A History of the Crusades-Vol 1 Read Online Free PDF

the struggle; but they fought from
lawlessness and pride rather than for the Faith.
     
    The Dhimmis
    The effect of
the Arab conquest was to fix the Churches of the East permanently in the
positions in which they then stood. Unlike the Christian Empire, which
attempted to enforce religious uniformity on all its citizens — an ideal never
realized, for the Jews could neither be converted nor expelled — the Arabs,
like the Persians before them, were prepared to accept religious minorities,
provided that they were People of the Book. The Christians, together with the
Zoroastrians and the Jews, became dhimmis , or protected peoples, whose
freedom of worship was guaranteed by the payment of the jizya , which was
first a capitation tax but soon was transformed into a tax paid in lieu of
military service and to which a new land tax, the kharaj , was added.
Each sect was treated as a milet, a semi-autonomous community within the
state, each under its religious leader who was responsible for its good
behaviour to the Caliph’s government. Each was to retain those places of
worship that it had possessed at the time of the Conquest, an arrangement that
suited the Orthodox better than the heretic Christians, as Heraclius had
recently restored many churches to their use. The last regulation was not
strictly obeyed. The Moslems took over certain Christian churches, such as the
great cathedral of St John at Damascus, and periodically destroyed many others;
while a considerable number of churches and synagogues were continually built.
Indeed, later Moslem jurists allowed the dhimmis’ right to erect
buildings, so long as they were no higher than Moslem buildings and the sound
of their bells and services were inaudible to Moslem ears. But there was no
relaxation of the rule that the dhimmis should wear distinctive clothes
and never ride on horseback; nor should they ever publicly offend against
Moslem practices, nor attempt to convert Moslems, nor marry their women, nor speak
slightingly of Islam; and they must remain loyal to the state.
    The milet system established a somewhat
different conception of what was understood by nationality. Nationalism in the
East had for many centuries past been based not on race, except in the case of
the Jews, whose religious exclusiveness had kept their blood comparatively
pure, but on cultural tradition and geographical position and economic
interest. Now loyalty to a religion became the substitute for national
loyalties. An Egyptian, for instance, would not regard himself as a citizen of
Egypt but as a Moslem or as a Copt or as an Orthodox, as the case might be. It
was his religion or his milet that commanded his allegiance. This gave
to the Orthodox an advantage over the heretic sects. They were still known as
the Melkites, the Emperor’s men; and they considered themselves the Emperor’s
men. Cruel necessity might place them under the domination of the infidel,
whose laws they were obliged to obey; but the Emperor was God’s viceroy on
earth and their true sovereign. Saint John Damascene, himself a civil servant
at the Caliph’s court, always addressed the Emperor, strongly though he
disagreed with him on theology, as his lord and master, and referred to his
employer merely as the Emir. The eastern Patriarchs, writing in the ninth
century to the Emperor Theophilus to protest against his religious policy, used
similar terms. The emperors accepted the responsibility. In all their wars and
diplomatic dealings with the Caliphs, they kept in mind the welfare of the
Orthodox beyond their frontiers. It was not a matter of administration. They could
not interfere with the day-to-day government in Moslem lands; nor did the
Patriarch of Constantinople have any jurisdiction over his eastern colleagues.
It was an expression, sentimental but none the less powerful, of the
continuance of the idea that Christendom was one and indivisible, and that the
Emperor was the symbol of its unity.
     
    The Orthodox
under