converting to Christianity in order to gain freedom: “The clothes are clothes of Muslims, (but) the hearts, they are hearts of Christians.”1

∵ In the vast majority of cases, Mediterranean captives belonged to a religion or a denomination different from that of their captors and so, among all religious groups, there was fear that captives would be converted out of their faith thereby deserting their families and country. In this respect, captivity destabilized transnational and transreligious relations because it opened the door for a dangerous form of migration in which captives gave up their religion and “deserted” their homelands, taking with them, as in the case of early modern Europeans, vital skills or sensitive knowledge about shipbuilding technology and navigational routes. Both Muslims and Christians (and in the latter case, Huguenots, too) were urged to convert and sometimes were forced to do so by their captors: many Christian captives claimed that Muslim captors tortured them to convert, while Muslim captives faced the formidable conversionary skills of priests—many of whom were conversant in Arabic and trained in Islamic theology and jurisprudence.2 Some captives converted to gain freedom, and sometimes they did gain it, but at other times did not. Still, in all cases, conversion signaled settlement in a new land and community since no Christian or Muslim convert could return to resettle in his home community brandishing a new religion; in the case of the Huguenots, if they converted back to Catholicism, they “returned” to their home parishes.

1 Quoted from Brown, An urban view of Moroccan history 72. As Brown noted, the author of the quatrain described a fear that became prevalent in Morocco in the nineteenth century. 2 The bishop of Marseille, for instance, Jean-Baptiste Gault (1595–1643), used to send priests conversant in both Arabic and Turkish to convert captives. I owe this observation to Professor Gillian Weiss.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_007

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This desire to retrieve “for the Muslims books that were left in deserted mosques” was remembered for generations—as the Moroccan chronicler alDuʿayyif noted in the nineteenth century. He stated that Mulay Ismāʿīl subsequently “sent some of his scribes to select the books”/manuscripts.40 But there is no evidence to support this statement although it is significant how a ruler was willing to exchange captives with books, rather than with money. The books were not returned because the Spanish king was warned by his advisors that returning the books was improper and that the Holy See would be extremely displeased. Also, the Inquisitors warned King Carlos II that “surrendering the books would potentially arm the ambassador and his people with knowledge from which Spaniards could otherwise benefit.”41 In his official account of his journey, al-Ghassānī reported how he was informed that the books had been burned in a fire that destroyed part of the palace. But, he did not believe what he had been told and to his ruler, the reader of his report, he emphasized that the Spaniards “claimed [zaʿamū] that the Islamic books had been burned.”42 The reason he did not believe his hosts was his discovery after his visit to the Escorial that the books had been hidden from his sight. Since he could not get books, he stated that Ismāʿīl had given the Spanish king another option: for the 100 Spanish captives, 1,000 Moroccans captives should be exchanged.43 Knowledge about Ismāʿīl’s desire to retrieve the books of Mulay Zaydān’s library reached Algeria. On 14 January 1692, the French consul in Algiers reported the return of 120 captives from Spain, liberated by the intervention of Mulay Ismāʿīl, along with “quatre mille ouvrages en arabe de la bibiliotheque royale de Madrid” (4,000 Arabic books from the royal library in Madrid).44 There is no evidence, anywhere, that such a number of books was returned since in 1699, Mulay Ismāʿīl wrote to King Louis XIV asking him for consumer goods and, again, for “los libros aravigos que oi se hallan en vuestro poder y reinos” (the Arabic books that today are found in your kingdoms).45 Threequarters of a century later, Sīdī Muḥammad still thought about the books: in 1766, when he sent al-Ghazzāl to Spain, he wanted him to ransom Muslim captives and to bring the books back. In his negotiations, the ambassador empha-

40 41 42 43 44 45

Al-Ḍuʿayyif, ed. al-Shaykhī, Tarīkh i, 180. Beck, The travelogue of a Moroccan ambassador 294. Al-Ghassānī, Riḥlat al-wazīr 84. See also Figueras and Saint-Cyr, Larache 323. The final tally was 100 Spaniards along with 56 members of their families for 1,051 Moroccans, Beck, The travelogue 294. Touili, Correspondance 56. De Cossé Brissac, Les sources v, 381 (30 July 1699).

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sized that he wanted both the captives and the books, and he did not want payment for them: for “we have much gold and silver and diamonds.” Days later, when al-Ghazzāl arrived in Cartagena, he found some captives who had been freed. When they lined up to board the ship back to Salé, each held a book above his head.46 The next ambassador, al-Miknāsī, also mentioned the manuscripts. He stated that the friars showed him the library of the Escorial, which had 1,800 books, two of which were copies of the Quran, and many others of exegesis and medicine.47 And, as he reported at the end of his travel account (or so he claimed), he had gone through the books that were given to the captives by the Spaniards, making sure to bring back the copies of the Quran. Fearing that in the future books might face the same fate as that which had befallen al-Manṣūr’s library, Sīdī Muḥammad distributed books from his collection of 12,000 manuscripts around the libraries of his kingdom. Many of the books that have survived in the library at Tetouan, for instance, show the wording for the ḥubūs (endowment): God be praised. Our glorious mawlā, the mighty sultan Abū ʿAbdallāh Sīdī Muḥammad, may God grant him victory, endowed, by means of his servant the high-ranking scribe and jurist, al-Hashimī Zanībir, this book, al-Jāmiʿ al-ṣaghīr as written on the front page to the Grand Mosque of Tetouan, may God protect it so it can be of use there. The judge of the aforesaid port, the distinguished jurist ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Quraysh, inspected it thoroughly and verified its authenticity, and he did so on 13 of Shawwal 1184 [29 January 1771].48 So eager was Sīdī Muḥammad to preserve the books of Morocco that when a man fled to Mascara in northwest Algeria with a copy of the Quran that was decorated with precious stones, and after the dey refused to return the book, Sīdī Muḥammad sent a brigade to capture the man and bring the book back. To avoid confrontation, the dey had the man executed.49 In the second half of the eighteenth century, the Escorial librarian of oriental manuscripts, the Maronite Miguel Casiri, prepared an annotated bibliography of the Arabic books that had survived the fire of 1673 from al-Manṣūr’s collection: Bibliotheca arabico-hispana escurialensis; sive, librorum omnium mss. 46 47 48 49

Al-Ghazzāl, Natījat al-Ijtihād 143, 153, 177. Al-Miknāsī, al-Iksīr fī iftikāk al-asīr 127. Dāwūd, Tārīkh Taṭwān ii, 1:272. Host, Histoire 84.

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quos arabice ab auctoribus magnam partem arabo-hispanis compositos bibliotheca ccenobii escurialensis complectitur, recensio et explanatio, opera & studio Michaelis Casiri (1760–1770).50 Today, some of the manuscripts remain at the Escorial while the rest have been moved to the National Library in Madrid.51 50 51

As James Monroe observed, Casiri was instrumental in “the process whereby Arabic studies in Spain were secularized,” Islam and the Arabs 34. For more on the story of these manuscripts, see Jones, Piracy, war; Hershenzon, Traveling libraries; and Zhiri, Captive libraries.

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Pope Clement XII (reg. 1730–1740). No reason is given for his conversion, but if he was a relative of Mulay Ismāʿīl, then he might have feared for his life after the bloody conflicts in Morocco that followed the ruler’s death in 1727. What the lists further show is that most captives who converted came from the hinterlands—from villages and cities that did not have the same exposure to Christians as port cities with their multiple visitors. Also, more conversions occurred in the seventeenth than in the eighteenth century—three to one. The reason might well be that while in the seventeenth century, there was need in European fleets for rowers and sailors—and conversion was a means by which captives would be sure to stay—by the eighteenth century, as naval technology developed, and as personal rather than state ownership of captives declined, conversions declined.8 No such listings and numbers can be found in Muslim sources because once Christian captives converted, and unless their place of birth was kept in their titles (al-Inglīzī/the English, al-Janawī/the Genoese, and others), they adopted new names, integrated, and could not be traced. As such, Arabic sources do not describe conversion, perhaps because converts lost touch with their home communities and did not care to explain or justify their religious changes. Conversion to Islam took place before a qadi but there were no religious institutions that recorded names and dates of conversion. While the name of the convert would be removed from the lists of dhimmis to be taxed (only if the convert was a native resident), theologically, the convert was returning to his or her “natural” submission to God—Islam by fiṭra—the normal condition of humans.9 A public celebration might take place, but there was no need to describe the psychological or spiritual process of change. After all, conversion to Islam was guidance, hidāya, from God, which is why Muslim converts did not adopt the name of the person at whose hands they had converted—in the manner that many Muslim converts did in France, England, Spain, Italy, or Malta. The Christian who was guided to Allāh had not converted because of the work of man but of God. Of course, facing all such converts is the question that Jeffrey S. Shoulson raised in his Fictions of conversion: “When conversion is said to have tran8 Miège, Captifs maorcains en Italie. See also Bono, Schiavi musulmani. 9 Many European sources included descriptions, woodcuts, or engravings of the convert mounting on a donkey after which he was paraded around town. William Davies, who claimed that all he wrote was based on his personal observations, added that the convert held a bow and arrow with which he shot at “the picture of Christ.” There is nothing in the Arabic sources that corroborates this alleged practice—let alone having a picture of Christ in a society that did not allow representation, Davies, A true relation ii. See also the refutation of this claim in Pitts, Religion and manners 314.

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English, the physical and familial details about Muslim captives were carefully compiled to ensure accuracy in issuing safe-conduct documents, sale records, ransom agreements, and letters patent.5 One Maltese record in the early seventeenth century, for instance, included the following information: Achmet bin Michamet, 15 years old, “per segno una brucciatura nel brazzo” (with a burn on his arm); Abdalla bin Abdellatif della Maometta, 35 years old, “d’alta stat[u]ra” (tall); Ussain Mahamet, 60 years old, tall, with a disfigured left arm; Ayxa bint Buselem, 50 years old, blind in her left eye; Selima bin Brahim, 12 years old, “figliola” (daughter/girl); Fatuma bint Achmed, 45 years old, with a small black mark on her left arm. There are various other pieces of information about one captive: two wounds on the forehead, swarthy, swollen leg, and “figliolo” (son) (October 1605); Abdraman bin Sayt of Jerba, was 20 years old, “brunetto di alta e sottil statura tiene per segno una ciactrice di fuoco nella mano sinistra” (tall and thin, brownhaired man, with a burn mark on the left hand) (1607); Hadet bin Seit, “moro,” was 40 years old, “con alcune macchie rosse dietro l’orecchia sinistra, e con due cicatrice di fuoco nella gamba destra, et un altra simile cicatrice ne ginocchio sinistro” (with some red spots behind the left ear, and with two burn marks on the right leg and a similar scar on the left knee) (January 1613); Rays Mihamed bin Ahmed el Hammemi, “moro di Susa” (Moor from the Sus valley in Morocco), was 30 years old, “d’honesta statura, con una ferita longa in testa della banda sinistra” (tall, with a big wound on the left side of his head) (January 1617), and others.6 In the same vein, the information about the 225 captives in France a century later, from 1700 to 1727, shows the differences in the looks and sizes of the captives, again with an emphasis on distinguishing scars.7 As for their age, the captives ranged from young teens, the youngest being 14 years old, to a septuagenarian, with the majority of captives in their twenties—although how the French captors figured out the exact ages could not but have been conjec5 See for the “Turk” in art, Harper, ed., The Turk and Islam; the articles by McGrath and Scorza in The slave in European art; and Massing, The image of the Black, “The Mediterranean scene.” 6 Pignon, Aperçu. 7 De Cossé Brissac, Les sources vi, 54–83.

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tural.8 There were males of all body builds, from the muscular to the boyish to the frail. Then, there were the professions of the captives: launderers, cooks, barbers, weavers, fishermen, soldiers, sailors, mariners, cobblers, helmsmen, gunner (only one), and galley slaves. The latter were the ones who had spent years at the oar, thereby acquiring physiques that were stronger than those of cobblers or weavers. There were the noir (black) and the mulatre (mulatto), but fewer in number than the others because they were a small minority among the North African population. Also, the captives were physically defined by body height (grande/big, bonne/healthy, haute/tall, petite/small, moyenne/medium); color of hair (noirs/black, bruns/brown, gris/grey, chastains/chestnut, crespez, obscurs/darkish); shape of the face (long, oval, rond, plat/flat, long balzané/ stocky); and then, “grosses lèvres” (big lipped), “marqué au bras gauche” (branded or marked on the left arm), “cicatrice ronde au bras droite” (round scar on the right arm), “cicatrice derrière le gras de la jambe gauche” (scar on the buttock of the left leg), “cicatrice joignant le bout du sourcil du costé gauche” (scar on the left eyebrow reaching the side), “cicatrice au milieu du front” (scar on the forehead), “une grande cicatrice et une petite sur le front du costé gauche” (a big and a small scar on the left side), “plusieurs marques sur l’ oreille droite” (many marks above the right ear) “une cicatrice au coin du front, une à l’ espaule gauche et une a côté du genouil gauche” (a scar on the side of the forehead, a scar on the left shoulder, and another near the left knee), and many other particulars. The captives were inspected carefully, their bodies stripped and measured— and everything was recorded.9 There was also information about the captives’ parents and siblings, at the same time that differences were noted between the “natif des montagnes” (mountain dweller) and the captive from the city. There were captives who spent decades behind the oar (in one case between 1665 and 1712), and the lucky one who spent just about a year; there were the “invalide” (sick) or the “faqir” (poor/ascetic) and the full-bodied, the soldier and the helmsman. There were stories about them that individualized them—as in

8 It is curious to find precise numbers such as 27 or 26 or 42 or 19. If the captives knew their birth dates, which is most unlikely, they would have known them according to a hijri calendar— with its shorter year. In 1832, and among 634 Spanish captives of Indians in South America, 67 % did not know their date of birth, Operé, Indian captivity 76. 9 As Muscat and Agius confirmed about the Muslim captives of the Knights of Malta; “They were stripped to check for hidden distinguishing marks or body defects,” Slaves on land and sea 371. The method of describing and identifying the captives is similar to what Mulay Ismāʿīl did after he ordered the enslavement of all Blacks in Morocco. See the study of the 1710 register of the slaves in el Hamel, The register of the slaves esp. 95. For the American side of the Atlantic, see the advertisements for runaway slaves, which record similar physical descriptions, Windley, Runaway slave advertisements.

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the case of a captive who had been given the name “Tripoli”—most likely the city from which he came. His master reported that Tripoli never drank wine, fasted during Ramadan “from sun rising to sun setting: in spite of all the toil and fatigue of the oar, he never seemed uneasy: though ready to faint through weakness.”10 For the slave masters, traders, record keepers, sea captains, church and government officials, and residents of towns and cities where captives wandered, worked, and even indulged themselves sensually, the turcs had different life stories. Many of them told their masters about their professions and families, foods and customs, and villages. Occasionally, Muslims were depicted on tapestries and palace ceilings, altar triptychs and medallions, woodcuts and manuscript illuminations, and maps. There was also detailed information in government records and local registries about ambassadorial visits to European courts, augmented by intelligence from consuls and factors overseas. Captives piqued the interest of writers who included them in plays, especially in Spanish, French, and English drama, or in adventures, filled with romance, torture, and wandering. In 1725, Joseph Morgan told of a “Moor, born at Tripoli,” who was enslaved in Cadiz, attempted to escape and had his “Ears cut off according to Custom,” was ransomed, and enslaved again in Lisbon. He was taken and tortured by the Inquisition, “hoisted up in the Air by his Arms, fast tied behind him, for near Half an Hour,” but did not accept Christianity whereupon he was sent as a slave to the “Tercera Island” from where he escaped on board a Dutch ship.11 Another captive story was told by Cornelis de Bruyn in his Reizen (1698).12 Even David Hume had a story to tell.13 There were also grim Ottomans on frontispieces of histories and chronicles, and sometimes, they appeared in romances about sul10 11 12

13

Bion, An account, reproduced in Arber, The torments 448. Morgan, Mahometism explained 238–239. His work was translated into English in 1702 and the story was included in a 1736 English collection of writings about the East. See Green, A journey from Aleppo to Damascus 193– 208: The “Turk” is from Damascus (and so a Muslim Arab not a Turk) and was captured by the Knights of Malta who sold him into Spain where he converted to “the Romish Religion.” He became an excellent soldier and in Flanders, as a “young Spanish Officer,” he married an Amsterdam woman. He then took her and their son to the East, claiming a wish to visit Jerusalem, but in reality eager to return to “Turkey, in order to enjoy the free Exercise of his Religion.” Mostafa changed ship that took his family Algiers and then Alexandria, where he frequented “the Mosks” and finally divulged his secret to his wife. Helpless, she decided to stay with him as they continued to Aleppo “where he had a great many Acquaintance.” Soon, and suspected of possessing wealth, he was murdered during a robbery. Bruyn had told an even more dramatic story about the Turk’s courtship, marriage, travels, and final settlement in Aleppo: The surprizing Adventures of Mostafa, a Turk. See Hume, Hume on religion 73.

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All captives, Muslim and Christian, worried that they would be coerced into conversion, and so did their kith and kin, who feared that conversion would deprive the family of its breadwinner. That is why there are numerous firstperson declarations by Muslims describing their successful perseverance in their faith. “I was taken captive for six years, but I kept my religion and my body intact, thanks be to God almighty,” wrote the faqih of Fez, Muḥammad alYasītnī, after he was ransomed by his walī in 1540.13 As in the European captivity narratives, the purpose of recollecting captivity was to demonstrate religious victory, not defeat. Actually, the writing of captivity narratives by Europeans after their return to their homelands was frequently motivated by their desire to show, in print, that they had not converted or been tainted by Islam—and that, if they had converted by force, they had done so externally, not internally.14 The absence of similar written narratives on the part of Muslim captives returning to their homelands could suggest the unwillingness on their part to show that the temptation to conversion had ever been there—that firmly grounded in their faith, conversion out of Islam had never been a danger about which they needed to speak. Instead, they spoke, if they were jurists, about how they had defeated their adversaries theologically. Much as there were thousands of Muslim converts, only a handful wrote in Arabic about the journey to Christian conversion (discussed below). When Muslim captives gave up hope of freedom, they converted, becoming, in Arabic parlance, murtaddīn.15 Knowing that there were no commercial or religious institutions that would negotiate for their freedom, they opted for conversion and emigration to the lands of the Christians. Little did they know that conversion in Christendom did not open for them the doors that conversion in the lands of Islam did for their Christian counterparts. While in North Africa, converts could rise to become sea captains and governors,16 and in the famous case of Roxolana (d. 1558) in the Ottoman east, sole wife of the sultan, or in the case of the English woman captive (Balqīs) who rose to power as one of the wives of Mulay Ismāʿīl in Morocco,17 in Europe, both Catholic and Protes13 14

15 16

17

Al-Mannūnī, Malāmiḥ ii, 84. One of the rare descriptions of conversion to Islam by a Christian during captivity, and in his own words, is by Thomas D’Arcos, see Tolbert, Ambiguity and conversion; and Matar, Europe through Arab eyes 186–192. See al-Wazīr al-Sarrāj’s reference in 1718 to “Christians and ʿurbān murtaddīn,” in al-Ḥulal al-sundusiyya ii, 1:22. See the list of sea captains in Algiers in 1588 in Dan, Histoire de Barbarie 270–271. Of the 35 sea captains, only ten were native-born Muslims. See also the lists for 1581 reproduced in Bennassar and Bennassar, Les chrétiens 367–369. For an extensive study of the figure of Roxolana in European imagination, see Yermolenko,

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The Church of the Order of the Holy Trinity (Trinitarians) in Rome, built in 1732, was exclusively dedicated to the activities of two saints, John of Matha (1160–1213) and Felix of Valois (1127–1212), who had established the order for the ransoming of Christian captives.19 As worshippers entered the church, they saw high above the church entrance the Pietro Pucilli depiction of an angel with two captives, flanked by sculptures of the two saints. The two captives are held together by a black iron chain that dangles down—much like the chain that appears in many paintings of captives. The captive to the right, the Christian, is looking up at the angel who presumably will effect his release by exchanging him with the captive to whom he is tied: a turc, recognized by his moustache, who, as in most sculptures, is looking down, presumably at the hell to which he is consigned.20 For worshippers or for casual passersby, the sculpture told the whole story of the encounter with the turcs: Christians capture turcs in order to exchange them with their own coreligionists, who are protected by an angel saint in the robe of a Trinitarian father. Although the Turk had been the “present terror of the Worlde,” as the English historian Richard Knolles wrote in 1603, from the battle of Lepanto on (1571), the turcs in sculpture were not depicted as the fierce “Mahometan” warriors or the cruel captors wielding the lash and torturing Christians—as in numerous European frontispieces and book illustrations. Rather, and perhaps in a vicarious sort of vengefulness, turcs appear either crouching/kneeling, with heads

19 20

the Tudor room (c. 1600) in the Minneapolis Institute of Art; the “Telamones” of “Porta Nuova” in Palermo (sixteenth to seventeenth centuries); the memorial for Otto Christoph von Sparr in St Mary’s Church in Berlin (after 1668); the mausoleum of the 61st Grand Master of the Order of the Knights of Jerusalem, Nicolas Cotoner, in the Co-Cathedral of St. John in Valletta; the four slaves in the Basilica dei Frari in Venice (1669); the sculpture of Jean Casimir, King of Poland, in the Church of Saint-Germain-Des-Pres in Paris (after 1672); the sculpture of St. Ignatius in the Church that carries his name in Rome; Francesco Bertos’s “Allegorical Group of Victory supported by Valor” in the Chicago Institute of Art (1700–1710); the Teatro Marmereo Fountain in Palermo, built in honor of Philip V; the 1728 sculpture of St. Ignatius of Loyola in his church in Rome by Giuseppe Rusconi; the Turks in the Maltese Church in Vienna (1806); the 1889 statue of Saint/King Ladislaus with his foot on a Turk’s head in the Basilica of St. Stephen, Budapest. I will mention other sculptures below, but I exclude the Fontana del Moro in the Piazza Navona as the Moors are not human, with tentacles for legs. I am also excluding the four captives under the equestrian statue of Henri IV (Louvre, 1614–1618) and the four captives at the pedestal of the statue of Louis XIV, Place des Victoires, since they do not represent turcs (1670s–1680s). For a study of paintings showing ransomed Christian captives, see Rosita D’Amora, Saving a slave 155–178. Just about a decade earlier, between 1720 and 1723, the hospital of St. John of Matha had been established in Tunis: Álvarez Dopico, The Catholic consecration of an Islamic dār. An alternative interpretation is that the captive to the left of the saint is the the same captive to the right of the saint, but now in the glory of his redemption.

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Entrance of the Church of the Order of the Holy Trinity—Santissima Trinita degli Spagnoli (Rome) Photo by Zvonimir Atletic / Shutterstock.com

shaven and hands tied, or standing in submission, or sometimes lying prostrate under the feet of victorious Christianity. Sometimes they have garments and sometimes not—but they are always tied. The only turcs in sculpture were the enslaved turcs. Sculpted turcs were male, with the exception of the stylized Venturi sculpture of c. 1632 in Marino, Italy. There were no sculptures of captured Muslim children, of whom there were high numbers in Christendom. In the period under study, wealthy European families were beginning to acquire their trophy Muslim (or Native American or sub-Saharan) children or women who appear frequently in paintings,21 but it was male turcs, who also served as trophies, that appear in sculpture. It may be that sculptors or their commissioners felt there was no point in showing the capture and humiliation of women and children: they were easy prey. More effective was to show the muscular and fearsome turcs in humiliated submission and defeat. The captives with “cicatrice” or “plusieures marques sur l’ oreille droite” or a burn on the arm were all folded into one uniform and undifferentiated sculpture of the esclaves turcs. The defeated posture of the captives appears most forcefully and influentially in the “Four Moors” in Livorno. It was executed by Pietro Tacca who

21

See the reproductions of 27 paintings in England, Hall, Things of darkness.

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established the future model for sculpting captured turcs. The work celebrated Ferdinand I, grand duke of Tuscany, after his victory over the Ottoman fleet and his attack on Annaba in Tunisia in 1607, which resulted in the capture of “one thousand five hundred slaves.”22 But it was only between 1623 and 1626 that the four captive Moors were added by Tacca, made from casts of living men after he had examined the bodies of slaves, measured and weighed them, and felt their arms and thighs to select those who were fittest. While Tacca may have tried to individualize the captives, and while scholars have argued that he showed their humanity and beauty by their anguished facial expressions,23 many aspects in his interpretation/depiction demean and humiliate them. That he chose to represent the captives as Black, “mori,” is important: doubtless, there were Blacks in the Livorno bagnios, but the majority of captives whom Ferdinand brought back with him after his campaign were North Africans—not necessarily Black, perhaps more with the skin color of the Moroccan ambassador to England in 1600 or Velasquez’s Moor in 1645. It is not clear why turcs from Tunisia would be Negroid Black—unless it was to celebrate the involvement of Fernando II, who later completed the monument, in the sub-Saharan slave trade.24 But the most violent act committed by Tacca against the captives was to show the oldest Moro among the four men, who has been argued to be the father of the other three, without cover for his sexual parts, revealing his male (circumcised? uncircumcised?) organ.25 Tacca was a contemporary of Bernini who sculpted some of the most stunning naked bodies, but then the latter was often dealing with mythical nudes, Apollo, Prosperine, and others. To represent the captives in the nude was not an aesthetic choice for Tacca, however, nor indeed realistic, as even the most miserable of captives had some covering for their bodies; and no male or female Christian captive of turcs was ever sculpted in the nude. To the right of the father is his son (?), seminaked, with his buttocks half exposed. He is the youngest of the four and the most sexually attractive—unless his very smooth skin and hairless body suggest that he was a eunuch. To have a father (if he is the father) in the nude with his son/s next to him is devastatingly damning: in Christian exegesis, Noah cursed his son Ham for looking at his nakedness. For Tacca, the captives were not just degraded and defeated: they were cursed, too. 22 23 24 25

Cardini, Europe and Islam 166. See, for example, the “beauty” of the captives in Ostrow, Pietro Tacca. Bindman, Gates and Dalton, The image of the Black 183. Was the old Moor from Salé and called Ali or Salebino Melioco, and the young Moor Algerian called Margiano? See Rosen, Pietro Tacca’s “Quattro Mori,” and the reference to Venturi’s study, Il Monumenoto livornese dei “Quattro Mori,” and Greene, Catholic pirates, 82–83. The Moors “had attempted to steal a galley, meaning to have rowed it themselves; but were taken in this great enterprise,” Evelyn, Diary 1:91n.

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Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno) by Sailko, Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

Meanwhile, and for the men and women and children viewers of the sculpture then (it remains today “Livorno’s most popular monument,” as the information piece next to the fence states), the four men represented the wild, seminaked, “Barbary Corsairs” who had terrorized them but have now been caught, shackled, stripped naked, and put on exhibit by the Knights of St. Stephen. All four had their heads shaven, but for a pig’s tail of hair (topknot), so Satan, as the joke went, could snatch him down to hell. Defeat in battle meant defeat in the afterlife, too: and so, as Christ was depicted in paintings and sculptures atop of Satan and his cohorts, so now the white marble duke is atop the black bronze slaves. It is unlikely that any viewer had any sympathy for the

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Monumento dei Quattro Mori (Livorno) Photo by by Sailko, Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0)

Moors,26 especially not for the naked “father” captive, his face haggard, his organ dangling: how did women, promenading near the Livorno harbor react to this sexual affront? There could not but have been bemused disgust at such 26

See for a different view: “Tacca deliberately depicted each [of the four captives] as an individual, allowing viewers to project their own stories on to these specific figures, something eagerly done by later viewers,” Rosen, Pietro Tacca’s “Quattro Mori” 47.

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fatwa had been issued in Egypt and had been in response to questions posed to the mufti by Muslims in Spain who had been forcibly converted to Christianity. The Muslims had asked what to do when the Christians forced them to curse Muḥammad and to profess Christian doctrines. The mufti replied as follows, “If told to curse Muḥammad, pronounce the name as Mamad, since that was how the Christians said it … If told to say that Jesus is the son of God, they might say so, intending to suppress the word governing the genitive, i.e., ‘is the son of (the worshipper of) the God of Mary, who is rightly adored.’”34 Forced to concede to the power of their rulers and to act against their beliefs, the Andalusians could revert to quibbles that preserved the purity of the inner against the sacrilege of the outer. And so, in one manuscript about the principles of Christianity, al-Zwāwī wrote: “Bism lāb wa libin wa rūḥ al-qudus, Allāh wāḥid.”35 Unwilling to write the correct Arabic form of the invocation of the Trinity, he distorted his Arabic so he would not appear to have admitted to a Trinitarian faith—and ended the warbled sentence with an Islamic assertion in the correct spelling of “God is One.” And he did that repeatedly. In other manuscripts, he translated accurately the instructions about Christian belief, sometimes coining words for which he knew no Arabic equivalent. When he copied the question about what needs to be learned about the worship of God, the answer included a reference to the rosary—which al-Zwāwī translated as wardat sitnā Maryam (the rose of our lady Mary).36 For him, the rosary was different from the masbaḥa that Muslims used, which is why he saw no connection between the two devotions. To a question about what it meant to be Christian, he gave the answer as “he who believes in the faith and law of Jesus,”37 which was clearly an evasive answer. In another manuscript, which included an Arabic version of the 150 psalms, along with various tasābīḥ (invocations), he repeated the same distortion of the recitation of the Trinity, and although he opened by using the proper Christian Arabic term for psalm, mazmūr, by the third psalm, he reverted to the Quranic term zabūr. In working on the psalms, al-Zwāwī was at ease, perhaps because the Quran includes some echoes of them;38 he was also at ease when writing about the Israelite prophets because the descriptions confirmed his Quranic faith: Moses, David, Samuel, and others were recognized prophets, and there was no problem about their propinquity to Islamic representation. At the end 34 35 36 37 38

Van Koningsveld and Wiegers, Islam in Spain 147. MS A 7, 26r. Ibid. 8v. Ibid. 26r. See the reference to 141 parallels in Neuwirth, Quranic readings of the Psalms 733.

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Battle of Ostia by Raphael (Vatican) Photo by Nabil Matar

as if inviting sexual seizure. Nor have the two men been disarmed since they no longer can threaten anyone, and so as villagers filled their jugs with water spouting from under the Moors, they must have snickered at the uncivilized and the unchristian who were enslaved and, in the case of the women, to be prostituted in the brothels of Rome. The celebration of the victory of Lepanto was a celebration of victory of race and religion. The figure of the crouching captive appears again in the Paris shipyards at the end of the seventeenth century.28 Significantly, this demeaning represen28

Figure 7. See the article by Martin and Weiss, “Turks” on display, which discusses other examples.

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(non-Arabic) names—rather odd given their appearance in the Quran in the same Arabic names that appear in the Arabic Bible. Sometimes, he realized the need to explain the Arabic equivalent of names, which might be unfamiliar to his targeted Arab readers: thus, Yerūshālim was a place name and “is al-Quds in Arabic,” or is “the Great al-Quds.”43 While he was comfortable dealing with material that had Quranic-Islamic relevance, other material that was strictly biblical was confusing to him: thus, al-Jalīl (Galilee) “is a place name, and it is singular. I think it is in Bilād al-Shām near the region of the ʿajam.”44 The manuscripts are long and repetitive, and toward the end, al-Zwāwī clearly got bored and left wide spaces between lines, writing in large script. Surreptitiously asserting his religious convictions must have supported alZwāwī in his captivity; perhaps, he came to believe that God had placed him in Malta to correct those errors and to defend the true knowledge of God. Although he was writing Christian material for a Christian master who intended to use it to convert Muslims, al-Zwāwī subverted the material by affirming Islamic views. He proclaimed Islam from the midst of the most anti-Muslim bastion in Christendom, the home of the Knights of Malta, and on the pages of Christian Arabic commentaries. Such a view of his work sustained him during his years of captivity, and may have given him hope, as he expressed on the last page of one of his manuscripts, that although his hand would wither, what it had written would endure, “May God have mercy on a servant who worked for [reward] after death.”45 Al-Zwāwī was defending Islam and himself by writing. Thus: Allāh is my love and upon Him I rely. God almighty is one in essence, attributes, and actions—against what the Christians believe. It is necessary that we believe that God almighty exists, but not as we exist, because our existence is limited and circumscribed. Almighty God is absolute. Also, what should be upheld is that God almighty spoke to Moses, who is His prophet and messenger; and ʿĪsā, His Spirit; and Muḥammad His love, may God’s prayer be upon him and upon them all … al-Ḥaqq [Truth, meaning also God], blessed and almighty, has no above or below, no ahead or before, no right or left … May God guide us, we Muslims, to what satisfies and pleases the prophets and the saints.46

43 44 45 46

MS A 10, 193v, 201r. MS A 10, 24 v. Ibid. 247r. Ibid. 184r–185r.

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Fanal de Galère, Paris Maritime Museum (Paris) Photo by Nabil Matar

like their fellow turcs, they, French and European, did not undergo the dishonor of humiliation in sculpture, to be exhibited on ships or in museums—nor of course did sculptures (and paintings and votive offerings) of Christian captives held by Muslims, who were depicted in humility and piety, with eyes ever raised to the Christian savior. No Christian slave imploring the Virgin or the Redemptionist saints was depicted in the nude, whether kneeling before St. John of Matha, or in the various altarpieces of Palermo churches, or in the eighteenthcentury painting above a collection box in the mosque-turned-cathedral in Cordoba. Their sexuality was never exposed in the manner of the Livorno captive. They are always clothed and retain the dignity of Christian suffering.

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In c. 1710, Giovanni Baratta (1670–1747), modeled his “Bound Corsair” on Tacca’s oldest of the four Moors; his muscular arms and back are an exact imitation. A century after Tacca, the turc remained a cringing figure, with muscles on steroids, but at least, his private parts are covered. And he is no longer Black since by this time, the saying, “fort comme un turc,” was common in the French arsenals where thousands of turcs were shackled to the oars.29 The turcs were harnessed to serve the maritime needs of the emerging naval empires, transformed from captives to sheer brawn, with animal-like threatening features, but tightly tied. In 1728, just over a decade after Baratta sculpted his “Bound Corsair,” Daniel Defoe published A plan of the English commerce in which he proposed a project for a European invasion of North Africa and the harnessing of the defeated “Barbary natives” in the service of European trade.30 As sculpture reflected a subjugation of the undifferentiated turcs, European imperial goals extended that subjugation onto the Islamic Mediterranean. The sculpture of Pietro Galleti in the St. Agatha Cathedral in Catania stands to the side of the altar: and so, as worshippers looked to the priest officiating at the mass, they saw the bishop above the turc. But the words under the captive make no mention of the bishop’s involvement with turcs: Pietro Galleti joined the clerical [military] service. He was so pious, prudent, and learned that he was put in charge of Sant’Antonio Magno in Palermo. Then, he was made Apostolic Inquisitor, regent of the inquisition in Sicily. Then, he became bishop of Patti, then of Catania. He was an uncorrupt judge of justice, fought for the freedom of the church, was an enemy of vices and friend of virtues, took care of the poor, hurt no one, helped everyone. The only thing that he did wrong to his people was that he submitted to fate. He died April 6, 1757, in the 27th year of his episcopacy. Evidently, the commissioner/artist could think of no other way of celebrating the life of Pietro Galleti and praising his piety and prudence except by exhibiting the chained turc, along with a Black, under him. The two were good ornaments—as they also appear in the Co-Cathedral of St. John in Valletta under the mausoleum of Grand Master Nicolas Cotoner. At the height of the European slave trade in Africa, the turc was turning into another object of pos-

29 30

Weiss, Ransoming “Turks” from France’s Royal Galleys 39–40; Fontenay, L’Esclave galérien 125. Defoe, A plan of the English commerce.

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Bound Corsair, by Giovanni Baratta; Kaiser Friedrich Museumsverein (Berlin) Photo by Nabil Matar

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figure 10 Mausoleum of Pietro Galleti, Church of St Agatha (Catania, Sicily) Photo by Nabil Matar

session, especially as the Ottoman Empire was losing lands and dominance and its markets were becoming part of the European global emporium. Both Blacks and turcs were in submission to Christendom: they were undifferentiated brute physicality on whose backs sat or stood the White man. Like all sculptures, turcs in stone were intended for longevity and to serve as a record of their defeat in history. And no defeat was more spectacular than the Ottoman retreat from Vienna in 1683. There is no other turc in sculpture who is as viciously represented as the turc on the outside wall of St. Stephen’s Cathedral in Vienna, stretched prostrate in death’s grips, screaming as he is sinking down to hell, his face contorted, under the triumphant child Jesus. This sculpture recalls Romanesque sculptures of Saracens who were depicted in war and defeat. In those sculptures, the imagery often reflected bibli-

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Detail of mausoleum of Pietro Galleti, Church of St Agatha (Catania, Sicily) Photo by Nabil Matar

cal and literary themes, such as the battle between Joshua and the Amalekites or the sacrifice of Isaac.31 Similarly here, the enemy on the battlefield was the Satan of the Book of Revelation, defeated and crushed by the Cross; and so too in the sculpture of St. Ignatius Loyola, where the saint crushes the head of a Turk/heresy under his feet in the Church that carries his name in Rome;

31

Bartal, The image of the Saracen.

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“Jesuits,” not the later—and literal—Arabic translation, Yasūʿiyyūn] among the Christians.” Mandes deliberately used this term because, on many occasions in the Quran, it is applied to the followers of Christ, jamāʿat al-ṣāliḥīn. One of them, whose name was Francesco, performed many miracles—at one time resurrecting from the dead 26 people who went on afterwards to eat and drink.73 “Every day, miracles happen in the religion of the Christians that never appear in Muḥammad’s religion … And Jesus bās [sic] saves the world from that sin which our father Adam and Eve committed.” He then listed a long list of the Virgin Mary’s miracles—how she made the crippled walk and the blind see and the mute speak. Mandes ended by reiterating that the only true religion is that of the Christians and by urging his addressee to renounce “the fāsid [corrupt] religion of Muḥammad and become a Christian.” He added: “then you will be loved by God and all His servants in this and in the next world.” His final words were: “We have written to you from the protected city of Rome, by God’s will, and the writer of this letter is Baldassare Loyola Mandes. This is his name in the land of the Christians, he who originally came from Fez. The glorious story is completed, God willing.” There is no Arabic signature, only the name of “Baldassare Loyola Mandes novitio della Compa. Di Giesū” (Baldassare Loyola Mandes, novice in the order of the Jesuits), in the same hand as the Italian note accompanying the autobiography. Mandes’s conversion became a subject of discussion in Muslim circles, as the first surviving letter by Bil-Ghayth al-Drāwī shows. The letter was written in the middle of August 1663 and was addressed to Mandes: to reach, as the Arabic reads, “by God’s will and power the hand of Shaykh Muḥammad al-Tāzī in the city of Rome, may God destroy it. Amen.” The writer introduced himself as Ḥajj Bil-Ghayth son of Shaykh Muḥammad al-Drāwī, from the Sufi lodge of Tamjrūt, a prosperous trading city in Morocco. He was a captive, serving as an imam in one of the captives’ mosques in Malta. He opened his letter with an Islamic salutation, followed by praise to al-Tāzī as a distinguished religious scholar. But then he added a gentle reprimand and expressed a desire for further information about the rumors of conversion: This letter is addressed to the noble jurist who has unveiled the lights of the truth and tasted of the sweetness of the Quran and wandered in the sea of [Islamic] knowledge … and studied the Hadith. How strange that

73

Mandes may have been referring to the Jesuit Francesco Borgia who was canonized in 1670.

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figure 13 Base of equestrian statue of Prince Eugene of Savoy, Josef Rona, National Gallery (Budapest) Photo by Adobe Stock

tive markers (figure 14). They are defeated—four of them, as often it seems about turcs, in a seated position, fully dressed, and seemingly awaiting their fate. Very much like them, a lone turc expresses submission and despair (figure 15). Showing him in his full regalia confirmed the Christian victory over not just the infantry but also the nobility. The captive is recognizably Muslim, turc, receiving punishment for having dared to threaten Christendom—whether at Malta in 1565 or Lepanto in 1571 or Vienna in 1683.32

∵ As sculptors and their commissioners repeated the humiliation of the turcs— each and every one of the captured slaves is depicted with his hands tied—they established a permanent transnational image of Christian victory and Muslim defeat. After all, the Trinitarian order was founded by a Frenchman (St. John of Matha), the funds for building the (abovementioned) Church of the Holy Trinity in Rome came from Bishop Diego Morcillo in Peru, the architect was Portuguese, the painter of the church décor was Spanish, and the royal

32

The celebration of the two victories of Malta and Lepanto was mapped in the late sixteenth-century Cartographic Gallery at the Vatican Museum. To the left and to the right of the entrance, the maps show the naval preparations that led to the defeat of the Turks.

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esclaves turcs in european sculpture

figure 14 Celebration of victory of Lepanto, 1571, Palazzo dei Conservatori (Rome) Photo by Nabil Matar

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figure 15 Turkish prisoner in chains, c. 1700, Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin) Photo by Nabil Matar

patron was King Carlos III, a Habsburg.33 The image was also transtemporal: the facade of the church promoted the fathers whose order had been established in 1198. The various sculptures of the defeated or crushed turcs were even inter-Christian, Catholic largely, but not objectionable to Protestants, too, and intercontinental, in Europe but also in America: the Annapolis memorial to 33

For similar transnationalism, see the Mercedarians who sent money from New Spain to ransom captives in North Africa: Melvin, Charity without borders.

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urge him to write the letter, al-Drāwī added the following words on the side of the page: “I told them that your son [wilduka] is the present sultan and ruler of Fez because they have received letters from Morocco. You must, Sīdī, reply to us.”81 Evidently, even ten years after Mandes’s baptism, the question of the royal claim was still being discussed in the Tuscan court, so much so that further verification was needed from Morocco.82 Al-Drāwī wanted to warn Mandes about what was transpiring and, at the same time, to assure him that he was active in defending him—and, therefore, ensuring that Mandes would write and support him in his own claims. Coming from Morocco, and in contact with so many captives from all around the region, al-Drāwī knew that Mandes had no sultanic connections, but he wanted to assure him that he was promoting those claims nevertheless. After all: if questions were still being raised about his sponsor so many years after his baptism, and if correspondence with Morocco was in progress, then the authority of Mandes could be weakened, and with it the status of his protégé at the Tuscan court. Al-Drāwī feared that his ruse as the “grand-pontife des Mahometans” (great pontiff of the Mahometans) might be exposed. Like all converts, he was hoping for some rewarding employment.83 The situation was further complicated because Moroccan merchants, too, were undermining Mandes’s claims. A certain al-Sharīf al-Zwāwī Muḥammad sent a letter in Arabic to “the Great and most distinguished Commander of the Faithful, Muḥammad al-Tāzī, the imam in the bagnio and mosque of Malta, may God destroy it.”84 The name of the recipient in Malta is the same as that of Mandes before his conversion, and in Italian, the letter is addressed to “mameto attasi papaso della prigioni di malta in valeta” (Mameto Attasi, imam of the prisoners in Valletta, Malta).85 This repetition of the name suggests that another jurist by the name of Muḥammad had been captured and had assumed the role of imam; his surname, “al-Tāzī,” was the usual addition derived from the place of origin. The letter is dated “Friday of the tenth month” but without a

81 82

83 84 85

The word could also be read as “father,” as it appears in the Quran. Without the vowels, it is not possible to determine exactly which word he meant. A priest from Malaga went to Fez for this verification. As de Castries noted, the report is of tremendous importance for identifying the origins of Baldassare, but it has not been found, de Castries, Les sources 211n2. De Castries noted that further favorable reports were deposited in the Vatican but they could not be found 207. See Rothman’s discussion of the social implications of conversion: Becoming Venetian. Al-Zwāwī was (and still is) is the name of a big family in Salé, originally Andalusian. Dr. Afaf Hamzaoui graciously furnished me with this information. Evidently, and as early as the seventeenth century, Muslim captives in Malta had been organized enough to choose a papas and had been given space for worship. The papas resolved conflicts among the captives and presented their complaints to the authorities.

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matter can either dislodge or alter.”36 Not all the stories that the captives had told about themselves, or the data that were collected about them by their European captors, or the letters they had sent, or the appeals they had forwarded, or the miracles they had celebrated could change them into individuals with personality, emotions, and agency. In the imagination of the European sculptors, the turcs had neither voice nor qiṣṣa. 36

Said, Orientalism 70.

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postscript

How Should the Sculptures Be Treated? Even before the murder of George Floyd on 25 May 2020, students on some university campuses in the United States had pulled down statues of men who had been racists and slave traders. By the end of June 2020, statues of conquerors, imperialists, and genocide perpetrators also had been vandalized, removed, or destroyed.1 Men like Rhodes or Leopold or Churchill or Lee had forcibly changed peoples and maps with devastating and enduring consequences. Sculptures that celebrated them are dismal reminders of what has never been forgotten by the victims and their descendants—who had been defenseless against the geographical remapping of their world and their racial categorization as “natives” or “slaves” or “coloreds.” For Native, Black, and formerly colonized peoples, the statues that glorified the history of enslavement, subjugation, and mass destruction had to be removed, from California to Zaire and from England to Morocco. As Caroline Randall Williams passionately wrote, “What is a monument but a standing memory?”2 As a descendant of slaves, she explained how the evil of such memory remains today, not only in sculptures, but also in human bodies—including her own. Fortunately, amidst this global reaction to racism and exploitation, the statues of the esclaves turcs were ignored—even though they all embody abusive moments in history. The question of such sculptures has haunted me for years, and in working on this book, I visited many of them at the same time that I discussed them in public lectures.

1

Palermo: July 2017

With my son, I stood in front of the Porta Nuova. There were four big telamones depicting the Moors who had been captured by Charles V after his invasion of Tunis in 1535. The Porta was in the shape of a triumphal arc, with two Moors on 1 Columbus (Portland, Oregon, St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota, Boston Massachusetts, and other cities); King Leopold II (Antwerp, Belgium), Winston Churchill (London), Cecil Rhodes (Oxford, England), Edward Coulston (Bristol, England), John MacDonald (Montreal, Canada), Jefferson Davies (Richmond, Virginia), Robert E. Lee (Richmond, Virginia) Jean Baptiste Colbert (Paris, France), John Fine Charles Hamilton (Hamilton, New Zealand), Theodore Roosevelt (New York, New York), the Emancipation Memorial of Abraham Lincoln (Washington DC), and others. 2 My Body is a Confederate Monument, New York Times 28 June 2020. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_011

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each side; the two at the outer sides with their hands crossed on their chests. Whether they represented Moors who converted to Christianity remains a subject of scholarly discussion. I was transfixed. The telamones were identifiably “Moors,” defeated and subjugated by a European Christian monarch. They were humiliated and to me, humiliating. I looked to observe whether the passersby took any notice of them or saw in them the Arab (Moros) and Muslim refugees who were flooding Italian shores. Nobody bothered: Either the locals had become used to them, or they never “saw” them in the first place. My son: “What is so interesting”?—the question of a millennial who has no interest in history earlier than his date of birth. “Don’t you see? These are you and I—for all you know, they could be our great- great- great- etc. grandparents. So degraded. So helpless.” “That is why it is boring to travel with you, dad.”

2

Livorno: May 2018

I arrived in the sleepy port and sped to see the famous sculpture of the four Moors. I spent the afternoon looking at the captives and the towering figure above them. I was amused that across the street was a “Turkish kebab” shop. The turcs were back! In the evening, I returned and sat in the coffee shop directly in front of the sculpture (inevitably the “Quattro Mori Café”). As darkness fell, a Black youth strolled and paused in front of the sculpture; it was in the evenings that I saw immigrants on the streets. For about ten minutes, he stared at the naked “father” Moor. I was intrigued and walked up to him. He was from Senegal, but rather reticent. Before he left, he pointed to the Moro with a confused look on his face: “C’ est moi?!”

3

Erciyes University, Turkey: January 2019

I was eager for the reaction of Turkish students and scholars to the esclaves turcs sculptures. I was also a bit apprehensive: after all, many of the sculptures were specifically of Turks. After finishing my lecture, I asked for comments. There was silence. (The lecture was in English but was translated into Turkish every five minutes by Dr. Hasan Baktir). So, I pushed: “Any reaction to the depiction of Turks in this humiliated and defeated manner?” Silence. Then one professor said: “These sculptures have nothing to do with us.”

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Again, in emotional terms full of rhetorical flourish, he described how eager he was “to see you, for my heart is tied to you in love … I am, sīdī, a stranger and have no protector except God and you [Mandes]. Please ask the Lord Duke and his son to protect me,” because there were many “enemies and enviers” around him from among the family. Every day, he added, they sent letters to him—but he did not reply. Of this letter, there is a brief Italian summary with al-Drāwī’s signature at the bottom: “The one who loves you most and your most humble servant, the scribe Bil-Ghayth al-Drāwī.” Mandes did not write back, and so, in the third and last letter at the end of February 1667, al-Drāwī again pleaded with Mandes in Naples, repeating how much he wished to see him. Like the previous letters, he used half the letter to praise Mandes in titles and honorifics and prayers to God. By this time, al-Drāwī had converted and should therefore have felt more secure, but he was not, and he still pleaded with Mandes to write on his behalf: “I beg you by the power of our lord Jesus Christ and his Virgin Mother.” There is a certain desperateness in his tone; his handwriting is large and uneven, no longer as composed as in the previous two letters. In an attempt to assure Mandes that he had become a Christian, he wrote that the lord duke had batzānī (baptized) him and had given him his name, “a great and noble deed.” He again praised the duke and his ikhawānihi (brothers) and his son for providing him with all his needs: “I pray to God almighty that I will always be in the presence of their felicitous faces.” In the margin, he repeated: “Sīdī, today, the duke batzānī [baptized] me and gave me his name and title. That is a great feat he has done to me, all for the glory of God: Ferdinand Medici, whose previous name was al-faqīh Bil-Ghayth al-Drāwī, and today my name, as I stated, is Ferdinand Medici. Peace.” But he was still afraid and wanted Mandes to write: “Answer, and answer. You must, for the glory of God,” he wrote on the other side of the leaf.91 The above documents contain no mention of al-Tāzī’s claim to royal or princely affiliation. Had Mandes been of royal blood, al-Drāwī could not have ignored that factor: in line with Arabic epistolary culture, not only would it have been insulting not to open with the honorifics due to a man of high status, but also, it would be counterproductive, given his need for Mandes’s intervention. Especially in the first two letters when Bil-Ghayth was still a captive, his rhetorical flourishes would have been replete with references to Mandes’s dynasty and its role in Moroccan history.92 If, during a meeting with the Grand Master, 91 92

APUG 1060—I, 123. By that time, the Dallāʾī dynasty, with whom de Castries associated Mandes, had defied the Saʿdian rulers in Marrakesh and established an autonomous authority. Al-Drāwī would have found it opportune to celebrate the Dallāʾīs and their Sufi heritage and the power they

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explore answers—in the classroom and in public discourse about why such evil was committed; what religious or economic ideologies gave rise to it; how it could have been celebrated in churches and parks; and why it was defended in theological disputations and “scientific” treatises. The sculptures furnish the opportunity to stare this evil in the face—but without anyone assuming the high moral ground. In the early modern Mediterranean, captivity and enslavement were rampant and practiced by all: Christians and Muslims and Jews, Europeans and North Africans and Levantines, kings and sultans, scholars and investors, merchants and sailors, even Sufis and priests and nuns. Everyone was complicit, even though, admittedly, the number of the esclaves turcs in European bagnios and plantations was by far higher than that of Mediterranean Europeans in North African or Ottoman captivity. The sculptures belong to a time when European men and women could do to the turcs what the turcs could do to them. So, let us excoriate past Mediterranean evil, and let us remember the infinite sufferers. But nobody should cast the first stone.

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Bibliography Manuscripts Amman: Murtaḍā ibn Muṣṭafā ibn Ḥasan al-Dimashqī al-Kurdī al-Ḥanafī, Kitāb tahdhīb al-aṭwār fī ʿajāyib al-amṣār, MS Sprenger 23/a, microfilm reel 1369, University of Jordan, Center for the Study of Bilād al-Shām. Beirut: St. Joseph University MS 551; MS 587. London: British Library MS Or 9965; BL ADD 61536. London: The National Archives PROB 32/60/23. SP 71/14; SP 71/7; SP 71/17; SP 102/1; SP 102/2. CO 279/29; CO 279/30; CO 279/31. FO 113/3. Oxford: Bodleian Library MS Pococke 432. Paris: Archives nationales Marine /B/7/214/465; B/7/223/BIS,5; B/7/ 224/60; E/B/7/220, 55–63; B/6/40. Paris: BnF MS Arabe 276; MS Arabe 1624; MS Arabe 6100; MS Arabe 6554 (Khūja, Ḥusayn, Kitāb futūèāt ahl al-īmān bi-futūḥāt āl ʿOthman); MS Arabe 6635. Fond Français, 10780; 8032. Rabat: Royal Library ʿAbd al-Hādī ibn Ṭāhir al-Ḥasanī, Fulk al-saʿāda bi-faḍl al-jihād wa-l-shahāda, MS 2992. Taqāyīd, Rabat, MS 12352. Rabat: National Library of Morocco Aḥmad ibn Ghānim, Kitāb al-ʿizz wa-l-manāfiʿ li-l-mujāhidīn fī sabīl Allāh bi-ālāt alḥurūb wa-l-madāfiʿ, MS Jīm 87.

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ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Zayyātī, al-Jawāhir al-mukhtāra, National Library of Morocco, Rabat, MS Dāl 1698. Anonymous, Sharḥ al-qaṣida al-munfarija, MS Dāl 370. Anonymous, Tuḥfat al-ikhwān wa mawāhib al-imtinān fī manāqib Sīdī Riḍwān [al-Janawī], MS Kāf, 391. Anonymous, al-Ṭarīqa wa-l-talīd min karāmāt al-shaykhayn, Rabat, National Library, MS Kāf 2294. Rome: Pontifical Gregorian University APUG 1060—I 123, 129, 314, 327, 328,144–146, 53–57. Valletta: Franciscan Library A 8, 9, 10, and 11. Vienna: National Library Anonymous, Nubdha fī bayān qiṣaṭt mashyakhat Faransa, MS Flugel 932.

Primary Addison, L., West Barbary, or, A short narrative of the revolutions of the kingdoms of Fez and Morocco: With an account of the present customs, sacred, civil, and domestick, Oxford 1671. al-ʿAkkāwī, Niqūlā al-Sabbāgh, al-Shaykh Ẓāhir ʿUmar, Harisa, Lebanon 1935. al-ʿAlamī, ʿĪsā ibn Ḥasan al-Ḥasanī, Kitāb al-Nawāzil, ed. the Scientific Council in Fez, 2 vols., Rabat 1986. Allin, T., Journals, 1660–1678, ed. R.C. Anderson, 2 vols., London 1939. Armand, J., Voyages d’Afrique faicts par le commandement du Roy, Paris 1631. Baker, T., Piracy and diplomacy in seventeenth-century North Africa, ed. C.R. Pennell, London 1989. Ben Mohammed, Abouzid Sidi Abderrahman, Fawaid al-Jamma bi Isnadi ʿOuloumi alOumma [sic], trans. C. Justinard, Chartres 1953. Bion, J., An account of the torments the French Protestants endure aboard the galleys, London 1708. Brayk, Mīkhāʾīl, Wathāʾiq tārīkhiyya li-l-kursī al-malakī al-Anṭakī, ed. Q. Bāshā, 2 vols., Harisa, Lebanon 1930. Brayk, M., Tarīkh al-Shām, 1720–1782, ed. A.G. Sbānū, Damascus 1982. Burnet, G., History of his own times, abridged Thomas Stackhouse, London 1979. Calendar of state papers domestic, James I, 1611–1618, ed. M.A. Everett Green, London 1858.

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similar addition in accordance with the practice of Arabic Islam, where the name of Jesus was always followed by “peace be upon him,” ʿalayhi al-salām. Al-Drāwī’s letters open a window on the conversion of one Muslim as he wrote about his experience in his own words. They raise the question about the “sincerity” in conversion on which the Council of Trent had insisted,100 at the same time that the transposition of theological beliefs from one language to another reveals how Bil-Ghayth, a Muslim captive seeking freedom and employment, understood—or did not understand—what his baptism meant. The Arabic term for baptism used by Muslim writers was taghṭīs (submersion), which appears widely in contemporaneous sources. But Bil-Ghayth had not been submerged: the Catholic rite of baptism did/does not include such a practice, neither for infants nor for adults.101 Instead, Bil-Ghayth would have answered the priest’s questions by rejecting his previous religious error after which he would be led into the church. Having associated baptism with submersion, and having not been submerged, Bil-Ghayth was confused. Unable to use taghṭīs, he transliterated a foreign word—as he also translated the Christian calendar into his own Islamic vocabulary. After all the theological preparation that he said he had undergone to convert to Christianity, what did batzānī mean to Ferdinand, or the “hijra of the immaculate Christ”? How much did this convert become a “mediator or translator between cultures: a ‘trans-imperial subject’ ”?102 While in the rare case of Mandes, a convert was recognized for his missionary role among Muslims, there is no evidence that Bil-Ghayth or any of the many, many thousand converts played a similarly “mediating” role or furnished a “cultural and linguistic continuum” between the two shores of the Mediterranean.103

100

101

102 103

See the discussion of “sincerity” in Krstić, Contested conversions esp. 102. See also Asad, Comments on conversion, who argued that in post-Tridentine Europe, the emphasis was on sincere commitment to faith. See the reference to a ceremony of baptism in Rome in 1645: “The ceremony was performed in the church of Santa Maria sopra la Minerva near the Capitol. They [Jews and Turks] were clad in white; they exercised at their entering the church with abundance of ceremonies, and, when led into the choir, were baptised by a Bishop, in potinficalibus. The Turk lived afterwards in Rome, sold hot waters, and would bring us presents when he met us, kneeling and kissing the hems of our cloaks,” Evelyn, The diary i, 170. Norton, Introduction 1. Van Gelder and Krstić, Introduction 95.

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stressed how much the wife was still awaiting her husband’s return: at times of so many dangers at sea for sailors and travelers, a wife could not afford to remain without a husband to support her. Otherwise, as in this case, it would be the duty of a male member of the family to take care of her and the children— which the uncle was doing. In 1708, the chaplain on one of the French galleys described how he tried to convert a dying Muslim captive. The latter, who spoke French, agreed to renounce the “imposter” Muḥammad and accept baptism but then, another Muslim, who also knew French, threw himself on the sick captive imploring him not to convert—and so, he did not.107 But, while one man resisted conversion, others did not because the Propaganda Fide offered them opportunities to start life anew after conversion—and they were warmly welcomed when they were seen to be able to serve in the church’s missionary effort to Muslims. Clemente Caraccioli (1670–1721), formerly Imam Ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Ṣaʿīdī, was one such convert, and uniquely, he wrote to explain the process of his conversion. As he recorded, he converted because he was impressed by the poverty and abstinence of Christians. His account is significant in that it shows conversion as a process; the imam did not convert after a Paul-like vision, but after reading and observing and comparing.108 And he was willing to write about it, curiously, using the Quranic language to which he had been accustomed: While others did not convert, I decided to change to the religion of Christianity for these two reasons. First, because those who preached it were poor without wealth to dispense to those who would follow them. It is impossible for them to possess wealth, because their book urges the renunciation of wealth and selfish possessions. They do not permit pleasures, because their book commands abstinence from food and drink, and withdrawal from the world and all its pleasures. They do not convert from difficulty to ease [echoing Q 94:5], because their book commands the opposite. … When I saw all that, and I discovered that the Greek philosophers had converted to Christianity, and so had the Byzantines [Rūm], the ifranj, 107 108

Bion, An account of the torments. As also in the case of al-Drāwī above, Muslim captives did not invoke the model of Paul’s conversion, very much a trope in Christian writings. Paul and his story do not appear in the Quran.

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his soul in paradise.” He then informed the king that he was a sharif, descendant of Mulay Idrīs in Fez, and that he was a faqih, too, who had taught the Arabic language to young and old. “We know what God has ordained for me and which obligates me in my religion, which is the religion of our Sīdī ʿĪsā, peace be on him, and so we thank God who guided us to the true religion. Our hope is in him, because I have no one other than He. I trust that our master will offer me a ḥasana and give me a place in the Escorial in the monks’ school or any other place, for I am eager to study Latin and learn more about the true religion so that I can be guided to truth and to writing [Latin].”114

4

Conclusion

Many Muslim captives converted, adjusted, and somehow integrated—but only to the extent that European society permitted. Lewis Maximilian, a Muslim-Turkish captive to England, shows his adjustment to Anglicanism. The publication of his Memoirs of the life of Lewis Maximilian Mahomet, gent. late servant to his majesty in English in 1727 was clearly aimed to show Anglican progress in proselytization to London readers. His account was the first published memoir of a Muslim captive in England. As the English began to push their conversionary efforts into the Levant, they met with a highly organized and well-financed Catholic effort that was gaining converts among Eastern Christians—and sometimes, clandestinely, among Muslims and Jews. And of course, there were the large numbers of captives who were converted in the bagnios and arsenals and hospitals of France and Malta and Italy. There was need in London to show that Protestant Anglicanism could prove appealing to Muslims, too.115 The account was written by “Himself”/“Mahomet” (although the first part is a brief biography written about him after his death) and includes his confession of faith, his “Acknowledgement of ROYAL Favours,” and his final will and testament. Given the jokes that had been hurled sometimes at King George I for having a Muslim in his court, the conversion account would vindicate the monarch by showing how instrumental he had been in leading an infidel to Protestantism. There had been, after all, something propitious about the conversion of Mahomet: he had been captured during the “remarkable … Siege the Turks laid to Vienna, in the Year 1683,” after which he converted, married “a Hanoverian Gentlewoman, of a very good Family,” had children, and 114 115

Razzūq, Dirāsāt fī tārīkh al-Maghrib 181–182. For a discussion of earlier conversions of Muslim captives in England, see my Islam in Britain ch. 3.

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chapter 5

Ransom and Return I have called my report, The journey of the vizier for liberating (iftikāk) the captives. Al-Ghassānī (c. 1691).

∵ If—when—miracles did not prove effective, captives awaited help from their rulers who sent ambassadors and emissaries to negotiate ransom payments. All surviving Arabic descriptions about journeys to European countries in the period under study, except the account about the five-year escape of the Lebanese prince Fakhr al-Dīn to Italy (1613–1618), were written by emissaries on negotiating missions, and all were by Moroccans. Some Ottoman officials went from the regencies to France to ransom captives, but their records were in Turkish. In general, Arab captives from the Eastern Mediterranean had no Ottoman official traveling from Istanbul or Cairo to Western Europe to ransom them, while regency officials always negotiated for Turkish captives. As various accounts show, both from the Arab and the European sides of the Mediterranean, negotiations for the liberation of captives were lengthy, and ambassadors and Redemptionists sometimes had to travel multiple times to conclude satisfactory deals. The disagreements always centered on the sums to be paid in ransom, the number of captives to be exchanged, or the inclusion of a commercial and/or peace treaty with the release of captives—the last something on which North African rulers often insisted. As a result of the delays and confusions, many European and North African captives remained for decades in bagnios awaiting freedom. In the case of North African captives, and when conditions at home were unstable and rulers were busy with their own internal affairs—rebellions, famines, or court intrigues—the captives had to take matters into their own hands, raise money on their own, and find an intermediary who would negotiate for them. Some Muslim captives granted non-Arab Christian merchants power of attorney to sell their property at home and raise the ransom sums. On one occasion, a Frenchman went from Istanbul to Malta to ransom captives; on another in 1617, “Paulo a merchant from Venice” took money from the mother of Mahmut to ransom her son; on a third occasion in 1689, it was “Kornelis a Dutchman” who was to try and ransom “Recep” who was

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, 2021 | doi:10.1163/9789004440258_008

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the French king asking him to protect the Algerians who flee to France because of the peace treaty with France. The Algerians had been captives in Genoa, Livorno, and Spain and made their way to France only to find themselves seized to the galleys. Just put them on ships and send them back, he wrote.6 By then, there were already around 2,000 “turcs” serving on the French fleet.7 In a letter sent in the early 1680s, the Algerian diwan complained that seven Algerians escaped from Spain and were found at sea by a French ship. They were enslaved and sold in Marseille. The captives wrote to their families and complained to the diwan. “Such an action does not conform to the terms of peace … And, two Algerians traveling on a French ship were captured by the enemy. Since France is at peace with all Christian countries, it is her duty to force the Spaniards to release the captives.”8 But the French navy was in need of rowers since most of the Blacks they had brought from Guinea had died, allegedly of “mélancholie,” unable to adapt to the brutal conditions of the fleet.9 Ḥajj Ḥusayn, who succeeded Ḥajj Muḥammad, was told that 56 Algerian captives would be released only after 56 new captives were furnished for the fleet:10 there was little that he could do to avoid having coreligionists in French chains. Similar concern for captives was shown by Mulay Ismāʿīl in Morocco. Between 1690 and 1691, the Moroccan ambassador, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd alWahhāb al-Ghassānī, wrote an account about his experience of ransoming captives in Spain. He included firsthand description of various parts of Spain, thereby abiding by the command of Mulay Ismāʿīl who wanted him to report as much information about the country as possible.11 Al-Ghassānī wrote both about geography and infrastructure as well as about the European history that influenced social and political life in Spain. (He was the first to write an account about the Protestant Reformation, but based on his hosts’ Catholic perspective). He also described captives, although briefly, unwilling to focus on the humiliation and despair of Muslims in infidel hands. After he and his delegation arrived in Cordoba, he wrote how the captives came out proclaiming the shahādah (witness)—and therefore confirming that they were still Mus6 7 8 9 10 11

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was familiar with the diplomatic codes of Europe, he was sent on a mission to Spain to ransom Muslim captives. The journey lasted eight months in which al-Ghazzāl also negotiated a successful peace treaty with King Carlos III (reg. 1759–1788). In 1771, Ibn ʿAbdallāh attacked the Spanish outpost of Melilla but was forced to withdraw because of the terms of the treaty that had been written by al-Ghazzāl. Ibn ʿAbdallāh accused his ambassador of disobedience and removed him from office. Al-Ghazzāl joined a Sufi lodge but became blind and died in 1777. His account sheds light on the condition of captives—much more so than the account by al-Ghassānī. Al-Ghazzāl observed, for instance, that captives were not allowed to use Arabic in writing—although they must have spoken it with each other, even though, after years in captivity, they would have acquired some Spanish terms and sentences to use with their captors. Some captives escaped, although where they would have gone is difficult to tell: they were kept inland and so reaching the coastline in order to cross over to North Africa would have been dangerous, if not impossible. Did they hide and then settle in what had been Andalusian villages where some of the Muslims-turned-Christians lived who still remembered their history and would have taken pity on the captives? One fear that captives had was that if or when they were released, they would not be able to return to their homelands with their children. The situation was not unlike what had happened during the expulsion of the Andalusians in 1609 when parents were forced to leave their children behind, who were subsequently baptized into Christianity. The captives remembered that past, repeating to the ambassador their fears: that their children would be turned into Christians. Although the title of al-Ghazzāl’s work indicated the jihad he had to conduct in the lands of the infidels on behalf of his master—and it was always his master who was mentioned and praised making the theme of captivity subservient to the latter’s glorification—the account was also an important report on the plight of Muslim captives in Spain through Arab eyes. Such was Ibn ʿAbdallāh’s Islamic vision that al-Ghazzāl was instructed to effect the release of all Muslims—including the Turks, even though Ottoman emissaries never bothered to ransom Arabs in this period. In La Graja, and preparing to leave for Madrid, al-Ghazzāl set down the terms for the release of the captives to his Spanish hosts. First there was to be The release of all aged and disabled captives, along with the learned ones and their like, from whichever region [of North Africa] they came; 2. The release of all the captives from the region of our master [Morocco], after writing down their names and titles; 3. The release of two Algerian men, one a student [of religious sciences] and the other one a sayyid (as

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cere, and as a sign of his civility, he invited us to go with him to the house of medicine, which contained all the ointments, drugs, herbs, and potions that he needed. He told us to take what we needed, thinking that we knew something about medicine. We thanked him, praising him for his generosity. We then went to another place and found physicians preparing temporary medications as they crushed drugs in graters. There were little boys with mortars removing what was not needed from plants. There were brass distillers as tall as a man in which fluids were squeezed from plants. … As we drew near [Cartagena], with only a short distance left, a group of Muslim men, women, and children came out to meet us, clamoring for release [ikhlāṣ] and adding: “May God make victorious the son of the Prophet of God, Sayyid Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh.” We greeted them and asked them about themselves and lo, we found that they were free but still treated as if they were slaves. They could not leave the country until they paid the money Christians imposed on every freed captive who did not belong to the tyrant. The Christians used such payments to help their own poor and so they did not relent on their demands. But those captives were weak and feeble, and whatever work they did was not enough to provide them with food for their children because of high prices. They had remained in this condition for years, exhausted and worn out by cruel captivity. Each captive’s expenses were covered by his owner, to prevent him from starving to death, and so the captives had no hope except in God almighty. Additionally, they were terrified that if they were freed, they would have to leave their children behind in the lands of the infidels. We stood with them for some time, as they wept and groaned. We wept even more than they did, pitying them in their plight. We tried to assuage their anxieties and assured them of the promise of our master, may God uphold him, and confirmed to them that he will pay whatever sum was required to effect their return to the land of Islam, God willing. We added that our master, may God make him victorious, had not sent us except to help people like them. And so they were comforted and dried their tears. Women began trilling while the children danced and sang, and the fathers splattered their heads with dust, kneeling in gratitude to God almighty, invoking God for our master, may God make him victorious. It was quite a day the like of which we had not seen, of tears and joy, when God freed them all, and saved their children from the land of infidelity, at the generous hands of our master. We left them hopeful and contented.

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284 IbnʿIdhārī, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad 81 Ibn Karāma, Muṣṭafā ibn Jamāl al-Dīn 63–64 Ibn Maḥram, Ḥusayn 189 Ibn Qāsim, ʿUthmān 94 Ibn ʿUthmān, Ḥusayn 104 Ibn al-Sāsī, ʿAbdallāh 43 Ibn Yaḥyā, Hārūn 24n71 Ibrāhīm 70 Ibrahim bin Abdi 36nn133 al-Idrīsiyya, Mubāraka 136 al-Imām, Yūsuf 51n14

index of captives Musa Issa 6n4 Mustafā/Jean-Armand Mustafa Mahomet 5 Mustaoth 99

183

Norlo 5 ʿOmar ibn Husayn 104 Oran Bacicha 5 Oran de Tripoli 6 Oran de Tunis 5 Osman Agha de Temechvar

9n19

Jeragile Ali 5 Jetta Secola 5 Joseph Ali 5

“Petr ye Moor” 99–100

Librīs, Ibrāhīm 87–88

al-Qāid ʿAli 36n133 al-Qaysī, ʿAbd al-Karīm 44–50 al-Quwatlī,ʾAbdallāh 41n153

Mahamad Hessen 6 Mahamat 36n Mahamed Ali 5 Mahamed Ben Mus 5 Mahamed de Saley 6n4 Mahamed de Shezrell 5 Mahamed Sin 5 Mahamet 99 Mahamet Maron/Jean Chinqueta 156 Mahamet/Barnabel 154 Mahamud Bebeck 5 Mahomet/Lewis Maximilian 185 Mahomet 188 al-Mālikī, Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad 67 Margiano 236n25 “Massouda, a Negress” 82 Melud Benahamed 6 Mesot Mortegett 5 Mihamed bin Ahmed el Hammemi 230 Mohammad bin Hajji Abdelafar’s uncle 36n133 Mohammad Coroli 36n133 Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī 104 Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Faḍl 54 Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥajj Ibrāhīm 104 Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī al-Abghalī 192 Muḥammad ibn Maymūn al-Jazāʾirī 82 Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad 108 Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad al-Ṭayyib alTafilātī al-Mālikī (al-Ḥanafī al-Maghribī) 67–70

Rahall de Birkey 5 Recep 188 al-Ṣaʿīdī, Ibn ʿAbdallāh/Clemente Caraccioli 182–184, 279 al-Saʿīdī, Muḥammad 106–107 Sayyid ʿAli ibn al-Sayyid Aḥmad 71–79 Selima bin[t] Brahim 230 Shaban Benkalifa 5 Shalabī, Suleymān 74 al-Sharīfiyya, Mubāraka 84 Suleymān al-Maṣrī al-Azharī al-Asīr 94 Suleymān ibn Suleymān ibn ʿAli 104 al-Tāzī, Muḥammad/Baldassare de Mandes 34, 81, 103, 132, 162, 165–171, 173–178, 216, 225 Temīm, ʿAbd al-Ḥaqq 101 al-Tjībī, Abū al-Ḥasan ʿAlī (relatives of) 109 al-Tlimsānī, Muṣṭafā 114–116 Ussain Mahamet 230 al-Wazzān, Ḥasan

27

al-Yasītnī, Muḥammad 153 Yūsuf al-Maqdisī al-Ḥanbalī 65 Al-Zarārī, Muḥammad ibn Saʿīd Zefzef, ʿAlī ibn Mūsā 121–122

144

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285

index of captives al-Zīnāt, ʿAlī ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Zwārī, Ibrāhīm 14

89

al-Zwāwī, Aḥmad ibn Yaḥyā 175, 183

156–162, 173–

Christian Adrian, Lazare 36n133 Anthoine, Michel 36n133 Anṭūn, metropolitan 127 Balqīs 153 Bartholomeo, Giovani Bion, Jean 182, 232

36n133

Corsini, Ferdinandus 154 Cowdery, Jonathan 79n53 Curi/Khūrī, Nicolo 130 d’Arcos, Thomas/Hasan 153n14 Davies, William 18, 34n119, 150n9 de Salvatore, Dominicus 154 de Sosa, Antonio 19, 131 de Vaca, Álvar Núñez Cabeza 8, 18n51 Egilsson, Ólafur 53, 79–80 Ellyat, Robert 19

Liperotto, Luca

36n133

Makhlūf, Buṭrus 127 al-Maqdisī, Tūmā 127 Marsh, Elizabeth 81 Marguerite 152n12 Masʿad, Ibrāḥīm 130 Moüette, Germain 19n56 Okeley, William 79n84 Perin, Philip 36n133 Pitts, Joseph 19, 150n9 Randall, Bridget and her son 40n156 Rowlandson, Mary 16, 80 Savari, Robert 36n133 Scarpello, Michael 36n133 Sopardo, Battista 36n133 Staden, Hans 18n51

Foss, John 7n11 ter Meetelen, Maria 81 Hasleton, Richard 18, 79n84, 113n44 Ibn Ḥanna, Andrāwus Yūsuf 128

Weymouth, Mary and her two sons 40n156 Whitehead, John 19n54

Jónsson, Jón 53

Ximénez, Francisco 74

Knight, Francis 19

Jewish Munsiyus, Dawūd Mūsā 129

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General Index al-ʿAbdarī, Aḥmad ibn Munʿim 62 Abghalī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAlī 192 Abraham, patriarch 104 Abulpheda/Abū al-Fidā 223 Abū ʿAbdallāh Aḥmad 135 Abū Tammām 217 Abyssinian 215 Achilles 83n98 Acre 65, 211 Agadir 28–29, 121, 154, 216 Agamemnon 83n98 Agathange, Capuchin missionary 215 Agius, Dionysius A. 9n18, 97n10, 157n31,33, 231n9 Aḥmad Dey, Algerian 83 ʿAisha bint Aḥmad al-Idrīsiyya 136 al-ʿAlamī, ʿĪsā ibn Ḥasan al-Ḥasanī 132 Albujarras rebellion 215 Aleppo/Aleppan 16–17, 34, 37, 70, 128, 151– 152, 232n12 Alexandretta 10 Alexandria 16n43, 17n, 34, 37, 41, 51n14, 64– 65, 70, 78–79, 83, 91, 104, 105n30, 162, 232 Algiers/Algerian 1, 3, 6–10, 14, 16–17, 19, 21, 24, 27, 30–31, 33, 40–41, 50, 56– 57, 59–60, 62, 67, 78, 82, 84, 87–88, 92, 94, 101–102, 108, 111n41, 112–115, 121n17, 131, 141, 153n16, 156, 171, 190– 191, 194, 196, 212, 218, 226–227, 232n12, 233 Alhambra 224n36 Alicante 6 Allin, Thomas admiral 34 Almería 9 Amazigh 10, 214 American 7, 9, 41, 87–90, 229, 233 American, Native 11, 16, 18n51, 23, 36, 39n149, 80, 81n87, 190, 231n8, 235 Amsterdam 32, 97–98, 117, 232n12 Andalus/Andalusian 11, 24–26, 28–29, 37, 39, 44, 49, 52, 58n36, 59, 62, 103, 109, 135, 149, 157n32, 159, 173n84, 175, 193– 194, 213, 215, 217, 229 Anfa 29 Anglican/Anglicanism, 112n41, 185–186

Annaba 236 Annapolis 250, 251n35 Anne, queen 117 Anelli, Anelo 233 Antioch/Antiochian, 130, 134 Aristotle 164, 217 Armenia/Armenians, 23, 36, 117–118, 120, 152n12, 183, 189, 215 Asfi 29, 86, 216 Asila 29 ʿAtayi, Nevʾizade 9n19 Athos, Mount 128n6 Aubin, Penelope 81n86 Augustine, St. 216 Avicenna 164, 217 Azammur 29, 43 al-Badīʿ, palace 39, 60 Badis 29, 55 Bahrain 70 Balearic Islands 25 Baltimore, Ireland 1–3 Baghdad 12, 44, 60, 134 Banū Hilāl 43 Baratta, Giovanni 243 Basra 70, 120 Basta 44, 46 al-Bayānī, Abū ʿAbd 45–46 Baybars, al-Zāhir 43 Bayjayah 29 Beirut 41n163, 64, 129n10 Belhamissi, Moulay 7, 9, 14n35, 27n83, 82–83n97, 94n3, 111n40, 115n49, 229n3 Benedict of Palermo, St. 251 Ben Rejeb, Lotfi 21 Benedict XIV, pope 128 Bentura de Zari 117–120 Berber/Berbers 10, 28, 37, 60, 204, 229, see also Amazigh Berlin 73, 234 Bernini 236 Bertos, Francesco 234n18 Bickerstaff, Isaac 233 al-Bīḍāwi, Nāṣir al-Dīn 71 Bona 29

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almighty, had told me to have such men examined by physicians. In due time, they and we finished with this troublesome matter. I remembered all this when I saw you and realized how good and efficient you were. We did not mind having you around when the men were being examined— every old man, the blind, the cripple, the intestinally sick, and anyone who claimed illness and required attention. Whoever was fit, we did not claim, but whoever was useless was to be released, in accordance with your judgment about the healthy and the sick.” He was very pleased and said, “May God reward you. I am sure you will be satisfied. Ask for me when you need me and you will find what you desire.” After he took the gift, he left. On the following morning, we went to our brethren in faith in five ships full of Muslim captives. When we arrived, they called out the [Islamic] Witness, hailing our lord, supported by God almighty. Muslims came down from the first ship and we greeted them and told them that our master was earnestly working to effect their freedom; and that he, may God uphold him, had given orders to liberate all of them and had sent a blessed ṣila [monetary gift] to them, they being our brethren in faith. “Look after your ṣila, grit your teeth about your religion, and be patient, for patience brings relief. Soon, God will release you. The tyrant has given orders that you be treated kindly and has sent garments to all of you—all because of our master’s instruction, may God reward him.” I wrote down the name and surname of each of the captives. Every time, however, an old man came up to us, there was an argument: he would claim that he was weak and useless but the sea commanders disagreed. And so I took the man in charge of the captives aside, a man called tenient, and asked him to call the doctors and promised that we would abide by their determinations. All of us would then be fair to the captives. Instantly, he called the doctors and read to them the letter from his tyrant, which ordered the release of the aged, the intestinally sick, the cripples, and the blind. He was pleased with my suggestion and realized that it was an excellent decision. We got what we hoped for, without disagreement or discord, through the blessing of our master, supported by God, praise be to God. Sixty-two aged captives were released. When others heard that only those from Morocco were to be released, they started claiming to belong to the iyāla of our master, may God make him victorious. We were so annoyed and confused that I wished I had not been there. If I conceded that they were from our iyāla, I would be exposed by those captives who had earlier claimed to be from other regions than Morocco—not knowing

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288 Dutch 17, 188, 232 al-Duwayhī, Iṣṭfān patriarch 127 Earle, Peter 4n1, 9n16, 22n66, 30n94, 39n147, 64n–66n61, 87n113, 129n9 Eftīmos, bishop of Sidon 129–130 Egypt, Egyptian, 6, 16, 34, 36, 43, 50, 52, 54, 56, 65, 67, 71–72, 78, 83n100, 94, 104– 105, 116, 130, 159, 162, 215n3, 217 Elizabeth I, queen 59, 81, 186 England, English, 4, 6, 8, 14, 18, 20, 23, 27– 28, 32–34, 44, 51, 59, 65, 79n84, 82, 83n104, 87n112, 88, 91, 95, 97–100, 106, 112, 113n44, 114n49, 117, 120, 128, 148–151, 154n17, 162, 164n61, 165n61, 174n85, 185–186, 192–193, 206, 213n36, 217n12, 218–219, 221, 225, 232, 233, 235– 236 Enoch 68 Erpenius, Thomas 97, 216 Escorial 185, 196, 217n11, 218, 225–228 Eugene of Savoy 247 Evelyn, John 179n101, 221, 232n25 Exeter 19 Fakhr al-Dīn 65, 95–96, 188 Faro, Gabriel 36n132 Favart, Charles-Simon 233 Felix of Valois, St. 234 Ferdinand I de’ Medici 236, 239 Ferdinand II de’ Medici 96 Ferdinand of Aragon 44 Fez/Fezzan 17, 55, 60n42, 98, 132, 138n40, 153, 163n52, 164–168, 173–174, 177, 185, 190, 208, 211 Fisher, Godfrey 7 al-Fishtālī, Abū Fāris ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 54–55 Flanders/Flemish 32, 37, 104, 232 Florentine 96–97 Florida 59 Fontana (Marino) 233, 235, 239, 241 Fontana dei Quattro Mori 239 Fontana del Moro 234n18 Francis I, king 64 Franciscan 156 François l’Hermite 172 Gafsa/Gafsi 138–139, 142 Galen 217

general index Galilee 160–161 Galleti, Pietro 243 Gallipoli 37 Genoa/Genoese 6, 32, 43, 58, 87, 97–98, 114, 163, 191, 206 al-Ghassānī, Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd alWahhāb 103, 188, 191–192, 194, 208, 225– 226 Ghazīrī, ʿAlī ibn Yaḥyā 14n34 al-Ghazzāl, Abū al-ʿAbbās Mahdī 193–194, 202, 204–205, 208, 226–227 Gibraltar 55, 89–90, 131, 193 George I, king 113, 114, 116, 121, 186 Goa 82 Golius, Jacob 97–98 Goulette 17 Gozo 35 Granada/Granadan 5, 14, 26, 82n96, 103, 224n36, 225 Grandchamp, Pierre 17n44, 36–37n133, 84n105 Grotius, Hugo 132–133 Guinea 191 Habib, Imtiaz 27n83, 82n92, 149 Habsburgs 95, 152, 248 Ḥāḥā 134 Haifa 65, 130 Hakluyt, Richard 17n43, 39n146, 105n30 Ham (son of Noah) 61, 236 Hammamet 139 al-Ḥanbalī, Yūsuf al-Maqdisī 65 Hanin 50 al-Ḥāqilānī, Ibrāhīm 96–97 Harborne, William 16n43 al-Ḥasan, Abū Ḥāmid ibn 49 al-Ḥasan, Abū 109–110 al-Ḥasan, ʿAbd al-Hādī 132 Ḥasan grandson of the Prophet 54, 136 al-Hasan, ʿĪsā ibn 207 al-Ḥasanī, ʿAbd al-Hādī ibn Ṭāhir 132n23 al-Ḥasanī, ʿĪsā ibn Ḥasan 132 Hebrew 129, 158, 217 Helen of Troy 83 Herbert, Arthur 222 Hershenzon, Daniel 27n83, 37n134, 82n96, 111n40, 228n51 Heywood, Thomas 8n15 Hijaz 70

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general index Holland/United Provinces 95, 97, 116, 149, 216 Homer 83 Homs 151–152 Hubert, Étienne 10n22 Huguenots 33–34n119, 147, 241 Hume, David 232 Husayn ibn ʿAli, bey 76, 77 Hyde, Thomas 223–224 Ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz, Ḥammūda ibn Muḥammad 41 Ibn ʿAbdallah, Sīdī Muḥammad 10, 20, 32, 40, 83, 86, 88, 106, 193, 195, 205, 206, 209, 211, 212, 226 Ibn Abi Dīnār 215n1 Ibn ʿAskar 15, 39, 43, 136–138 Ibn Fakkūn 138n41, 157n29 Ibn Ḥaddū, Muḥammad 102, 221 Ibn Ḥmamūsh 137 Ibn Ḥunayn, Isḥāq, 217 Ibn Jubayr 24–25 Ibn Khalaf, Abū al-Qāsim 143 Ibn Mishʿal 175n90 Ibn Muḥammad, Jaʿfar 13, 41, 67, 108 Ibn Muslama, Muḥammad 13 Ibn Muṣṭafā, Muḥammad 23, 117 Ibn Qāsim, Aḥmad 97n12, 216 Ibn Rushd/Averroes 132, 164 Ibn Taymiyya 75 Ibn Zaydān, ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 10n21, 27n83, 86n111, 205n21, 251n34 Iceland/Icelandic 8, 30, 53, 62, 79 Idrīs/Enoch 66 Idrīs, Mulay 85, 136, 185 al-Idrīsī, Muḥammad 24, 33 al-Ifrānī, Muḥammad al-ṢaghIr 59–60, 135, 141, 144 Ignatius of Loyola 162, 234n18 Innocent X, pope 163n52 Innocent XIII, pope 130 Inquisition/inquisitors 27, 38n144–39n149, 57n32, 66, 134n31, 155–156, 218, 226, 232, 243 Ipswich 186 Iran 156 Iraq/Iraqi 34, 71, 80, 92, 156 Ireland 1–2, 30, 99–100, 186, 192 India/Indians 7–8, 23, 27, 80–81, 117, 163, 186n118

289 Isabel I, queen of Castile 44 Isfahan 151 Ismāʿīl, Mulay 4, 23, 31, 38n145, 40n158, 74, 100–101, 103, 111, 117, 149–150, 153– 154n17, 190–193, 210, 217–223, 225–226, 231 Istanbul 16n43, 34, 37, 59, 65, 95, 104– 105n30, 117, 128, 133, 151–152, 188–189, 211n30, 217 Italy/Italian 6, 8–9, 19–20, 23, 25n75, 27, 32, 35, 37, 39, 43, 65, 82, 96, 98, 123–124, 127n2, 129, 148–150, 166, 168, 173, 176, 183, 185, 188, 229, 233, 235, 241 Izmir 37, 41, 104, 129 al-Jabartī, Abd al-Raḥmān 83n100 Jaffa 129–130 Jallat, Jean 163 Jesus/ʿĪsā/al-Massīḥ/Christ 13, 45, 48, 67, 104, 108, 125–126, 132, 134, 158, 160–162, 170, 178, 185, 207 Jumblatt, ʿAli 151 al-Janawī, Riḍwān 58–59, 84 Jerba 230 Jerusalem/Bayt al-Maqdis/al-Quds 12, 17n43, 39n147, 50, 66n60–67, 70–71, 91, 97, 127–128, 161, 232n12, 234 Jesuits 17, 162–165, 167n70–168, 172, 174n86, 177–178 Jews 28, 32n106, 34n123–35, 52n17, 110, 129, 148–149, 154, 158, 174–175, 179n101, 185 Jijil 24 Jonah 16, 131 Jones, Jezreel 115, 118, 122 Joseph 131 Judaism 151 Julfa 34 Kadi, Wadad 12, 13n, 175n89, see also Qāḍī Kaiser, Wolfgang 20n58, 33n112, 37, 120n61 Karāmāt 15–16, 22, 62, 93, 123, 131, 134–137, 141, 144–146, 178 Ibn Khaldūn 57n32, 61–62 Khalīfa, Ḥajjī 32 Khaybar 174–175n88 Khūja, Ibrāhīm 51, 54, 76, 184 Kiev 151–152 Kirke, Percival, colonel 4, 217–225

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290 Knights of Malta 21, 29–30, 36, 64–66, 80, 86, 105n30, 128, 139, 161, 205, 231n9, 232n12, 234n18 Knights of St. Stephen 30, 237 Knolles, Richard 234 Ladislaus, king 234n19, 247 Lánguedoc 6 Larache 89, 103, 180–181, 225–226 Laud, William 128 Lawrence, Richard 77n83, 117 Lebanon/Lebanese 8n15, 34, 65n53, 71, 95– 97, 127n5, 152n12, 188 Lepanto, battle 56, 234, 239–240, 247 Lewis, Bernard 8, 217n11 Libya/Libyans, 6, 17, 25, 37–38n142, 41, 67, 167, 190n5, 215, see also Tripoli Lisbon 101, 163, 166, 232 Livorno/Leghorn 6, 17n43, 30, 36n133–37, 41, 87, 96–97, 99, 117, 124, 174, 191, 229, 233, 235–238, 242, 247 Louis XIV, king 39n147, 101, 104, 110, 149, 154, 190 Louis XV, king 113n45 Louis XVI, king 205 Luther/Lutheran 53, 145n53 Mahdiyya 29 Maimonides 217 Majorca/Majorcan 25, 35, 121, 217 Makarios, patriarch 134, 151–152 Malaga 11, 140, 173n82 Malāḥifī, Ḥamdūn ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān 144 Maldives, islands 8 Malibārī, Zayn al-Dīn 82 Malta/Maltese 6, 9–10, 13, 17, 20–21, 25, 27, 29–30, 33–37, 39–41, 50–52, 56, 64–67, 70–77, 79–80, 84–87, 95–96, 105n30, 114–115, 120, 128–129, 131, 139, 145, 148, 156n27–157, 160–163n52, 167–171n85, 173–174, 185, 188–190, 193, 205–206, 208, 210–213, 230–232, 234, see also Knights of Malta Mamlukes 83, 152n12 Manjūr, Aḥmad 50 al-Manṣūr, Aḥmad Mulay 15, 49–55, 58–62, 88, 138, 171, 215n3, 217, 225, 227 Maqqarī, Abū al-ʿAbbās Aḥmad 11, 54–55, 65

general index Mariam, princess 217 Mary, Virgin 45, 49, 75, 108, 110, 121, 123, 145, 156, 159, 163n52, 168, 170, 178, 184 Maʿnīnū, Ḥājj ʿAlī 101–102 Maronites 96–97, 127–128, 130, 184, 227 Marrakesh 15, 34, 39, 43n1, 53, 55, 58–60, 62, 91, 138, 166, 176n92, 198, 216 Marseille, 6, 16, 31, 35–36, 100, 107–108, 111n40, 147n2, 154, 191, 208n24, 212, 216, 229 Mason, Robert 148 Matha, John St. 234, 242 Mecca, 40, 50, 112n41, 143, 152, 163n52, 166, 167, 171, 211n30, 212 Medici press 160 Medina 212 Meknes 19, 34, 85, 89, 112, 117, 121, 190, 193, 205, 207, 210–211, 219, 221–222 Melilla 6, 15, 28–29, 194, 221 Melkites 129 Mercedarian, order 205, 229, 250n33 Messina 6, 40, 162–163n52, 166, 209 Michelangelo 239, 279 al-Miknāsī, Muḥammad ibn ʿUthmān 32, 55, 101n, 193, 206–212, 227 Milton, John 98 Morcillo, Diego, bishop 248 More, Thomas 44 Morgan, Joseph 21, 232 Moriscos 21, 28, 37–39, 82, 149, 215 Morocco/Moroccans, 4, 6, 9–10, 13, 15, 17–19, 21, 23, 27–32, 34, 37–38, 50–51, 53–54, 57–60, 62, 65–67, 81, 83–85, 87– 90, 97–101, 103, 106, 113–118, 120–122, 123, 131, 133, 135–136, 144, 147, 150, 153– 154, 162–164, 166–168, 171, 173, 175–178, 188–194, 200–201, 205–207, 210–211, 213, 215–220, 222–227, 230–231, 236 Moscow 41, 151–152 Moses 69, 101n22, 159, 161, 180 Mozart 233 Mughal 148 al-Muḥibbī, Muḥammad al-Amīn 12 Murād Bey, Tunis 14 al-Murādī, Muḥammad Khalīl 12, 66, 70 Murat Rais 1–3 Musil, 71 Muṣṭafā II, sultan 83

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203

her. She came from near Tlemcen and so I immediately sent word to the governor of the land by means of one of the friars to negotiate with the Christian who owned her about ransom. The latter said that he deferred to his wife. So they sought out the wife and she finally agreed to free her, after great hardship. And so, praise be to God, we were able to liberate her and add her to the other women and pay her expenses. The tyrant had ordered that the captives be sent on board a flagship in the harbor of Cartagena that was awaiting an easterly wind to sail to Cadiz. When the time came for departure, we went to the overseer of the harbor and asked him to pay special attention to the captives, and to take them on board immediately because the [Spanish] ambassador was awaiting our arrival in Cadiz. We told him that we could not go with him until the other captives arrived. He agreed, “It is easy, and everything is ready. We just have to wait for the easterly wind. Be assured: we are ordered by our great one to send the captives immediately.” So we pleaded with him to take the women captives and their children alongside their Muslim brethren even though the tyrant, not knowing about them, had not ordered that. He answered, “That cannot be done. The ship is full of soldiers and it is not wise to take women on board. Soldiers are soldiers and so if the women board the ship there will be immodesties leading to altercations with the husbands.”18 I found his words convincing. And so I asked him to charter another ship to carry the women and to join it to the flag ship for safety. He agreed and paid the captain of a ship in the harbor 250 riyals. When I sent him the sum in repayment, he swore by his false religion that he would pay the rental fee from his own pocket. I thanked him for his generosity and invoked God to lead him to the right religion. I then appointed a sharif of dignity, intelligence, and piety, one who was also familiar with sea matters, to take charge of the captives and their spouses. I determined that each needed eight [riyals] after I saw the condition of their garments, and I made sure that the weakest among them was included. I paid the overseer what was due to him and left them all awaiting the wind to make the crossing … [On arrival in Cadiz, they stayed in the house of a very affable and generous merchant,] We ask God to guide him to Islam, for he was extremely

18

Fear of soldiers, all soldiers, on board ships was wide-spread: when al-Zayānī was told to board ship with his slave women and boys, he refused because he feared the Turkish soldiers might abuse them and perhaps throw them overboard, al-Tarjumāna al-kubrā 282.

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292 Russia/Russian 39n150, 41, 151–152, 189 Rycaut, Paul 71, 104n26, 133 Safavids 152 Salé/Saletian 1, 6, 30, 31, 34, 81, 89, 94, 98, 108n34, 144, 146, 154, 173, 190, 201, 207, 216, 222, 227, 236 Salmasius, Claudius 98 Salzburg 233 Santiago de Compostella 233, 254 Saracens 239, 245 Sardinia 25, 33, 35, 129 Scaliger, Joseph 10n22 Scandinavian 37 Sebastián of Portugal 148 Selim I, sultan 28 Senj 41 Sevi, Sabbatai 34 Seville 93, 114, 225 Sfax 35, 76, 97 Shem, son of Noah 61 Shoulson, Jeffrey S. 150–151 Shovell, Cloudesley 31 Sicily, Sicilian 17, 24–25, 94n3, 95, 113, 139, 163, 189, 193, 206, 208, 213, 243 Sidon 41, 63–64, 71–72, 91, 121, 129–131 Sinan Agha, Algerian 212 Slavenkasse 95 Smyrna 5, 37 Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge 148 Sorbonne 225 Spain, Spanish, 6–7, 10–11, 13, 15, 18, 20– 22, 26–28, 31, 35, 40, 49, 55, 57, 59, 62, 65, 82, 84, 86, 88, 93, 98–99, 103, 114– 115, 120–121, 131, 135, 148, 150, 158–159, 163, 184, 186, 191–194, 205–206, 208, 213, 215–216, 218, 221, 225–228, 232, 235 Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty 13 Stanhope, James 225n39 Sudan 59–61 Sufi/s 11, 45–46, 53–54, 59, 62n47, 67, 76, 91, 93, 135, 138, 140, 143–144, 168, 176n92, 178, 180, 194, 208 Suleymān, Mulay 85–86, 88–90 Suleymān the Great 64 Sus, Morocco 230 Susa, Tunisia 76, 78, 143, 216, 218, 230 al-Suyūtī, ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ 61–62

general index Sweden 33 Sycorax 7n8 Syria/Syrians 10, 17n43, 24, 127n4, 129–130, 152, 183, 206, 223 Syriac 10, 223 Tacca, Pietro 235–236, 238–239, 243 Tagarin/Tagarines 37, 39 Tamjrūt 168 al-Tamjrūtī, ʿAlī ibn Muḥammad 28 Tangier 4, 6, 10, 28n89, 37, 41, 84, 89–90, 93, 99–100, 106, 136, 207, 217–222, 225 Tarkona 109 Tāzā 175, 177 al-Tāzī, ʿAbd al-Wāhid 165–169 al-Tāzī, Ibn Yajbish 81 Temīm, Ḥajj Muḥammad 100–101, 225 Tetouan 17, 41, 55, 58n36, 106, 135, 166, 190, 207, 227 Theunisz, Johannes 97n12 al-Tījānī, Abū Muḥammad 25 Timbuktu 59, 60, 91, 92 al-Tinbaktī, Aḥmad Bābā 59–62 Tlemcen 40n158, 60, 203, 208, 216n5 Toulon 100n19–101, 108, 208 Toulouse 32n108, 100, 107, 165n63, 172, 174n86, 177 Trinitarians, order 17, 133, 159, 200, 205, 234 Trinity House 95 Tripoli/Libya 16, 25, 29–31, 35, 37, 39, 41, 67, 87, 104, 111, 114–115, 127, 167, 171, 180, 190, 215, 232 Tripoli/Lebanon 17, 130 Troy 83 Tunis/Tunisian 5, 6, 11, 14–15, 17, 19, 21–22, 28–31, 33, 35–37, 41, 51, 54, 62, 74–78, 83–84, 87, 94, 97, 104, 107–108, 113, 115–116, 121, 127, 133, 138–139, 141–142, 145–146, 167, 171, 180, 211, 216, 234 Tuscans/Tuscany 7, 18, 34, 40, 96, 166, 173, 206n21, 236, 239 Tyler, Royall 7 Tyre 104, 129–130 Ubeda 44, 47 Urfa 134 Usāmah ibn Munqidh 24 Ursuline nuns 40 ʿUthmān Dey, Tunis 11

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general index Utrecht 105 ʿUqāb, battle 44, 109 Valletta 41, 70, 73, 149, 156n27, 162, 173, 234n18, 243 Vega, Lope de 6, 29 Velasquez 236 Venice/Venetian 6n5, 17, 30, 35–36, 88n116, 104, 117, 149, 173, 188–189, 229 Venturi, Sergio 235, 239 Vienna 83, 185, 200, 229, 233–234n18 Vincent, Bernard 9, 27n83, 32n105, 229 Vittoriosa 66 Voltaire 83n99 Von Grimmelshausen, Hans Jakob 13 Von Sparr, Otto Christoph 234n18 Wādī al-Makāzin, battle 50, 54, 59, 207 Walpole, Sir Robert 114 al-Wansharīsī, Aḥmad 62, 132 al-Wazīr al-Sarrāj 14, 146, 153 Weiss, Gillian 27n83, 39n147, 108n147, 208n24, 229n4, 240n28, 243

Wescombe, Sir Martin 218–219, 223 Wettinger, Godfrey 9, 35n126, 37n136, 65 William III, king 192, 218 Windus, Charles 192 Wyatt, Thomas Sir 44 Yahuwadhā ibn Lūlū 34 Yemen 62n47, 70 Yorkshire 186 al-Yūsī, al-Ḥasan 177 al-Zahhār, Aḥmad 27n83, 41n161 al-Zamakhsharī, Maḥmūd ibn ʿOmar 71 Zante 17 al-Zayānī, Abū al-Qāsim 29, 33, 65n58, 71n71, 92–93, 123, 203n18 Zaydān, Mulay 215–226 Zaytuna Mosque 138, 171, 215 al-Zayyātī, ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz 133n26 Zeeland 105 Zenbal, Ibn 215 al-Zwāwī, Muḥammad 173–175

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