“Islam and Europe”, don’t quite fit, right? One doesn’t belong in the other apparently. “Islam and Muslims should leave Europe!” say extremists on both sides. Whatever your views, one thing is indisputable: Europe has a massive ‘Islamic heritage’. In fact Islam arrived on these shores just 80 years after Muhammad (peace be upon him) died. That means there is over 1300 years of Muslim history waiting to be uncovered in Europe!
As a Muslim Travel Writer and Travel Photographer I have really enjoyed unearthing the thirteen centuries of fascinating interaction between Europe and Islam. Along the way I have stumbled upon some great little ‘nuggets’. Here are my top five. Some as funny as they are intriguing, with one or two that might even blow your mind.
5. ISLAMOPHOBIC PASTRY
In Vienna, the capital of Austria, whilst learning about how the Ottoman Empire twice laid siege to the city in the 16th and 17th centuries, I chanced upon a curious tale about the humble croissant. Walk into any hotel across the globe and this pastry will be served up as part of what we now call a ‘Continental (European) Breakfast’, but according to legend, this unassuming pastry was first baked by the bakers of Vienna to celebrate the Christian city’s victory over the Muslim Turks.
The word croissant translates in French to ‘crescent’ and refers to the shape of the pastry which is said to represent the crescent on the banners of the Ottomans. The design of the pastry includes a thick ring in the centre, which goes around the middle of the crescent and is said to represent the ‘crescent’ being ‘grabbed’ or ‘captured’. Although this tale is often dismissed as fanciful, and is probably not true, I have to confess, as I sat in Vienna sipping my coffee (also linked to Islam, having arrived from the Muslim world), I did find myself eyeing the potentially ‘Islamophobic’ croissant with a degree of suspicion … before taking a big bite out of it’s tasty fluffy centre, just where the ring is!
4. SHAMPOO AND CURRY
From Turkish invaders to Indian hygiene, look in any European bathroom and sitting next to the shower gel is the standard bottle of shampoo, completely oblivious to the role it has played in connecting two worlds. The shampoo, or at least its ancestor, was actually brought to these shores by a Bengali-Indian ‘doctor’, known as Sake Dean Mahomed.
A Muslim Bengali from Bihar, Mahomed arrived in Brighton in the 18th Century through his connections with the East India Dock Company. Upon reaching the imperial motherland, Mahomed opened up a kind of Victorian beauty salon, where the great and good of British Victorian society came for a treatment of Champi (the hindu word from which ‘Shampoo’ has come about). Mahomed’s reputation grew to such heights that he was made the official ‘Shampooing Surgeon’ to both King George IV and King William IV. This wasn’t Mahomed’s only contribution to English ‘culture’ as he also opened the UK’s first ever ‘curry house’ in London, called the Hindustani Coffee House – A plaque commemorating this can be seen on George Street in Westminster.
3. NORMAN ARABS
The medieval Spanish Muslim influence on Europe is now well documented but few people know about what went on just a few thousands miles south-west of al-Andalus. From the 11th century onwards on the tiny Island of Sicily – the ‘ball’ that Italy’s foot kicks on world maps -a cultural renaissance just like the one in Muslim Spain reached equally amazing heights, but there was one big difference: it wasn’t Muslims this time, even though it was their work that was being used – it was, wait for it … Arabised Norman Christian Kings! That’s right Viking Arab Christians!
One of the reasons for this is the lack of physical historical remains from this fascinating era. Whilst Spain has the Alhambra in Granada and the Mezquita in Cordoba (amongst several others) as constant reminders of al-Andalus, in Sicily you will struggle to find anything of real significance. However, whilst travelling through neighbouring Sardinia with my family one summer, I was told by a local about a mysterious castle tucked up in the hills surrounding the little village of Laconi (Oristano region). Despite our best efforts we found no information about the history of Castle Aymerich, but as we wandered around it’s remaining crumbling walls, slowly being reclaimed by the forest, we came upon window arches that seemed to me to be undoubtedly ‘Moorish’. Given the alleged date of the building, I wouldn’t be remotely surprised if in years to come evidence surfaces suggesting architectural influence from neighbouring Sicily. For an even more dramatic legacy of ‘Islamic’ Sicily keep reading.
2. SHAYKH DRACULA
Bram Stoker did for Romania’s tourism what Walt Disney has done for Florida. At times it can seem like Stoker’s fictional vampire, inspired by Vlad III of the Transylvanian medieval ‘Dracul’ family, is the sole reason many travel to this eastern European country. Yet I doubt any of these vampire tourists will know that Vlad III was actually versed in Arabic. That’s right, Dracula was an Arabist. In fact, there is evidence to suggest that he might have even been a Haafiz-ul-Qur’an – someone who has memorised the Qur’an.
I first came across this phenomenal possibility whilst on the trail of Romania’s lost Islamic past as I researched the background of ancient Ottoman mosques in towns like Mangalia and Constanta along the eastern coast. According to the history books Vlad’s father sends him and his brother Radu to the Ottoman courts of Istanbul, where they live with the Turkish Caliphs as part of a ‘hostage’ agreement – a kind of medieval insurance policy between two powerful states. There the two boys were educated in the traditional Turkish way, which involved learning Arabic and mastering the Qur’an.
Once they return home however, things get even more interesting. Whilst Vlad develops a now legendary hatred for the Turkish state, Radu Dracul upon the death of his father Vlad II, announces he has converted to Islam and decides to join the Ottomans.
So there you have it, a Muslim Dracula. Not even Bram Stoker could’ve spun such a yarn.
1. LATIN ARABIC
It was always going to be difficult to top a Muslim Dracula story, especially in a list this short, but my top Islamic Secret of Europe does exactly that.
To do so, we have to make our way to the little scorched island of Malta, the most southern country in Europe, where we find the Islamic legacy not in a book, ruin or even a tale, but on the lips of the natives. Just ask a Maltese to count to ten and you will hear everything you need, for Maltese numbers are virtually indistinguishable from the Arabic. Something my astonished daughter discovered when I made her ask for ‘tnej’n’ (two) apples at a market and she was promptly handed two apples by a smiling old man.
Despite it’s proximity to North Africa, where Arabic is widely spoken, it is Italy’s little football again that Malta has to thank for this. Maltese in its modern form is the only remaining example of Siculo-Arabic, the Sicilian form of Arabic that developed during the Fatimid and later Norman Arab period (Maltese also contains Italian and French as well as English to a lesser extent).
Siculo-Arabic actually died out in Sicily and was replaced by Italian Sicilian making Malta and Maltese people the only ‘living’ legacy of that ‘golden Arab’ period in Sicily when Viking Arabs ruled. In fact such is the dominance of Siculo-Arabic on the Maltese lingua franca(32% and 40%) that it has the proud claim of being the only Semitic language written in Latin Script!
So there you have it. First hand evidence of how in truth, we are all just distant relatives. Why not share this with some Europeans or Muslim friends of yours and watch the bridging of that fictionalised ‘gap’ between us?
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© Tharik Hussain and Sacred Footsteps 2015. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this article’s author and/or website’s owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Tharik Hussain and Sacred Footsteps with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
