Book Review - Jerusalem: the Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

 Jerusalem: the Biography by Simon Sebag Montefiore

London: Phoenix, 2012 (first published 2011)      ISBN 9781780220253

One of the blurbs on my edition of this book calls it "a tour de force", and there is no doubt that Jerusalem lives up to that particular piece of praise as well as all the others that it has gained since publication. It is the story of Jerusalem for sure, but along the way the reader learns much of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, of the Arabs, Romans, Ottomans, Russians and British, of Crusader Kingdoms and Sultanates, and of modern geopolitics.

Like all great works of non-fiction, Montefiore has woven much more into his story than the bare bones. The reader comes away from this work with a much broader knowledge of Western and Middle Eastern history than they would have a right to, given the books ostensible subject matter. The reader does of course gain an intimate knowledge of the development and trials of Jerusalem itself, as well as wonderful little titbits of other information such as the origin of the phrase "Bob's your uncle", the fact that Rudolf Hoess, Franz von Papen and Rudolf Hess were all in Jerusalem at the same time, and that the future King George V got tattooed when there, in the same place as his father.

These little nuggets of information are the cherries on top of the wonderfully rich dessert of history that Sebag Montefiore serves up. Thankfully his style, and the easily digestible short chapters make it both easy to read, and easy to absorb the information.

Sebag Montefiore writes in the last pages of the book that "for 1,000 years, Jerusalem was exclusively Jewish; for about 400 years Christian; for 1,300 years, Islamic, and not one of the three faiths ever gained Jerusalem without the sword, the mangonel or the howitzer."

The history of this city is a history of rapine, destruction, and war. It is also a history of worship, ecstasy and wonder. It is a story of immigration, emigration, and cosmopolitanism. It is the story of a city that on many occasions threatened to die, but is in many ways the most important city on Earth. The origins of Jerusalem are obscure and biblical, although recent archaeology has proven that King David did in fact exist.

Until the arrival of the Romans, and sometimes even after, Jerusalem was a backwater. Holy to the Jews, it was of small interest to others apart from being an attractive place to loot, owing to the gold that was held in the Temple.

Rome and Herod brought some stability to Jerusalem, although religious fever often led to riots, and there was also a continuous underground of Jewish rebellion against Roman rule. This was mainly driven by Jewish fundamentalism; a belief that gentiles could not rule God's chosen people. Jesus was part of this milieu.

The disaster of AD70 when the Romans sacked the city and destroyed the Temple after yet another Jewish rebellion, signalled the end of any Jewish control of the city for nearly 1,900 years. Jews were expelled, and Jerusalem once again became a backwater.

After an interval of Byzantine rule, the Arabs took the city in AD630. Soon after came the building of the Dome of the Rock, which raised Jerusalem to a holy site for its third religion (and which has led to many of the trials and tribulations the city has suffered down the years). Montefiore explains that this move was partially political, as the ruler of Jerusalem, Abd Al-Malik did not control Mecca and so needed a counterweight to the shrine there.

While the Muslims tolerated both Christians and Jews, life was not easy for them under Islamic rule. The Crusaders however were worse. The Crusader Kings, who were essentially freebooters looking for land, were often dangerous to each other, but not as much as they were to both Jews and Muslims.

Saladin's relatively enlightened rule was but a short interlude between the Christian crusaders and the Mamluks and Ottomans, who ruled Jerusalem for 400 years. For most of that time the city was again a backwater - Jews were forbidden the Temple Mount, and Christian worship was heavily circumscribed (although the Christians seemed to rank ahead of the Jews in the eyes of the Pashas and Sultan).

As the Ottoman Empire sank into sloth and corruption, Western countries began to influence what happened at the centre of Christendom. Kings, Czars and Emperors vied with each other to endow churches, fund pilgrimages and gain the upper hand in the machinations to do with the operation of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

The rise of millenarian ideas in the USA and Britain led to a push to allow Jews back to Jerusalem so that biblical prophecies of the Armageddon could be fulfilled. Montefiore clearly explains how these ideas led to massive changes on the ground in Jerusalem (one of Montefiore's ancestors funded Jewish settlement there) and on policy. The Balfour Declaration was a ground-breaking change in geopolitical thinking, even though one of the major reasons it was made was to mobilise Jewish support for Britain's fight in World War One.

Montefiore brings the history up to the present with descriptions of the internecine terrorism performed by both Jews and Arabs during the British Mandate and beyond, and explains how so many chances to find a workable peace have been missed: when one side felt politically strong enough to offer terms, the other side was too weak to accept them.

The uneasy state of peace that currently entails in Jerusalem has come at the cost of almost total segregation of Jews, Muslims and Christians from each other, and the destruction of what was a unique culture. It seems that we humans have not learnt a thing from the history of this holy and benighted place.

There is so much more in this book than I have noted here - it is an accessible wonder, and well worth reading. You will learn a lot.

Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Did Muhammad exist? by Robert Spencer

Did Muhammad exist? : an inquiry into Islam's obscure origins by Robert Spencer

Wilmington Delaware: ISI Books, 2012               ISBN 9781610170611


Robert Spencer is a somewhat controversial author and commentator, perhaps best known for his jihadwatch website, and his polemical books about Islam. This book, while no doubt having controversial things to say, is not a polemic, but a look at the current state of study into the origins not so much about Muhammad himself, but the Koran.

Of the three main monotheistic religions, it is Islam that claims the most historicity for it's origins. Muhammad lived in the late 6th and early 7th century, was a prophet and warrior, and received the Koran in a series of revelations from the Angel Gabriel around Mecca and Medina. The problem with this seemingly historical statement is that the more it is investigated, the harder it is to pin down.

There is no mention in other historical sources of Muhammad, or the Koran itself, for over a hundred years from the supposed date of Muhammad's death. In fact between the date of Muhammad's death and the first mention of the Koran, coins were produced and buildings erected that seem to suggest the local rulers in Arabia were, if anything, Christians of a sort. It is only in the 9th century that something that we would recognise as Islam appeared in the historical record.

How to account for this gap in the story? It is clear that  both the Abbasid and Umayyad Caliphates were keen to enlist God as a partisan on their side, and had seen how religion could unify otherwise separate peoples into a large empire. It is also clear that large parts of the text of what came to be the Koran had existed for some time as separate fragments before being collected into one book. It also seems to be true that there did exist at some time in the 7th century in Arabia a "prophet armed with a sword". Spencer's theory is that the Caliphs were responsible for putting these disparate facts together to create a religion that could justify their rule.

The Koran itself is the major item under scrutiny in this book. Notoriously hard to interpret, recent study is bringing to light several sources of the suras of the Koran and leading to some extraordinary conclusions by some scholars. There can be an argument made that some of the text originated from Christian communities that denied the Trinity. These texts, which would have been in the Syraic language, were adapted as needed, with additions where required, to create the Koran as we have it now. These theories can explain some of the mysteries of the text itself, and also possibly the meaning behind some of the seemingly contradictory statements made in the Koran about Jews and Christians: they are due to the accretions made over time to original Christian sect texts.

Even the name Muhammad itself then comes into question - meaning "praiseworthy", the name itself is only mentioned four times in the Koran, and each time it could possibly be referring to Jesus, or other figures, rather than to a person named Muhammad himself.

The historiography of religious texts is a notoriously fraught business, and possibly no text is more difficult to look at than the Koran, as not only is it seen by Muslims as the literal word of God, but also is seen as a definite historical artifact emanating from a known point in history from a known person. Both the Jewish and the Christian Bibles have been studied historically for a long time, and Koranic studies have a long way to go in this area.

Did Muhammad exist? is an interesting work that gathers together some of the threads of current research into early Islam. There is a decent bibliography for further reading, and both the notes and the index are helpful.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - Islam and the future of tolerance: a dialogue - Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz

Islam and the future of tolerance: a dialogue by Sam Harris and Maajid Nawaz

Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 2015      ISBN 9780674088702

This short book takes the form of a dialogue between Sam Harris, author of books such as The end of faith and Maajid Nawaz, former member of Hizb ut-Tahrir and author of the book Radical, and co-founder of the Quilliam Foundation.

The book is a timely discussion about Islamic extremism, or Islamism, and how it can be tackled. What comes out of this discussion is the urgent need for other voices than those radical jihadists to get out into the World and be heard. It's clear that the Islamists dominate discussion around the Qu'ran and what it means, and Nawaz in particular is keen to get the alternative, more peaceful and tolerant, interpretations of Islam more into the mainstream, both to quell the West's hostility, and to show potential radicals that God is not on the side of the Islamists.

While for Muslims the Qu'ran is the word of God, Nawaz points out that the interpretation of those words is all too human. As is the case with the Bible, there is much that is seemingly contradictory in the Qu'ran, as well as obscure. Add to that the difficulty of translating the old Arabic in which it is written, and there is a mass of interpretation that has to go into even a basic reading. As (Sunni) Islam has no structured priesthood, guidance on how to interpret the text can and does come from everywhere.

Islamism, as Nawaz styles it, is more a political ideology than a truly religious movement, but it is the religious aspect that enables the likes of ISIS to brainwash people to die for the "cause". Both Harris and Nawaz are clear that this false view of religion needs to be tackled front on, and that it is Muslims that need to be seen to be doing it. At the same time, they are both agreed that the political and military structure of ISIS needs to be destroyed utterly. Such destruction will have the effect of showing would-be radicals that God does not smile on their jihad, and that in fact the deluded views of ISIS leadership in no way correspond with God's.

There is in the book also some discussion of the tendency for the West to hold minorities and Middle Eastern countries to a lower standard of human rights and freedom than that which they demand for themselves. Both authors call this out as mindless and actually fuelling the ends of the terrorists.

This book will take an hour or two to read, and is well worth the time invested.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book Review - The two sieges of Rhodes, 1480 - 1522 by Eric Brockman

The two sieges of Rhodes, 1480-1522 by Eric Brockman

London: John Murray, 1969             ISBN 0719518946

This is a very straightforward book about two moments in time that were significant in themselves, but have been overwhelmed by all that was going on around them.

The Knights Hospitallers were formed during the early Crusades and rapidly became, along with the Knights Templar and Teutonic Knights, one of the pre-eminent military formations that secured the Crusader States against the Saracens.

As the Holy Land fell back under the control of the Sultans, the order moved from Jerusalem, to Acre and finally out of the Holy Land altogether, to headquarter itself on the island of Rhodes. As the Ottomans gained in strength, took Constantinople and secured their Eastern frontiers, the existence of this thorn pricking their flanks became a problem that had to be acted upon.

At first Sultan Mehmet was open to coming to an agreement with the Knights, to live and let live. The problem with this approach was that the Knight's sole raison d'etre was to fight Islam, so there was never going to be detente with the Ottomans.

The siege of 1480 was a disaster for the Turks. The Knights held out, with little reinforcement from other Christian rulers, and the Turks, despite their superior numbers, could not find a way through the fortifications of the city. The Turks man-for-man were no match for the Knights who, with their plate armour and heavy swords, were well protected and dangerous adversaries.

Rhodes was given forty years breathing space owing to internal machinations of the Sultanate, but when Suleiman the Magnificent took the throne, he was determined to destroy Rhodes. After he had subdued Budapest, and the Knights had again refused to come to terms with the Ottoman, Suleiman gathered a huge army, and invested the Knights headquarters.

Unfortunately for the Hospitallers, 1522 was a bad year to be looking for help from the Christian world. The stirrings of the Reformation, and wars between many of the great Christian princes meant that there was not much interest in what was going on in Rhodes, or in what the Ottomans were doing.

The Knights had spent the 40 years since the last siege working hard on improving their defences, but the technology of firearms had also improved, and the Turks had many large cannon with which to batter the walls of the town. And batter them they did over the course of six months.

At the end of this time, not only were the Knights depleted militarily, but the normal citizens of Rhodes were rebellious. When the Sultan made it plain that if the town was to surrender lives would be spared, it was clear that despite what the commanders thought, the siege was over.

All the Knights who wished to were allowed to leave Rhodes unscathed, and the order continued in various places, until settling on Malta, which is another story. The order still claimed Rhodes as its own until very recently.

Brockman, a Knight of Malta himself, has written a breezy history of both sieges, with just enough connecting information so the "average reader" can make sense of it all. His liberal use of contemporary writings adds colour and gives some indication of the conditions that the battles were fought under, and the state of mind of the combatants.

This edition had useful maps, and some fine plates of contemporary paintings of some of the main actors and locations.

If you're into the Crusades, or the Knights, worth fishing out.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell

Book review - Islam by Alfred Guillame

Islam by Alfred Guillame

London; Pelican, 1956 (rev. Ed.)

Despite the fact this book is nearly 60 years old, it is still a good introduction to the world of Islam for the novice. I write world of Islam, because Guillame does not really set out to describe the religious practices of Muslims, but rather to describe how Islam came to be historically, and how it has developed over time.

The first three chapters descibe in turn "The historical background", "Muhammad", and "The Koran". Guillame writes well, and for the un-initiated he gives a good background to the world Muhammad lived in, and how he must certainly have come into contact with Jews and Christians and absorbed their beliefs before his revelation. Guillame is skilful in pointing out that many of the verses in the Koran relate to specific times in Muhammed's struggle to build up and protect his followers, something which has caused problems as history flowed on. He goes into some detail into the creation of the hadith and the sharia, and how the Muslim world has struggled to deal with the contradictions inherent in the accretion of laws over time.

Unlike most Christian societies, who have disassociated their secular laws from their religion, many Muslims still struggle to reconcile the Koran to their daily lives, which causes tension, and requires the constant interpretation of the Koran by experts. Guillame talks about the four schools, which all interpret the Koran and the Hadith in different ways. he goes into a little detail of some of the major sects, as he calls them, including enumerating the main differences between the Sunni and the Shia. Muslim philosophy is also touched on in the book, with brief descriptions of the main problems and issues that have been discussed over the centuries, including the paradox of an eternal God creating an Earth which exists in time.

Of course no book written by a Westerner on the subject of Islam can avoid the mystic side of the religion, and Guillame is no different, with a brief but informative chapter on Islamic mysticism, which points out that the mystic path gathered followers who were not happy with the current state of Islamic thought, and expressed their religion by trying to become one with God. This is a path that can be dangerous, as more than one person who has taken the mystic path has been accused of heresy and met a sticky end.

In some ways the most interesting chapter is the last, entitled "Islam today". Guillame takes us on an overview of the Islamic world as it was in the fifties, and finds countries trying hard to reconcile their faith with the modern world, and employing all kinds of methods to do so, including finding the most lenient interpretations of law, and even re-interpreting some verses of the Koran. At that time he didn't see any major move to re-interpret the Muslim Holy Book as anything other than the word of God, as Christians have done with the Bible, but he thought that might not be too far away. He mentions on a few occasions in the book the influence of the Hanbalites, a very conservative sect that is the source of inspiration for the Wahhabis. In one of those statements that is interesting in hindsight, he writes "For centuries his school has been diminishing, but it has gained a new lease of life today in the Wahhabi kingdom." Indeed.

For the Christian Westerner who knows little of Islam, apart from what appears in the papers, this book is a useful one; even it's antiquity is helpful, as it describes Islam before it was tainted by the ugly deed of Bin-Laden and his ilk. I will close this review with a quotation from the last paragraph of the book, which is a valid now as when it was written in the 'fifties:
"The history of Islam has shown that it has extraordinary powers of adaptation: it has succeeded in absorbing apparently incompatible philosophies, and mutually contradictory religious conceptions, and it has silently abandoned others which it has tried and found wanting. Its one danger is that the old forces of reaction will be too strong for the new spirit of liberalism, armed as they are with shibboleths and anathemas which can rouse the ignorant masses and terrorize men of vision. Only time can show which party will gain the upper hand."

Islam has been reprinted many times over the years, so try your local Library or second-hand bookshop for a copy.

Cheers for now, from
A View Over the Bell