What's up with this forum and the Byzantine Empire?

Now that's said, you have different features. Al-Andalus, Sicily, Syria were more "western" than Ifriqyia, Maghrib, Arabia. Without talking of the big anti-western reaction during the Crusades.

I'm not sure of calling Arabo-Islamic civilisation a "western" one. More like it's a civilisation of its own based partially on Hellenistic and Christian (in the cultural meaning) features, as western civilisation is based partially on Arabo-Islamic elements.
 
Now that's said, you have different features. Al-Andalus, Sicily, Syria were more "western" than Ifriqyia, Maghrib, Arabia. Without talking of the big anti-western reaction during the Crusades.

I'm not sure of calling Arabo-Islamic civilisation a "western" one. More like it's a civilisation of its own based partially on Hellenistic and Christian (in the cultural meaning) features, as western civilisation is based partially on Arabo-Islamic elements.

totally agree!

its one thing a culture is affected by another one, and another thing to say they are the same...

the problem is I don't understand why every culture has to be "western" or "european". Because in the sense people arguing that Islam is western and european, so does Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zibabwe etc - it doesn't end!

making a categorization doen not necesarily mean discrimination. I for sure do not accept racial discriminations. Categorisation on the other hand is often useful in order to study things...
 
totally agree!

its one thing a culture is affected by another one, and another thing to say they are the same...

My problem is the "all cultures are distinct" is that it ignore the common inheritence. My take on this is both Western civilisation and Arabo-Islamic are issued from the old Roman-Hellenistic one as french and occitan are issued from latin.
 
Now that's said, you have different features. Al-Andalus, Sicily, Syria were more "western" than Ifriqyia, Maghrib, Arabia. Without talking of the big anti-western reaction during the Crusades.

I'm not sure of calling Arabo-Islamic civilisation a "western" one. More like it's a civilisation of its own based partially on Hellenistic and Christian (in the cultural meaning) features, as western civilisation is based partially on Arabo-Islamic elements.

I said merely that it was a variant of it, there are very real differences between the two, but also relatively closer correspondences. Admittedly the societies of the western fringes of the Muslim world tend to resemble European societies more than say, Indonesia or the Muslims of the Indian Subcontinent necessarily did. So I'd agree with you, though noting that at least part of that view of the Crusades is a bit of historical romanticist revisionism. The Muslims used the Crusade as a means to start recreating bigger empires, at least in terms of the Abuyyids and the Mamluks.
 
totally agree!

its one thing a culture is affected by another one, and another thing to say they are the same...

the problem is I don't understand why every culture has to be "western" or "european". Because in the sense people arguing that Islam is western and european, so does Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Zibabwe etc - it doesn't end!

making a categorization doen not necesarily mean discrimination. I for sure do not accept racial discriminations. Categorisation on the other hand is often useful in order to study things...

That's a view I'd actually take of the modern world: there is only one global civilization now, with a very large number of smaller varieties of it. In medieval times, however, there were Sinosphere, Indosphere, West African, East African, South African, Mesoamerican, Andean, and various nomadic-imperial civilizations. And Australia and New Guinea as the global odd men out.

The rise of the empires, however, has led to the emergence of a Western monoculture.
 
. So I'd agree with you, though noting that at least part of that view of the Crusades is a bit of historical romanticist revisionism..

You had historically a reaction against what was considered as western in the Arabo-Islamic regions. I don't see how it's romantic or revisionism ("Thanks" for the adjective by the way, sir, it's always a pleasure. You had nothing more derogative?).

While the Latins quickly took many oriental particularities in Palestine, or the Hispanian in Al-Andalus, the reverse wasn't true : at the contrary while Arabo-Muslims of X kept many things from Latin Europe (in trade or even culturally) up to the XI century, you had a refuse to consider it as worth of something after the first Reconquista and the Crusades.
 
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You had historically a reaction against what was considered as western in the Arabo-Islamic regions. I don't see how it's romantic or revisionism ("Thanks" for the adjective, sir, it's always a pleasure to be called such by someone, just because he's disagreeing).

While the Latins quickly took many oriental particularities in Palestine, or the Hispanian in Al-Andalus, the reverse wasn't true : at the contrary while Arabo-Muslims of X kept many things from Latin Europe (in trade or even culturally) up to the XI century, you had a refuse to consider it as worth of something after the first Reconquista and the Crusades.

I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say this, at least IMHO. If nothing else the continual contact of Crusaders with the emerging slave-professional armies would mean pragmatic contacts continued no matter what the ideologies of the times said.
 
I think it's a bit of an overstatement to say this, at least IMHO. If nothing else the continual contact of Crusaders with the emerging slave-professional armies would mean pragmatic contacts continued no matter what the ideologies of the times said.

Contacts continued, but one way. While the franj taken a lot of Arabo-Islamic influence, the reverse didn't happen and actually stopped where it existed, as in Al-Andalus.
The comparison of contemporaries texts i interestings : while the Christian ones are relativly acknowledging Arabo-Syrian culture, the Arabs chroniclers were in frontal opposition.

I don't know if Amin Maalouf's book was translated in english, but I think it is. Maybe it would be worth putting an eye on it.
 
Contacts continued, but one way. While the franj taken a lot of Arabo-Islamic influence, the reverse didn't happen and actually stopped where it existed, as in Al-Andalus.

OK, before I concede any points here: in the regions where the Crusader states had existed, how much of this was the view that the Crusader states, having been defeated, showed that the Ferenji didn't have that much to offer the Islamic world in this sense to start with?
 
OK, before I concede any points here: in the regions where the Crusader states had existed, how much of this was the view that the Crusader states, having been defeated, showed that the Ferenji didn't have that much to offer the Islamic world in this sense to start with?

I don't understand the sentence.

I suppose you mean "What was the point of view of Arabo-Muslims in contact with Franj before the crusades"? and "Didn't what you said about reject, issued from defeat of Arabo-Muslim AFTER Crusader defeat?"

1)In Al-Andalus mainly, the Arabs appreciated much products coming for Christian lands, and even engaged some as mercenaries valuing their skills.

In Syria/Egypt, the beggining of commercial domination of Italian cities (that predate the Crusades) showed an interest as well about western products

2)No. We have texts contemporaries of Crusader States before their defeats, and they were particularly about "they have nothing to gave us".

Really, the frankish influence outsige geopolitical in the Middle-East is close to 0.

EDIT : There's the book I mentioned earlier.
 
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I think part of the reason people find the Byzantines so interesting is because they have been marginalized in traditional historical narratives. Their power vanished pretty much completely, so there was no one to speak up for them for centuries. Not the Near East, which used them only to burnish their own "new improved" version, and certainly not the West (see: Gibbon). The Ottoman's have successor states to this day. Not so much the Byzantines.

What is really fascinating is the gap between the attention they get (really, how many mentions do they even get in school books?) and the tremendously important role you find that they played. The history of Byzantium (and Islam too) is the true history of the medieval period but here in the West we get both official history and popular myth all about knights and feudalism and zero mention of them. (Ever see a movie set in the Byzantine Empire? Neither has anyone else.)

You begin to see that the story you've been told is just a spin-off of a much larger one just off to the side out of you view. The Main Event. Byzantium.

Then there is the conditional about it. Manzikert may have become a AH cliche, but it is true. Also Yarmouk and Myriokephalon. As you research you begin to see that the propaganda about 11 centuries of continual, inevitable decline is crap. That the there are so many cases where the Empire was on the edge and could have come out better (or worse) and that nothing was inevitable about its demise. (Heck, if Morea and/or Trebizond had better leadership, either might still be around today even given 1453.)

Then there is the longevity of the thing and its Indiana Jones-like existence. The Roman state lasted 2000 years! The empire, 15 centuries! Generally speaking AH fans are big on the whole idea of longevity. What better than a neglected Empire that really was the actual, unambiguous continuation of prestigious Rome that is only seen as something different because of an accident of modern misnaming?

Even the Ottomans felt this way. Mehmet the Conqueror and his successors always maintained that they were the legitimate heirs of Augustus in a direct line. The Emperors of Rome. (As they saw it, trading Christianity for Islam was no different than trading Paganism for Christianity. And Turkish for Greek at court? No different than changing from Latin to Greek before.)

(And, OK, yes, the fact that the name has a "z," a "y," and a "ium" in it probably helps for a lot of people.)
 
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To say the least, given that a successor state of the Khanate of the Golden Horde is counted as European while a dynasty that intermarried into the last ERE dynasty and in several cases made and broke emperors of that dynasty is not European. :rolleyes: Moscow is a pure product of Mongol rule in Russia, it's not even a state whose power existed beforehand.

Ehhhh....Moscow's Empire is an inheritor of Mongol rule, but Russia's core native institutions are quite, quite European, and remained European even through the Muscovite period.

There's some cross-borrowings, mostly in terms of diplomacy with vassal states and warfare. In those things Russia and Turkey are pretty remarkably similar at least before Alexei Mihailovich.

Russians also speak a language that about half of Europe can understand with a little effort.

I almost WISH Russia had more Eurasian cred, but it is pretty European at its core.


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To be honest, the Byzantines were the last of the Mediterranean (rather than later European) cultures, and the first of the transitional/Eurasian ones such as those adopted by the West Turcs and East Slavs based on their model. But they are now gone and modern Greece has very little in common with them.

That makes it fascinating from today's perspective.
 
Ehhhh....Moscow's Empire is an inheritor of Mongol rule, but Russia's core native institutions are quite, quite European, and remained European even through the Muscovite period.

There's some cross-borrowings, mostly in terms of diplomacy with vassal states and warfare. In those things Russia and Turkey are pretty remarkably similar at least before Alexei Mihailovich.

Russians also speak a language that about half of Europe can understand with a little effort.

I almost WISH Russia had more Eurasian cred, but it is pretty European at its core.


----


To be honest, the Byzantines were the last of the Mediterranean (rather than later European) cultures, and the first of the transitional/Eurasian ones such as those adopted by the West Turcs and East Slavs based on their model. But they are now gone and modern Greece has very little in common with them.

That makes it fascinating from today's perspective.

I generally agree about your conclusion about Russia,but you are completely off the mark about Greece;UNFORTUNATELY the Greeks have too much in common with the Byzantines and in many things ARE the Byzantines.
The empire after the seventh century had very little to do with Rome(that was already defunct) and writely so because Rome in the eastern Mediterannean was just a conqueror and it was literally conquered by the Greek culture,the Romans in the east became less and less Romans(example:Antony was not alike Cincinatus,or Mucius Scaevola) until they disappeared;The Laws with the institrution of Justinian's Novelae became within a hundred years Greek(see Armenopoulos) the language was always Greek in the east and became Greek in the administration as well.The empire was governed by Greeks,the language was the same as the one in the Greek churches today and very similar to the language in the Greek Goverment or the schools until recently.Even the mentality in certain governing circles was(is?) what you commonly know as 'Byzantine'.
You can find so many sources about this that I don't even care to list them...
 
I generally agree about your conclusion about Russia,but you are completely off the mark about Greece;UNFORTUNATELY the Greeks have too much in common with the Byzantines and in many things ARE the Byzantines.
The empire after the seventh century had very little to do with Rome(that was already defunct) and writely so because Rome in the eastern Mediterannean was just a conqueror and it was literally conquered by the Greek culture,the Romans in the east became less and less Romans(example:Antony was not alike Cincinatus,or Mucius Scaevola) until they disappeared;The Laws with the institrution of Justinian's Novelae became within a hundred years Greek(see Armenopoulos) the language was always Greek in the east and became Greek in the administration as well.The empire was governed by Greeks,the language was the same as the one in the Greek churches today and very similar to the language in the Greek Goverment or the schools until recently.Even the mentality in certain governing circles was(is?) what you commonly know as 'Byzantine'.
You can find so many sources about this that I don't even care to list them...

it is a fact that Greeks were "Byzantines" until the Independence: they used the Byzantine Law, they called themselves "Romans" and their folk songs were in byzantine style, including the "akritika", which are still sang in many regions.

Nevertheless, the new Greek state made a huge mistake, focusing almost entirelly on the Antiquity for more than a century, although in the last few decades Byzantium is gaining more and more ground on the national concience, becoming a crucial part of the modern Greek identity.

Thus, Greeks' national identity now is not that close to Byzantium, but it definately includes it...
 
it is a fact that Greeks were "Byzantines" until the Independence: they used the Byzantine Law, they called themselves "Romans" and their folk songs were in byzantine style, including the "akritika", which are still sang in many regions.

Nevertheless, the new Greek state made a huge mistake, focusing almost entirelly on the Antiquity for more than a century, although in the last few decades Byzantium is gaining more and more ground on the national concience, becoming a crucial part of the modern Greek identity.

Thus, Greeks' national identity now is not that close to Byzantium, but it definately includes it...

Ha! you wish Andreas? antiquity? well,I hope what you said about antiquity comes true;the fact is that Ancient Greece,which is mainly a history of politics and war in those days encompassing Europe and its history,is tought in the junior classes of Greek high school(children at that age understand neither politics nor war...) and as you probably know Byzantine history is tought like a giant telegram containing dates,events,deaths and church(all that shoved down in children's throats) and then the children relearn a great part of it in religion and church history...I agree that is wrongly tought and the result is a school subject that mainly acts as...repellant.However,what the Greeks know about Byzantium(incorrect term!) is ten times to a hundred times more than a westerner who on average has a skin deep knowledge about Rhomania due to the attitude of the Catholic church on the matter...
Anyway there is massive evidence by Historians that Byzantium was a Hellenic(Greek) empire in its essence and decorum and its evidence is all over the daily step of every Greek today.
 
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Ha! you wish Andreas? antiquity? well,I hope what you said about antiquity comes true;the fact is that Ancient Greece,which is mainly a history of politics and war in those days encompassing Europe and its history,is tought in the junior classes of Greek high school(children at that age understand neither politics nor war...) and as you probably know Byzantine history is tought like a giant telegram containing dates,events,deaths and church(all that shoved down in children's throats) and then the children relearn a great part of it in religion and church history...I agree that is wrongly tought and the result is a school subject that mainly acts as...repellant.However,what the Greeks know about Byzantium(incorrect term!) is ten times to a hundred times more than a westerner who on average has a skin deep knowledge about Rhomania due to the attitude of the Catholic church on the matter...
Anyway there is massive evidence by Historians that Byzantium was a Hellenic(Greek) empire in its essence and decorum and its evidence is all over the daily step of every Greek today.

I was reffering to the period from the bavarian regency to 1950's. In those years Ancient Greece was the profound focal point in everey aspect of modern greek identity, as it was formed by the state's policy: ancient greek history was taught in every level of education, public building were designed to resemble ancient architecture, the army's emblems were designed on ancient symbols, etc
 
I was reffering to the period from the bavarian regency to 1950's. In those years Ancient Greece was the profound focal point in everey aspect of modern greek identity, as it was formed by the state's policy: ancient greek history was taught in every level of education, public building were designed to resemble ancient architecture, the army's emblems were designed on ancient symbols, etc

If i was Greek, i would much rather the attention be focused on Byzantium.
 
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