Imam al-Qarafi al-Maliki (d. 684 AH / 1285 AD) said in ‘Al-Thakhira’: “Al-Tartushi (Al-Maliki, d. 520 AH / 1126AD) … classified rum cheese as a book, and this is what the investigators have to do; The balance, the seller, and the utensils.
Understanding the motive for asserting the prohibition of this type of commodity will not be complete unless we recall that this legal position – in its beginning and its end – which this great imam took came in the context of his era, which was overshadowed by the hot and cold atmosphere of the Crusades, and the repercussions of its centuries-old bitter conflicts in the center of the Islamic world Where Al-Tartoushi lived half of his life between the Levant and Egypt.
This
Although the logic of the solution and the sanctity is subject to considerations of the legal evidence; From the point of view of history, one should not lose sight of the atmosphere of the civilizational clash between the Romans and the Muslims, and its historical reflection in the positions of the jurists and their preferences between the multiple sayings in the ruling of the situation and the one calamity, especially if its evidence is speculative in its evidence or indication, which is what explains – in our opinion. – Al-Tartushi resolved and asserted the sanctity of the issue of “Rumi cheese” in exchange for Malik’s lack of certainty about it. Otherwise, “Rumi cheese” did not differ in its nature and evidence in the era of Tartushi from its counterpart in the days of Imam Malik; Rather, what seemed to differ was the context and its civilizational requirements.
This is the same factor that we can easily observe today in the behavior of religious, political and cultural opinion leaders who use the weapon of a commercial and political boycott in the face of commercial and political normalization with the Israeli occupation authorities in Palestine, as well as with France in the position of its president and government defending the abuse of some of its media towards the Prophet of Islam. Muhammad ﷺ.
If someone is keen to take a reverential photo with the leader of the Israeli religious “Shas Movement”, known for his extremism towards Arabs and Muslims, as the Emirati ambassador to Tel Aviv did recently, in light of the signing of dozens of economic agreements between Israeli and Emirati governmental and private companies and institutions; This article is biased towards the option of boycotting normalization with the occupiers from politics to culture through trade, economy and investment, relying on historical models that represented the activation of this popular protest weapon, which is the weakest faith today in supporting the struggle of the Palestinian people in their just humanitarian and human rights cause.
What is between the old and the new regarding economic wars? We find some intersections and paradoxes that we try to highlight in this article, in which we open the file of the phenomenon of the economic boycott of opponents and the opposition to commercial normalization with them throughout history, citing the most prominent facts of its use as a peaceful tool for political influence on the ruling regimes, and an effective weapon in winning rounds of battles and wars between countries, and an adult component The importance of managing the relations between the nations of the East and the West, and even in a single civilized space; They observe the role of Islamic jurists, Christian clergy and political thinkers in these economic battles, through which countries rise and regimes fall, issues are victorious and others fail.
Early awareness:
The jurist al-Tartoushi says – in his book ‘The Siraj al-Muluk’ – addressing the Minister of the Fatimids in Egypt, al-Ma’mun al-Bataihi (d. The sultan and the substance of possession, and money is the most powerful tool over the enemy, and it is the treasure of the king and the life of the earth. It is his right to be taken from his right and put in his right and prevented from extravagance, and it is not taken from the subjects except what is left over from their livelihood and interests, then it is spent in the ways that benefit them, O King, take utmost care for the construction of the two lands and peace.”
In this advice, al-Tartushi tells us about the philosophy of money and its role – among the theorists of Islamic political thought and bloggers of royal etiquette in our civilization – in establishing states and building countries. He also points out the danger of using the weapon of money as “the most powerful tool against the enemy”!
centuries before that; Correspondence between the adult Caliph Omar al-Faruq (d. 23 AH / 645 AD) and his governor over the provinces during the Ramada famine crisis in 18 AH / 640 AD reveals the extent to which the Rightly Guided Caliphs and their aides were aware of the value of economic geography for the development of states, the importance of land and sea transportation lines in the well-being of people and the prosperity of trade, and the danger of Neglecting attention to the fate of nations
Imam al-Tabari (d. 310 AH / 922 CE) narrates – in his history – that when Umar wrote “to the princes of the cities [saying]: Help the people of Medina and those around it, for it has reached their endeavor.” Among the responses he received was the message of his ruler to Egypt, Amr ibn al-Aas (d. 43 AH / 664 CE), which included his economic vision and some of the history of the seas of the region.
According to al-Tabari; Amr said in “The Answer to Omar’s Book on Istihaadah: The Shami Sea (= the Mediterranean) was dug for the resurrection (= the days of the resurrection) of the Messenger of God, peace be upon him, and it poured into the Arabian Sea (= the Red Sea) and spoiled by the Romans and Copts, so if you like the price of food to be fixed In the city as its price in Egypt, I dug a river for him and built bridges for it, so Omar wrote to him: “Do and accelerate it!
The people of Egypt – and the majority of them have not yet embraced Islam – were not satisfied with watching that; So they tried to persuade Amr to abandon his project using smart economic and political language. And ruined it, so Omar wrote to him: Work in it and hurry .., Amr treated it with Qilzam (= the Red Sea). With the killing of Othman… they were humiliated, neglected and humbled!” Amr’s answer, Omar’s insistence, and the objection of the people of Egypt to open new sea ports in their countries. It shows us an aspect of the early awareness of the parties to the conflicts of the value of maritime navigation and its provision of commercial activities.
An urban pillar. One of the most important historical facts with deep evidence of the Muslim caliphs’ keenness to employ the elements of economic geography is the story of the choice of the Abbasid Caliph Al-Mansur (d. 158 AH / 776 AD) for the location of the Abbasid capital Baghdad; He decided – after consultations with topography experts in his country – to build it on the bank of a small river called “Al-Sarat” to connect it to the Euphrates.
One of these experts explained to him – according to a technical vision that brought together the dimensions of economic and political geography – the advantages of the proposed site, the most important of which was the inability of the capital to be subject to an economic blockade, due to its connection with the most important trade routes in the world, east and west, through its surrounding rivers that guarantee the movement and flow of trade. This expert said – according to al-Tabari – addressing al-Mansur: that in this place, “mirah will come to you on ships from the Maghreb in the Euphrates. And he did not connect with it…until you reach the Zab [River], and Al-Mira comes to you from the Romans, Amed (= today the Turkish city of Diyarbakir), the island [Euphrates] and Mosul in the Tigris.”
Just as the availability of money was a tributary to the establishment of states and a reason for their permanence and expansion; Its deficiency was also a decisive factor in the demise of another, and a means of overthrowing regimes and overcoming cities since ancient times, and submitting governments to the wishes of those who possessed economic pressure papers throughout centuries.
The philosopher and historian Mesquiah (d. That he “descended on a fortified city, and its people were protected from it and knew its news, knowing that there was enough charity and exploding eyes in it. And Alexander left them, and the merchants continued to buy the meera until most of it happened in their hands. When Alexander knew that, he wrote to them that they burned the meera in your hands and fled, so they did so, and Alexander crawled into it and besieged them for a few days, so they gave him obedience and the king of the city. “
Among the stories of rulers waving an economic boycott and banning visit visas is what was mentioned in the Holy Qur’an about the relationship of the Prophet Yusuf, peace be upon him, with his brothers, when God blessed him with empowerment in Egypt and wanted to realize his vision by reuniting his family, using the conditions of famine that struck their country at the time, Palestine. He made it a condition for his brothers when they came to him to bring their brother to their father and his brother, otherwise they should be patient for cutting their inheritance from his state while they are in barren years; The Almighty says: {And when Abjahazhm prepare them said, Bring me your brother from your father, do not you see that I am Uwe double and I am better houses, it did not do Totoni agent I have not Tqrbun}.
Al-Tabari explains the verses, saying: “(If you do not bring it to me) with your brother from your father, (there is no measure for you with me) he says: I have no food to measure it (= I sell it) to you, {and do not come near}, he says: And do not come near my country! Yusef’s threat of an economic boycott of his brothers was only longing for his parents and brother after the trials of prison. But another prophet – who came many centuries after him – was tested with his clan closest to his enemies by social boycott and economic siege, and he proved until God Almighty enabled him, and that prophet was none other than our master Muhammad ق in the Quraish siege of them in “Sha’ab (= a small valley between two mountains) Abu Talib.” in Mecca.
Stability and loyalty,
when God sent His Prophet Muhammad with guidance and wisdom. The leaders of the Quraish rejected his invitation, and even tried to repel him by all means, so they began with him and his companions with enticements and temptations and offering him the reins of sovereignty and treasures of money. When this failed to achieve their demands from him, they tried to intimidate and impose a social siege and economic boycott, and the leaders of the Quraish, with their long commercial and economic experiences, were aware of the danger of the economic boycott weapon in a commercial society that humiliated and humiliated the desert of the Arabs and the mountains of their island with caravans in summer and winter in the south and north.
But the resolve of the Messenger was stronger than the quirks of the Quraysh, and he reduced his steadfastness and brightness in the matter of calling and challenging the boycott by saying to his uncle Abu Talib (d. The matter is until God or your family makes it manifest in his request.” According to the narration of Ibn Ishaq (d. 151 AH / 769 AD) in the ‘Sira’.
In exemplary steadfastness, Muslims today should invoke him and inspire him and commit him to support the Prophet of Islam while he is being targeted by the successive offenses of his opponents. Ibn Ishaq tells us what the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his closest companions and people, some of whom were polytheists, “afflicted” during the severe siege, during which the Quraysh granted Abu Talib before the start of its implementation, and they negotiated with him repeatedly to deliver his nephew to them. Abu Talib preferred to protect his nephew, in application of the Arab dietary norms. So he called him and addressed him with his words that kept ringing in the ears of time, so the conscious ear of history memorized them: “Oh, my nephew!.. go ahead and do what you like, for by God we will never give you anything!”
Quraysh had no permission – to maintain its prestige and feast – but to impose its comprehensive economic and social blockade, which it documented in a pact attached to the Ashraf Bekaa, and “they gathered together to write among themselves on Bani Hashem and Bani Muttalib not to argue with them or marry them, nor to pledge allegiance to them or to buy from them. So they wrote a newspaper about that…and hung it on the Kaaba, then they attacked (= assaulted) the people who embraced Islam, so they tied them up and harmed them, and the affliction was severe for them and the fitna became great among them, and they shook a severe earthquake.”
The Quraish were not satisfied with documenting the boycott and making it sacred by hanging it in the hollow of the Kaaba; Rather, they deepened the siege in other, more severe ways that focused on monitoring for any goods that might seep into the besieged people, or for a besieged entry to a market, so “they harmed the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, and his companions severely, and beat them in every way, and confined them to their people and cut off the material from the markets, so they did not invite anyone from People brought food to them and nothing that was attached to them. According to Ibn Ishaq.
The nobles of the Quraish men tried – during the three years of the siege – to end it with collective and individual initiatives. A few years later; After settling in their emigration home, Medina, the Muslims found themselves facing the threat of an economic boycott again, but this time from the group of “hypocrites” who the Holy Qur’an tells us that they raised the slogan: {Do not spend on those with the Messenger of God} until they left. However, the consolidation of the foundations of Islam in its new home soon put these threats in the wind.
Discipline and Compensation
The Quraysh – with their economic siege on Muslims and their supporters from their pagan relatives – opened doors of economic insomnia and commercial anxiety, and it is the master of commercial activities in the Arabian Peninsula. Islam and prevent people from entering it crowds. As well as to compensate the immigrants whose money Quraysh took when they forced them to leave their homeland, Mecca.
When the Prophet arrived in Medina, emigrating; Targeting the economy of Quraysh was one of the first steps he took among several tools to manage the conflict with them. In Al-Maghazi by Al-Waqidi (d. 207 AH / 827 AD) that “the first brigade held by the Messenger of God, peace be upon him [was] to Hamza bin Abdul Muttalib (d. 3 AH / 625 AD).. In the month of Ramadan (year 1 AH / 623 AD) …, [he went out] to protest to Ir (= a commercial caravan) Quraysh. ” Likewise, the goal of the Prophet ﷺ from most of the many companies that followed Hamzah’s company was to “[the Muslims] object to the tribes of Quraish when they appeared to Syria.”
And what the Prophet did of economic restrictions on the Quraysh was what the venerable companion Thumama ibn Uthal al-Hanafi (d. 11 AH / 632 CE) understood the political purpose of him in the famous story of his Islam after his captivity among Muslims. Fetmamh what Aslam said to the Prophet ﷺ as in ‘Sahih Bukhari’: “The horses took me [prisoners] and I want Umrah, what do you see? Penalty Messenger of Allah ﷺ and ordered him to be wearing when he came to Makkah, told him the man who said: Sabot (= entered in Islam)? He said: No, but I embraced Islam with Muhammad, the Messenger of God, peace and blessings be upon him, and no, by God the dove does not come to you from the dove (= Saudi Arabia) in the vicinity of Riyadh and its vicinity!
The story of Thumama bin Athal also states that the Quraish were disciplined by the pressure of continuous commercial targeting, and that the weapon of economic restriction was feared by the enemies because of their fear of the weapon of oppressive force; In Fath al-Bari by Imam Ibn Hajar (d. 852 AH / 1448 AD) that Thumama “came out for Umrah, even if he was in the belly of Mecca, he prayed, and he was the first one who entered Mecca to perform the prayer, so the Quraysh took him and said: They dared us and they wanted to kill him, and one of them said: Leave him! The food is from [the country of his people] the dove, so they left it. “
And Ibn Hajar tells us – in the details of the story of Thamama and his economic siege imposed on the Quraysh – that the economic boycott has already been implemented, and that Quraysh has found the way out of this siege with the Prophet who was sent as a mercy to the worlds, who had previously besieged him and removed him from the sanctity of God and his homeland is the land of his ancestors. Ibn Hajar says that when Quraysh pressured Thumamah to turn away from Islam, he said to them: “By God, I will not return to your religion, nor be kind to you, so let the mirah come to you from al-Yamamah.. Then he went out to al-Yamamah and prevented them from carrying anything to Mecca, so they wrote to the Prophet, peace be upon him: You You order the ties of kinship [so help us]! So he wrote to Thumama to let them go between them and the lamb.” So Thumama lifted the siege!
Wrong employment
The deviation that the Kharijites sect – early in the history of Islam – was not limited to its political and combat dimension only; The Kharijites with their totalitarian visions did not lose sight of the danger of investing money in their bloody battles. Perhaps Najda bin Amer al-Hanafi (d. about 72 AH / 689 AD) is the most prominent of the Kharijites who employed money from the Kharijites in an employment that ranged between right and wrong.
He left the aid of his colleague in the school of thought, Nafeh ibn Azraq al-Hanafi (d.64 AH / 682 CE), “due to his creation in his doctrine … and he walked to Al-Yamamah and called [Emir of the Kharijites] Aba Taloot (al-Bakri t after 66 AH / 684 AD) to [the pledge of allegiance to] himself, so he went to Al-Khudarim ( = Wadi al-Yamamah) so he plundered it and it belonged to Banu Hanifa.., [and found] in it slaves as many as they counted and the number of their sons and their women four thousand, so he spoiled that and divided it among his companions, and that was in the year sixty-five (65 AH/683 AD), so his collection increased.” According to the historian Ibn al-Atheer (d. 630 AH / 1233 AD) in ‘Al-Kamil’.
Najda Al-Hanafi made collecting money and dividing it among the people as a tool for successful political propaganda that gathered many followers around him. Then he says: “Then, Ayra came out of Bahrain (= the eastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula) – and it was said from Basra – carrying money and others, intended by Ibn al-Zubayr (d. 73 AH / 693 AD). And they said: Help is better for us than Abu Talut, so they deposed Abu Talut and pledged allegiance to Najda and pledged allegiance to him [also] Abu Talut, in the year sixty-six (66 AH / 684 AD), and Najda at that time was thirty years old!!
And when Najda saw what money is doing in terms of political empowerment of its owners and its power was strengthened, and some of his men made the pilgrimage to large areas of the Arabian Peninsula; Then he returned to the stronghold of his emirate in Bahrain, so “Al-Meera was cut off from the people of the Two Holy Mosques from it (= Bahrain) and from Al-Yamamah, so Ibn Abbas (d.68 AH / 688 AD) wrote to him: Thamama bin Athal when he converted to Islam, he cut off the march from the people of Mecca and they are polytheists, so a messenger wrote to him. God ﷺ: The people of Makkah are the people of God, so do not prevent them from the mirage! So he made it theirs, and you cut the mirah from us while we are Muslims, so he made it a relief for them.”
After trying to save the siege of the people of Makkah economically and nutritiously The economic blockade has become a common occurrence in the political conflicts in the Islamic space, and is accompanied by the military battles in most of the Islamic countries that took place after the end of the Rashidun Caliphate, whether in the conquests or in the struggles of Muslim kings; At the time of the Umayyads, the pilgrims set the catapult on Mecca to confine its people until they went out to safety and obedience to Abd al-Malik (Ibn Marawan d. 86 AH / 706 AD) … and they kept the myrrh and water from them, so they drank from Zamzam water .. “; According to Ibn Kathir (d. 774 AH / 1372 AD) in ‘The Beginning and the End’.
Multiple use.
When the bloody civil war erupted in the Abbasid state between the two rival brothers, the Caliph Al-Amin Ibn Al-Rashid (d. 198 AH/808 AD) and his brother, the Crown Prince Al-Ma’mun (d. 218 AH/833 AD); The economic boycott and the commercial blockade were not absent from those battles, the outcome of which was decided in favor of al-Ma’mun, as al-Tabari stated – in his ‘history’ – that al-Amin was convinced of the failure of his policy of luring al-Ma’mun to come from his stronghold in Khurasan to Baghdad to make it easier for him to control it; In the year 194 AH / 811 AD, he ordered that “traders should be prohibited from carrying anything from al-Mira to Khurasan…, then he resolved to fight it.”
Since the control of the Fatimids – an Ismaili Imamate Shiite – over Egypt in 358 AH / 969 AD; The conflict raged between Cairo and Baghdad over the Two Holy Mosques , over which sovereignty is the greatest title of religious legitimacy for their “caliphate” in the eyes of the masses. One of the manifestations of that conflict was what Imam Ibn al-Jawzi (d.597 AH / 1200 CE) told us – in al-Muntazim – in terms of employing economic warfare in his battle. He said that during the Hajj season in the year 365 AH / 976AD, “An Alawite pilgrimage was performed by the people on the side of [the Fatimid caliph] Al-Aziz (d. 386 AH / 996 CE), the owner of Egypt, and the call for him was held in Makkah and Madinah ..
in the Islamic West; The Almoravid leaders did not miss the use of this weapon in the face of their monotheistic rivals. Through it, they succeeded in temporarily impeding their project and avoided the fall of their state for nearly thirty years. The emir of the Almoravids, Ali bin Yusuf bin Tashfin (d. 537 AH / 1142 AD), sent to them a strong army, and they besieged them in the mountain (= figs of boredom: a fortified mountain town in Morocco that was a stronghold for their organization), and they narrowed them down and prevented them from passing, so I said to the companions of the Mahdi the provisions, until he became They do not have bread.. So the notables of the people of fig got bored and wanted to fix the situation with the ruler of the Muslims.” According to Ibn al-Athir in al-Kamil.
The economic boycott and commercial blockade were not a purely Islamic Eastern culture; They are in the West of Europe the most famous, most famous, and the most oppressive for their dependence on the seas and ports, and the desire for wealth and love of adventure that dominated the Europeans in their middle ages made the economy one of the most powerful motives driving their fleets in peace and war, especially those that moved east and south towards the coast of Muslims.
Reminds the American historian Will Durant civilizations (v 1402 AH / 1981 AD) At ‘ the story of Elhoudarh’- motives of the Crusades ; He says that the third direct cause “is the desire of the Italian cities – Pisa, Genoa, Venice and Amalfi – to expand the field of their increasing commercial power. That is when the Normans seized Sicily from the Muslims (1060-1091 AD), and the Christian armies seized from them a large part of Spain (1085 AD). and beyond); the western Mediterranean became free for Christian trade.
The impact of the Crusades on Europe was strong in terms of economic wealth, especially the aforementioned Italian trading countries/cities that were strengthened and influenced because they were “the outposts from which the crops of Italy and the countries beyond [the] Alps came out, and these cities began working to eliminate the supremacy of Muslims in The eastern part of the Mediterranean, and the markets of the Near East are opened to the goods of Western Europe, and we do not know how close these Italian merchants were to the ears of the Pope!
Contrasting motives
for all these factors; The commercial dimension and the economic motive in all stages of the Crusades were strongly present, and among the components of the armies of the Crusaders were groups of “merchants who search for markets for their goods”. The Italian gun also stipulated that the leaders of those wars should have “half of the spoils of war” in exchange for “providing them with fifty warships.” “! This is despite the fact that “the Venetians did not intend to attack Egypt; they were earning millions from it every year by exporting wood, iron and weapons to it, and they did not want to risk losing this trade by participating in the war, or by sharing it with Pisa and Genoa.”
The traveler Ibn Jubayr al-Andalusi (d. 614 AH / 1217 AD) tells us – in places of his journey – about the expansion of commercial activity between Muslims and the Crusaders after their settlement on the coasts of the Levant, and how this activity was not affected in his time by the atmosphere of repeated wars in his geography, in another form of coexistence Religion, even if it is among the enemies dictated by the deterrence balancing factor. Ibn Jubayr mentions, for example, that “Christian merchants… none of them are forbidden nor objected, and Christians have a tax on Muslims that they pay in their countries (= their colonies) .. And Christian merchants also pay in Muslim countries their goods, and the agreement between them is moderation in all cases, and the people of war. They are engaged in their war and the people are in good health .., neither the subjects nor the merchants are objected, because security does not leave them in all cases, peace or war !!
Inspite of that; The Crusaders’ trade with Muslims was not that flexible because the Christian clergy were on the lookout for it, as the Vatican popes often issued decisions “the ecclesiastical deprivation of forgiveness” against Christian merchants who trade with Muslims. It seems that this increased in frequency after the time of the traveler Ibn Jubayr with the successive failure of the Crusades directed to the Levant and Egypt since the second quarter of the seventh century AH / thirteenth century AD, until it stopped completely – at the end of those two centuries – about five centuries.
The French orientalist Robert Brunschvik (d. 1411 AH / 1990 AD) asserts – in his book ‘History of Ifriqiya / Tunisia in the Hafsid Era’ – that Christian merchants often submitted to “the ban decisions issued by the Church regarding the supply of Muslims with any material that would help those ‘infidels’ in Their war is against the supporters of Christ, and some Christian countries have repeatedly implemented the mentioned bans issued by the Church, and we have several examples of that ban issued by some European governments against their subjects who trade with Africa.”
Brunschvik informs us, “The most detailed ban is the one issued by Argonne King Jaime I (d. 675 AH / 1276 AD) against Ifriqiya. On August 12, 1274 AD (= 673 AH) the King reminded the Catalans – who were authorized to move to Tunisia – of the decision he had taken In Barcelona… regarding the prohibition of supplying Muslims with the following materials: weapons, iron, wood, wheat, barley, sorghum, millet, beans, flour of all grains, hemp ropes, or any other materials suitable for making ship ropes and lead.”
The list of these prohibited goods reminds us of the lists of trade bans issued today by major international powers aimed at weakening the economy of the “rogue states” to subject them to certain policies and positions!! Robar adds that another Argonian king, Jaime II (d. 727 AH / 1327 AD), issued a similar decree in the year 720 AH / 1320 AD prohibiting trade with the people of Tlemcen in western Algeria.
A comprehensive plan
The truth is that the most detailed and fiercest plan of the Crusaders to boycott and besiege Muslims economically is the one that was written by a Venetian named Marino Sanoto, known as Torcello (d. 744 AH / 1343 AD) in a study entitled: ‘The Book of Secrets for the True Crusaders to Help them Reclaim the Holy Land’ And he presented it in 721 AH / 1321 CE to Pope John XXIII (d. 734 AH / 1334 CE).
The historian of the Crusades, Suhail Zakkar (d. 1441 AH / 2020 AD) – in the “Comprehensive Encyclopedia of the Crusades” – reveals to us the reasons for writing Torcello’s book and the circumstances that produced it; He says, “The liberation of Acre in the year 690 AH / 1291 AD was a tremendous event that included the whole of Western Europe, and here the men of the Church, the men of government and politics, and the lords of thought and the pen, each in turn worked for a project of a crusade, with their conviction that the road to Palestine passes through Egypt, which all previous attempts failed. To occupy it. “
Hence the importance of Torsello’s book, which seems to have – nearly five centuries after its publication – inspired the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte (d. 1236 AH / 1821 CE) to carry out the first colonial crusade – after the restoration of Acre – on the Islamic East, based on his conquest of Egypt and the coasts of the Levant to subjugate and annex them. Year 1212 AH / 1797 AD !!
The author of this dangerous book and the author of the comprehensive economic boycott plan for Muslims tells us about the reasons for writing his book and how he entered the Pope, who presented to him “two copies on the restoration of the Holy Land and the preservation of the faithful one copy covered in red, and the second with a cross”, and he also presented him with four geographic illustrations. The first photographer: on the Mediterranean Sea, the second: on the land and the sea, the third on the Holy Land, and the fourth: on the land of Egypt.
As for the real motive for writing the book, Torsello says about him: “I am not progressing except by my own free will to show you how to humiliate the enemies of the Christian faith and defeat the Sultan of Cairo (= Al-Nasser Muhammad Ibn Qalawun d.741 AH / 1341 AD) and [his ally and son-in-law, Sultan of the Mughals of the Caucasus] Uzbek Khan (d.742 AH / d. 1341 AD), who became famous in the south of the earth that he could not be defeated! All this “with little or no expense”!! After presenting the report and the plan, Torsello informs his master the Pope that he has the final judgment in “the annihilation of the Islamic nation that Muhammad (peace be upon him) published, and so that your Holiness knows that this can be achieved as it will become clear to you through this book.”
The book of this Italian crusader – who lived for some time inside the Church – was not just a cold theorizing, but a summary of rich and difficult experiences at many times. He summed it up by saying: “For the sake of this my project, I crossed the sea five times. Once I went to Cyprus, the second to Armenia, and the third to Alexandria, just as I went to Rhodes, and before I did all this, I stayed for a long time in each From Alexandria and Acre, without violating the ban imposed by the Church … Therefore, I prepare myself well-informed of all its conditions. “
The attention of adults
and the severity of the attention of the Pope in this book and the content of the details of the form of a committee of “monks brothers” to study and report, and the Committee considered “depending on the content of the book that it is possible all that is necessary in a way decent processing for sea ride and crossing into Egypt, so This will weaken the sultan’s resources and paralyze his powers and constituents, just as the materials (= goods) that Christians usually import from countries subject to the sultan can be obtained from other countries, and we have this easy to achieve!
As for the contents of Torsello’s book, it is a plan for a tight economic crusade siege of the Islamic world, according to which it is necessary to “stand up to those who strive towards the Sultanate’s country to buy rare items and other types of goods, and then transport them across the Mediterranean.” The author suggests several alternatives for the Europeans to go to India through the Tatar-controlled lands via Baghdad, with cunning promotional language for goods carried through the Tatar roads.
The book consists of several sections and chapters singing to stand on its major ideas about the rest of the book, all of which incite the popes and the Crusader leaders to besiege the Muslims economically, especially the people of Egypt. The first section of the book, for example, “includes an explanation of ways to weaken the power of the Sultan and demonstrates the ability of “believers in Christ” to import the necessary products without having to go to “the lands under the Sultan”!!
While the third section of the book focuses on “goods that Muslims need and which they must obtain from abroad”; The fourth section focuses on “the necessity of finding a measure to boycott that is more beneficial than the current measure…to destroy the Muslims, and how to work to prevent any business whatsoever with the countries under the sultan [Qalawun] across the Mediterranean!!”
And in the many chapters that are divided into sections of the book; Torcello Al-Vendeqi presents a list of “the products we need… from the Sultan’s country and they can be obtained from the countries of the Christians,” explaining that Muslims earn a lot of money from this, “and if the Christians stop doing that, this will cause the Sultan and Muslims a great deal of harm.”
It deals with “the damages that will befall the Sultan and the people subject to him if the export of gold, silver, iron, other types of metals and other products to them is stopped.” to his country.”
ban “holy” and to
convince Christians of the necessity of an economic boycott of Muslims and their sultans; Torsello takes care of detailing “the justifiable reasons for preventing any Christian from purchasing any goods brought from the countries subject to the Sultan, regardless of the ways in which they came”! And he was not satisfied with adopting the persuasive method, but he mixed it with the intimidating tendency when he made one of the chapters of his book an answer to the question: “Why should all Christians pursue violators of the Church’s commands in this field everywhere, not only at sea but also on land?”
Finally, the author of the comprehensive economic boycott plan for the Islamic world explained “the penalties that must be inflicted on the princes, the rulers of the regions, and the groups that do not abide by these procedures, and receive these goods at their docks or on their lands.” The army – for the war, and how much “it costs”.
Torsello drew the attention of the readers of his plan to the fact that “the person whom the Holy Church of the Lord will take charge of appointing him a leader may be able to compel Muslims living in those areas to refrain from exporting or importing any commodity from the lands belonging to the Muslim Sultan”! The Crusader siege here is no longer confined to preventing the followers of the Church from importing Muslim goods, but rather includes preventing Muslims from importing their “halal” goods!!
While this Crusader plan was presented to the Pope, he pondered it, and he ordered to study the possibility of its implementation Indeed, there are decisions by “ecclesiastical excommunication” from “Christian forgiveness” issued by the popes themselves, those decisions that multiplied after the restoration of Acre, which showed the impossibility of the success of the military crusades, and paved the way for the practice of economic boycott weapons as “the weakest of faith,” especially with the flourishing exchange Trade between Islamic countries and European trading cities/states such as Venice and Genoa.
Iraqi Dr. Elaf Asim Mustafa – in his study of ‘The Role of the Papacy and Piracy in Paralyzing Eastern Trade in the Mediterranean Sea – 1292-1498 A.D.’ (= 691-803 AH) – summarized for us the most famous papal decisions related to the commercial boycott of Muslims. And that starting with the era of Pope Nicholas IV (1288-1292 AD), who worked to cut off any commercial relationship between the merchants of Egypt and the Mediterranean merchants, and after that came Pope Boniface XI (1303-1306 AD) who worked on issuing decisions that differentiate between the products exported to Egypt. Like textiles for pepper that Europeans need in severe winters. “
Dr. Elaf mentions that “Pope Clement V (1305-1314 AD) issued a decree prohibiting the sending of all goods to Egypt, whether commercial or military, and whoever violates this would be exposed to the most severe types of ecclesiastical deprivation in that era,” as “Pope John XXI (1316-) 1334 AD) King of Cyprus, Hue IV (1301-1325 AD), in 1323 AD, cut off all commercial routes in the Mediterranean in front of any ship trying to trade with the Egyptians and the Mamluk state, by giving them the right to piracy.
According to the orientalist Brunschvik’s conclusion; The most important constant in the decisions of the “papal excommunication” is that merchants and kings did not abide by them most of the time, as “the Christian states were reluctant to violate those decisions, for example that when Genoa wanted to direct some weapons to Tunisia when it came to 1452 AD (856 AH), it considered it its duty. To authorize the Pope,” that is, to ask him to authorize it.
Waste decisions, and Durant informs us of the enormous commercial activities of the Italian city of Genoa and the diversity of its economic relations; He says that “the merchant fleet of Genoa consisted of two hundred ships with twenty thousand sailors on it”, and that it “traded freely with the Muslim countries, as did Venice, Pisa and Spain…; and many of these Italian cities sold weapons to Muslims during the days of the Crusades, And powerful popes like Innocent III (d. 613 AH / 1216 AD) denounced any trade with Muslims!!
Then Durant illustrates, in a poetic way, how much Christian merchants respected the decisions of the popes; He comments, saying: “But gold was a stronger sign of debt or spilled blood, and that is why the” forbidden trade “continued in its normal course! Then he concludes by saying: “The greatest of all popes and the most powerful in authority could not make his voice louder than the ringing of gold!”
The threat of economic sanctions to protect the interests of Christian Europe was not limited to the popes; Here is the French political thinker Pierre Dubois (d. after 721 AH / 1321 AD) – paradoxically one of the early theorists of the separation of the French state from the subordination of the Church and the Popes – we find him calling, “in a letter on the recovery of the Holy Land” to adopt the weapon of the boycott against the enemies. According to Durant; Dubois saw that “all of Europe must be united under the banner of the King of France, as an emperor who takes his capital in Constantinople, and that this fortress opposes Islam…, and that an economic boycott of every Christian nation that begins a war against another Christian nation must be declared.”
The tolerance pursued by Christian merchants in search of wealth and profit was not exclusive to the military leaders in their battles aimed at the conquest and occupation of Muslim cities. Historians of the diaries of the Crusades record accurately the facts of these leaders’ use of the economic siege tool as a synonym for its military counterpart in their vexation of Muslims. The historian Ibn al-Atheer records in the events of the year 429 AH / 1039 AD that the King of Abkhaz, in his siege of the people of the city of Tbilisi, “set up a siege and a strait on them, so the food ran out and the merma was cut off, so its people went to Azerbaijan, mobilizing the Muslims and asking them for their help.”
This is what the Crusaders’ Franks followed after that in many cases, including that when they occupied Antioch, the Crusader king surrounded the “fortress of Al-Atharb”, which is today the town of “Atarib” located west of the Syrian city of Aleppo, so he gathered his troops from the Franks in the year 504 AH / 1110AD The fortress of Al-Atharib … and confined it and forbade the misfortune, and the matter became too difficult for those who were among the Muslims “until they surrendered to their Crusader enemy, for” he ruled the fortress by force and forcibly killed two thousand of his people, and enslaved and captured the rest. ” According to Ibn al-Atheer’s narration.
The bitter economic siege imposed by the Crusaders on Islamic cities and frontiers was a reason sometimes for their people to follow funny tricks to break it. Among this is what Ibn Shaddad al-Mawsili (d. 632 AH / 1234 AD) mentions – in the ‘Sultan Anecdotes’ – within the events of the year 585 AH / 1189 AD, that “the Franks.. turned their boats around Acre, guarding it from the Muslim boats entering it, and it was in great need of In it to food and food, a group of Muslims rode in Beirut (= a ship) and dressed in the clothes of the Franks until [they] shaved their beards and put pigs on the surface of the bowl so that they could be seen from a distance, and they hung crosses, and they came to the country.. until I entered the port of the country.., and he was happy Great, the need was taken from the people of the country.”
In contrast; The history books talked about dozens of incidents in which the Crusaders were subjected to a naval economic siege that often forced them to withdraw from Muslim lands. Among this is what the historian Al-Maqrizi (d. 845 AH / 1441 AD) mentions – in ‘Al-Moawa’at wa’l-I’tibar’ – saying that in the year 648 AH / 1250 AD, “the Islamic fleet came from the direction of Mansoura [Northern Egypt], and surrounded the Franks [Damietta], and captured fifty-two ships of the Franks, and was killed About a thousand men were captured from them, so the Meera was cut off from the Franks, and the high prices became too high for them and became confined … So the power of the Franks weakened and the prices increased for them, and they began to demand a truce from the Muslims, provided they hand over Damietta.
Principles and interests and
among the forms of the economic boycott of the deeply significant opponents in our heritage is what was narrated by the historian Ibn Al-Adim (d.660 AH / 1262 AD) – in “In order to seek the history of Aleppo” – regarding the reason for the Umayyad Caliph Abd al-Malik bin Marwan adopting the Islamic dinar currency in the year 75 AH / 695 CE; According to what Ibn al-Jawzi chronicled in al-Muntazim. Which had a profound strategic impact, contributing to shaping the future of Islamic civilization and its possession of the advantage of monetary sovereignty in the global economy for eight centuries, as we see today from the sovereignty of the US dollar.
According to Ibn al-Adim; Before the reign of Abd al-Malik, “the dinars came from the country of the Romans (= today’s Turkey) and they were released (= sold) to them (= writing paper), and it was written on the tops of the rolls (= the newspapers): {Christ will not refuse to be a burden to them. To the end of the verse, when the King of Romans looked at the book and said: What is this? It was read (to him and it was said) to him: They cursed your god whom you worship, meaning Jesus (peace be upon him). In dinars, insulting your Prophet, so Abd al-Malik became distressed, and Khalid bin Yazid bin Muawiyah (d. 85 AH / 705 AD) – and he was a cunning person – came to him and told him, and Khalid said to him: Do not be sad! To which he takes her as she wants !!
In Al-Waqidi’s account of the story, a clearer statement of the secondary doctrinal dimension behind that political and economic decision taken by the Roman king. He said that “the Copts used to remember Christ in the heads of the birds and attributed him to God Almighty God a great height, and make the cross a place in the name of God, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. The content of this story summarizes for us the history of the conflict between Muslims and Christians – especially in its economic and commercial aspect – and its relationship to the sanctities; The Roman king was angry and promised an economic boycott of what he thought was an insult to Jesus, who he would take as a “god” besides God Almighty!
From the same standpoint, several fatwas were issued by Muslim scholars and their leaders regarding the controls of dealing with the warrior Christians, and there is another motive related to the perception of some Muslims towards the purity of the Christian product in general and the extent to which it conforms to Islamic conditions, and the permissibility of enabling Christians to use currencies in which the name of God Almighty is inscribed. In the book ‘Tahdheeb al-Mudawwanah’ by the Maliki jurist of Qayrawani Abu Saeed al-Azdi known as al-Baradei (d. after 430 AH/1040 AD) that a Muslim “does not buy from the warlike dinars and dirhams in which the name of God Almighty is in it for their impurity, they were people of war or covenant”!
Among the old Islamic fatwas that clashed with the principle of religious purity and the political pressure of the present moment; The fatwa of the Maliki jurist Abu Bakr al-Tartushi – who was a contemporary of the Crusades – explicitly prohibits the consumption of “rumi cheese”, bypassing the hesitation of Imam Malik regarding the ruling on this food product; As we have seen in the text in which we issued this article, quoting Al-Qarafi Al-Maliki.
Among those funny fatwas in which the jurists clashed with the principles of holiness and purity, taking into account realistic material interests; The fatwa of the Maliki jurist Ibn Marzouk, the grandson of al-Talmisani (d. 842 AH / 1438 AD) regarding the ruling on copying on paper imported from the lands of the Roman and economical.
Influential contexts, and
if we focus on reviewing the fatwas of the economic boycott of the enemy on the Maliki sect, this is due to the fact that its jurists were – by virtue of the geography of their countries – on permanent lines of contact with the Crusaders and all Western Christians in Andalusia and North Africa, and even in the Levant and Egypt such as Alexandria. Their main premise for most of the fatwas of the economic boycott was the saying of Imam Malik in “The Blog” by Imam Sahnoun (d. 240 AH / 855 AD): “As for everything that is strength over the people of Islam, what they are strengthened by in their wars, such as shepherds (= horses and camels), or weapons or Peat (= home furniture), or something that is known to be power in war, of copper or something else, because they do not sell that. “
Following in the footsteps of Imam Malik’s fatwas, his followers marched in the Islamic West, such as the jurist Abdul Hamid Al-Sayegh Al-Qayrawani (d. And they wrested sovereignty over the entire island of Sicily in the year 484 AH / 1091 AD, then he saw the gathering of clouds of these attacks on the horizon and they were about to head – after his death – to the coasts of the Levant, a ruthless colonial Crusader invasion.
Given these dangerous situational contexts; It is possible to understand the position of Imam al-Sayegh al-Qayrawani when he issued a fatwa that it is not permissible to trade in food and other things with the enemies, if the trade “strengthens them to fight the Muslims,” and they gain “great money” from it, because the enemies were “in his days, they were strengthened by the money that reached them on matters that cause harm.” Muslims”; According to Imam Al-Wancharisi (d. 914 AH / 1509 AD) in ‘Al-Mi’ar Al-Mu’ribed’.
In light of the expansion of the Christian kingdoms in the Islamic geography of Andalusia; Ibn Rushd, the grandfather, expanded his fatwa prohibiting trade with Europeans, proposing practical mechanisms to monitor the implementation of that fatwa; He considered that “it is the duty of the ruler of the Muslims to prevent [his subjects] from entering the land of war for trade, and to place observatories in the roads and salaried areas (= guard patrols) for that, so that no one finds a way to do that, especially if he fears that what is not permitted to be sold from them will be brought to them. He is a force over the people of Islam for their help in their wars.”
And within the pressures of the reality of contact and confrontation between Muslims and Christians in the Islamic West, the conclusion of the Sultan of Morocco, Abi Al-Hassan Al-Marini (d. This agreement allowed the Mallorcan subjects to trade in Morocco, but it was forbidden for them to export from it wheat, weapons, horses, and salted and tanned hides. ” According to the Moroccan historian Muhammad al-Mununi (d. 1420 AH / 1999 CE) in his book ‘Wapers from the Marinid Civilization.
It also included the decisions taken by the sultans of Egypt imposing a trade ban on the export of certain goods to European kingdoms; The historian al-Maqrizi informs us – in his book ‘Al-Suluk’ – that in the year 838 AH / 1435 AD, “the merchants in Alexandria were forbidden to sell spices (= spices) to the Franks, and this harmed them.” In the year 1120 AH / 1709 CE, a decree was issued in Cairo that “not to sell anything from the animal and coffee section to the Frankish genus”! According to the Egyptian historian Al-Jabarti (d. 1237 AH / 1825 AD) in ‘Wonders of Antiquities’.