Muslim depictions of Muhammad

By now everyone has heard of the controversy over the film Innocence of Muslims, which has caused outrage in the Muslim world for its negative portrayal of the Prophet Muhammad. There has also been a backlash over cartoons of Muhammad in various satirical magazines.

One thing that's forgotten in this debate is that some parts of the Muslim world have a long-standing tradition of depicting Muhammad. The belief that it is wrong to portray living things, especially Muhammad, is not universal in the Muslim world and never has been.

Above is a modern religious card from Iran, where the Shia majority has a centuries-old tradition of human portraiture. The next image shows a similar card from Turkey, produced by the Alevi sect. Both are in the University of Bergen collection, which has an interesting article on Muslim depictions of Muhammad.

While those who have created images of humans and especially Muhammad have always been in the minority in the Muslim world, they have been around since the early days of the religion. This is something to remember in the ongoing debate.

This image shows a young Muhammad meeting the monk Bahira. It's from the Jami' al-Tavarikh ("The Universal History" or "Compendium of Chronicles") written by Rashid Al-Din and illustrated in Tabriz, Iran, c.1315.

This image shows Muhammad at the Ka'ba in Mecca, and was made in Constantinople in the Ottoman Empire in 1595. Note that Muhammad's face is veiled in this one. In some images, he's not shown as a human figure at all, but rather with various symbols such as a pillar of fire. This is in the collection of Bilkent University in Turkey, which has a whole page of such images.

I am not showing these images to offend Muslims, merely to point out that Islam is not a monolithic, unchanging faith, and that the protestors are ignoring their own history. Of course, they're also offended by the negative portrayal of Muhammad. I've watched Innocence of Muslims and it's a mindless baiting of an entire religion. Muslims have every right to be offended by it and peacefully protest. Part of living in a free society is that you get offended sometimes.

Medieval Mondays: the Hexamilion wall

The Hexamilion is the thin black line across the Isthmus

Medieval Mondays is actually on Tuesday this week because yesterday I participated in the Origins blogfest. Thanks to all those who stopped by!

Genre Author follower and occasional guest blogger Sean McLachlan has been traveling in Greece lately for his travel blog Gadling and writing a series of posts. Some of them are of interest to fans of the Middle Ages, such as the castle of Acrocorinth, the Athens War Museum, and the Byzantine ghost town of Mistra. His writing about medieval Greece gave me today's subject--the Hexamilion Wall.

As you can tell from the name, this was a six-mile long defensive wall. It stretched across the Isthmus of Corinth, the only land route into the Peloponnese, the southwestern part of Greece. This obviously strategic point had been fortified since ancient times, and a major wall was erected during the fifth century AD when Germanic tribes were terrorizing the Roman Empire. It was strenghtened in the seventh century and then gradually allowed to decline.

The Hexamilion became important again in the waning years of the Byzantine Empire. The Ottoman Turks were closing in and the Byzantines were anxious to protect the Peloponnese (hten called the Morea) because it was the only wealthy province left to them. In 1415, Emperor Manuel II Palaeologos had it repaired and improved into an impressive fortification with thick walls and numerous towers. This didn't stop the Turks, though, who smashed through it in 1423. It appears there was little fighting; the garrison was so outnumbered and demoralized that most of them ran. The Haxamilion was repaired, but breached again in 1431. Both attacks were raids and the Ottomans did not remain in the Morea.

Constantine Palaeologos, then Despot of Morea and destined to be the last Byzantine Emperor, repaired the wall, but to no avail. In 1446, the Turks came back, this time with a large amount of artillery. Constantine had garrisoned the wall with 20,000 men, but many were Albanian mercenaries who could not be relied upon. After two weeks of bombardment, the Turks stormed the walls and cut down the defenders. Constantine survived, but his wall and his army were destroyed. Sultan Murad signed a treaty with the Byzantines stipulating that the wall would not be repaired.

Not much left!

When Murad died and the warlike Mehmet took the Ottoman throne, the Byzantines repaired the wall anyway. Mehmet's armies easily passed through in 1452. A year later the Byzantine capital Constantinople fell and the Emperor Constantine was killed in action. The Morea held out until 1460, but now the Hexamilion was in ruins and failed to even slow the Turks down.

The Hexamilion was a great idea that didn't work. The Byzantines could never garrison it with sufficient numbers of quality troops to face down the large and disciplined Ottoman army. Little remains of it today. For more on the Hexamilion, check out this cool website about the excavations being carried out there by Ohio State University.


Both images courtesy Wikipedia.