Volume 90, Number 1 - California Historical Society

When confronting Muslims inspired by jihad
and ribat, Christians, to counter the menace, did
not find the support they needed in their own
traditions. They took the principles that caused
consternation, and perhaps no small amount of
admiration, and called them their own without
acknowledging Muslim contributions. 48 As a
consequence, Christians in Spain and other parts
of Europe borrowed and altered, especially as the
years progressed, Muslim deeds and beliefs that
best suited their purposes.
In the first instance, when waging war against
Muslims, Christians invoked their enemies’
doctrines that honored the warrior who died in
battle. 49 True enough, when priests and theologians
praised the warrior’s sacrifice, they often
spoke of knights or professional soldiers. But
as did Muslims, though arguably to a lesser
degree, Christians also professed that the humble
believer of no means or military training could
receive blessings in battle. In any event, after the
knights of the First Crusade had seized Jerusalem
and tried to secure their prize from Muslim
attack, priests and chroniclers celebrated their
heroes with praises that echoed the descriptions
of jihad. When writing to Hughes de Payens,
a French noble who established the Knights
Templar, St. Bernard declared around 1128: “To
be sure, precious in the eyes of the Lord is the
death of his holy ones, whether they die in battle
or bed, but death in battle is more precious as
it is more glorious. . . . How secure, I say, is life
when death is anticipated without fear; or rather
when it is desired with feeling and embraced
with reverence.” 50
The Christians, coming from a recipient culture,
would not describe how they adapted Muslim
ideas. But because the church doubted the purpose
of violence, even if employed to defend the
place of Christ’s ministry, Christians knew that
Islam, and not their own faith, would provide
30 California History • volume 90 number 1 2012
the reasons to honor warriors who risked their
lives in the Holy Land. Thus, Bernard’s remarks,
when matched with Muslim writings about the
value of a warrior’s sacrifice, pose unspoken connections
between Christianity and Islam.
Even more, the example of ribat, its significance
amplified and justified by jihad, reverberated
throughout Christendom. But, when following
Muslim ways, Christians revealed the conceit,
and perhaps the insecurity, of a recipient culture
whose members believed that they, and no one
else, produced the ideas they implemented. The
pretense, though, cannot stand up to scrutiny.
In almost every sense, the behaviors Christians
admired, and changed, corresponded to the Muslim
idea of how a believer acquired blessings
when he reported to a fortress or retreated into
seclusion to follow a spiritual leader.
Various texts describe Christians performing
what is, in essence, their version of ribat with
words and phrasing that refer to the Muslim
practice of linking piety and violence. In The
Fighter’s Exemplar, al-Zamanin, when explaining
how the man making ribat could speed his way to
paradise, raises points Christian authors repeated
in their own way: “For he who performs ribat for
ten days, God will pardon him for one quarter of
the time he must spend in hell; for he who does
twenty days, he will be pardoned for half; for he
who does thirty days, three quarters of his punishment
[will be pardoned]; for he who performs
ribat for 40 days, God will free him from hell.”
Each idea presented by al-Zamanin—that the
believer made what was essentially a pilgrimage;
that regardless if he makes war or prays, each
deed equates with the other and thus is consecrated;
that the rewards he receives in the afterlife
correspond to the number of days he spends
on ribat—provided Christians with material for
their own designs. 51
At the Council of Clermont in 1095, for instance,
Pope Urban II urged the assembly to approve