Indeed, God is beautiful and he loves beauty.
That is a quote that hits you right at the very
beginning of the material we're diving into today.
It really does. It's a hadith, a saying attributed
to the Prophet Muhammad. And honestly, it feels
less like a strict religious instruction and
more like, well, a universal key. It kind of
unlocks this entire conversation we are about
to have. Yeah, I completely agree. It sets the
stakes immediately. Because when you hear that
The idea that God actually is beauty. it fundamentally
changes how you approach the physical world around
you. Right, because making something beautiful
isn't just, you know, interior decoration at
that point. Exactly. It's an act of worship.
It's an act of reaching out to the divine. And
today we're going to see how that very specific
drive for beauty actually managed to bridge one
of the most hostile divides in human history.
And hostile is definitely the operating word
there. Because when most of us think about the
history of the Mediterranean, specifically the
Middle Ages, let's say from the 10th to the 16th
century, We have a very specific, almost like
a Hollywood movie playing in our heads. Oh, for
sure. Lots of chainmail and dramatic speeches.
Right. We see the Crusades. We see the Reconquista
in Spain. We picture these glorious, bloody naval
battles. Basically, we see a massive clash of
civilizations. We are so conditioned to view
the medieval relationship between Islam and Christianity
as this perpetual binary state of war. Us versus
them. Cross versus Crescent. Fortress Europe
against the Islamic East. And look, I am not
going to sit here and say, The wars didn't happen.
Right. I mean, the violence was very real. It
was absolutely real. But if you only look at
the battlefields, you completely miss the actual
texture of life. You miss the story of how people
actually lived, how they traded, and how they
created things together. And that is exactly
the mission of this deep dive. We're digging
into a really fascinating, incredibly dense collection
of research titled The Medieval Mediterranean
Between Islam and Christianity, Cross -Pollinations
in Art, Architecture, and Material Culture. It's
edited by... Sammy Luigi de Josa, and Nicolaus
Frazidis. And let me tell you, this is not about
how sultans fought kings. No, it really isn't.
This is about how a bowl, a carpet, a bottle
of oil, or even a stone column moved between
these two supposedly separate worlds. It is about
a concept the editors call the aesthetic space.
I love that term, aesthetic space. It sounds
almost sci -fi, but it is actually very grounded.
Let's unpack this immediately before we even
get into the physical objects. What does aesthetic
space actually mean? mean in this context so
think about it this way dogma you know religious
rules strict theology political allegiance all
of that creates borders right it creates walls
it very clearly defines who is in and who is
out but beauty art material refinement That creates
what scholars in the source material call effective
proximity. Effective proximity, meaning it brings
people closer emotionally. Exactly. The core
argument here is that the appreciation of beauty
allowed these two rival faiths to intermingle
in ways that politics just never would have permitted.
Like a Christian could look at an Islamic textile
and admire the weave, the color, the sheer luxury
of it without necessarily converting to Islam
or feeling like a traitor. Yeah. The aesthetic
space is essentially this zone where judgment
is suspended in favor of admiration. So beauty
transcends all the heavy baggage. It's like a
demilitarized zone for the eyes. That is a perfect
analogy. A demilitarized zone for the eyes. And
to see this zone in action, the researchers use
a methodology called Microhistory. Microhistory.
That sounds like we're taking a microscope to
the historical timeline. We basically are. Instead
of macrohistory, which deals with the grand rise
and fall of empires and these broad, sweeping
generalizations, we are looking at the story
of specific, tangible objects. We're tracing
individual choices. Like tracking a single package
across the world, but in the 12th century. Precisely.
We're asking questions like, why did a priest
in Italy want a book that looked like it came
from Cairo? Or why did a Muslim soldier... and
built his own tomb using stones that had hardcore
Christian theology carved right into them. That
is wild. Right. When you zoom in that close,
the hard borders on the map just start to dissolve.
I feel like we are conditioned to think of these
medieval borders as rigid iron curtains. You're
on this side, you're safe, you cross the line,
you are deep in enemy territory. But the medieval
Mediterranean was just not like that. It was
a fluid network. It was a sea of connectivity.
As we go through these sources today, I want
you to really try to imagine a world where a
Christian church is decorated with Islamic bowls
and the holiest Christian relics are wrapped
in Muslim silks. OK, it sounds like we need to
completely reorient our mental maps for this.
So let's just jump right into the first segment.
Let's talk about this aesthetic space and the
flow of objects, because you mentioned bowls
in churches just now. And that sounds, well,
to a modern ear, it sounds like someone made
a huge mistake. It really does, doesn't it? But
it was surprisingly common. We are looking at
research. here by Maria Bourne -Poudaki, specifically
focusing on Venetian Crete. Okay, Crete. Right.
Now keep in mind, Crete is this massive island,
strategically smack in the middle of all the
major trade routes. It's a Venetian colony at
this time, so it is Catholic ruled, but the local
population is largely Greek Orthodox. And on
top of all that, it's trading constantly with
the Islamic world. So it's the ultimate crossroads,
a total melting pot. A total melting pot. And
in the late medieval period, Bourne -Poudaki
found... something fascinating in the local church
architecture. They call them immured bacini.
Immured bacini. Okay, I have to be honest, that
sounds like a delicious pasta dish, but I know
it's not. What exactly are we looking at? No
pasta involved, unfortunately. Amir just means
embedded in a wall. And Bacini refers to ceramic
bowls. Got it. So picture a Christian church,
could be Orthodox or Catholic. It has the stone
facade, very solemn, very sturdy. But embedded
right into the exterior walls, high up where
everyone can see them, are these incredibly colorful,
glazed ceramic bowls. And here's the kicker.
Many of them are Islamic ceramics. Wait, so they're
taking bowls like... literal dinnerware made
by Muslims, often featuring Islamic styles and
patterns, and they are cementing them into the
holy walls of a Christian church. That is exactly
what they are doing. That is crazy. We have to
ask the obvious question then. Why? Why on earth
would you put the supposed enemy's dinner plates
on your literal house of worship? Was it some
kind of power statement like we conquered you
so we are taking your bowls as trophies? Or was
it some progressive, hey, we're all the same
message? It's a great question, but the research
suggests it wasn't really theological synchronization.
They definitely weren't trying to say Islam and
Christianity are one. And it wasn't necessarily
a triumphalist conquest thing either. It was
far more practical than that. And it goes right
back to that concept of the aesthetic space.
Practical is what way? It was about the glazed
versus plain aesthetics. See, local pottery in
Crete or mainland Greece at the time was often
unglazed. It was plain terracotta. Like a standard
flower pot. Exactly. It was functional, matte,
and usually just brown or dull red. But these
Islamic bowls coming from Mamluk Egypt or later
coming from Spain, they were glazed. They were
incredibly shiny. They had vivid colors, deep
blues, bright greens, and lusterware that just
caught the Mediterranean sun perfectly. Oh. So
it was about the bling. It was about catching
the light. In a way, yes. It was entirely about
visibility and status. If you are building a
church, you want it to be beautiful. You want
it to shine. You want it to reflect the light
of God literally and metaphorically. These Islamic
bowls provided color and reflection that local
Greek materials simply could not match at the
time. That is so interesting. Right. Because
when that bowl crossed the sea, it lost its specific
religious identity. People stopped seeing this
as a Muslim bull, and it gained a completely
new identity. This is a beautiful, expensive,
exotic object that reflects the sun. It's like
the object gets laundered of its ideology just
by moving geographically. The Islamicness of
the bull evaporates, and only the beautifulness
remains. That's a really great way to put it.
The aesthetic quality completely neutralizes
the political origin. And Bourn -Poudaki's research
really highlights Crete's role here. It wasn't
just a Venetian outpost, it was a massive hub
connecting Mamluk Egypt, Muslim Spain and the
rest of Europe. These bowls are physical, cemented
proof of a trade network that frankly did not
care about religious wars. They cared about supply
and demand. If the Mamluks make the shiniest
bowls, the Christians are absolutely going to
buy them for their churches. And I assume this
intense trade wasn't limited to just ceramics.
I mean, if they're embedding bowls and walls
for the shine, what else are they trading for
the sake of luxury? Textiles. And this is a huge
one. We have a fascinating chapter by Anna Cabrera
Lafuente that looks at Andalusi textiles. Now,
Andalusi refers to Al -Andalus, which is Muslim
Spain. Okay, Muslim Spain. High quality stuff,
I imagine. I feel like Andalusi's silk was probably
the Italian leather of the 13th century. It was
the absolute gold standard. Literally, they were
often woven with actual gold thread. But La Fuente
points out a massive misconception in the history
of all this. For a very long time, historians
and museum curators would find these high -quality
silks in European churches and just automatically
assume, oh, it's nice, it must be from Muslim
Spain. They labeled everything Andalusi. So they
were giving the brand name to everything, regardless
of whether it was actually from there or not,
like calling every tissue a Kleenex. Exactly
like that. It just became a generic term for
high quality. But new research using carbon dating
and deep technical analysis of the weave itself
shows it is a much more complex web. These textiles
were moving along pilgrimage routes, not just
standard trade lines. But here is the most striking
part of her research, and this really challenges
that clash of civilizations narrative we talked
about. These textiles were often used to wrap
Christian relics. Relics? Wait, we're talking
about the bones of saints, pieces of the true
cross, like the holiest of the holy objects.
The absolute holiest objects in Christianity.
Take the San Isidoro Church in Leon, Spain, for
example. You have these ornate reliquaries containing
the physical remains of saints' objects that
believers thought could literally channel divine
power, and they are swathed in silks woven by
Muslim artisans. Wow. And here is the detail
that really gets me. These silks are often covered
in Arabic calligraphy. That seems, I mean, it
seems wildly contradictory. Did the Christians
know? Could they read the Arabic? Sometimes yes,
sometimes no, but often it just didn't matter.
Again, enter the aesthetic space. The sheer quality
of the fabric, the undeniable luxury of it, is
what signaled reverence. You don't wrap a revered
saint in cheap burlap. You wrap them in the absolute
finest silk available on the market. And if the
finest silk comes from a Muslim workshop in Granada
or Baghdad, then that is exactly what you use.
The sanctity of the relic required the highest
aesthetic honor, completely regardless of who
wove the cloth or what language was written on
it. So the material quality completely trom -
the religious origin it implies that being holy
has a specific look and that look was entirely
shared across the mediterranean that is the key
takeaway here it challenges the whole conquest
narrative it wasn't just we beat them and took
their stuff it suggests a deeply shared culture
of luxury A Christian king and a Muslim sultan
shared the exact same taste. They both agreed
on what power and holiness look like. And that
look was very often Islamic in origin. The visual
language of power in the medieval Mediterranean
was, in many ways, an Islamic visual language.
That connects perfectly to the next segment of
the research. Because it's not just about pretty
objects or luxury goods for the rich. It is about
deeply shared knowledge. It's about the literal
stuff you need to actually practice your religion
on a daily basis. And this brings us to a story
that I honestly found mind -blowing when I was
reading the sources. The balsam of Mataria. Ah,
yes. Hani Hamza's research. This is an absolute
classic example of pragmatism beating dogma.
This is where the rubber meets the road, or rather
where the oil meets the forehead. So, set the
scene for us. What exactly is this balsam, and
why is it so incredibly important? So, we are
talking about a specific type of plant, a balsam
tree, that produced a very specific resin or
oil. In the Christian tradition, specifically
the Coptic and other Eastern churches, this oil
was absolutely essential. It was used to make
chrism, which is the holy anointing oil. Okay.
You need chrism for baptism. You need it for
the ordination of new priests. You need it to
consecrate new churches. Basically, without this
specific oil, legally speaking, within the church,
you cannot perform the sacraments. The entire
mechanism of Christian salvation literally grinds
to a halt without it. OK, so incredibly high
stakes. This isn't just nice perfume. This is
the literal fuel for the religious engine. Very
high stakes. But here is the massive catch. By
the medieval period, this specific plant only
grew effectively in one single garden in the
entire world. Let me guess. Not in Rome. Yeah,
no. And not in Constantinople. Not in Rome, not
in Constantinople. It grew in Mataria, which
was a suburb of Cairo down in Egypt. Which was
under? Mamluk rule. Muslim rule. So the Christian
church, in order to perform its most sacred fundamental
rites, was entirely dependent on a supply chain
that was totally controlled by the Muslim sultan.
Precisely. And the Mamluks absolutely knew it.
They controlled the production of a substance
vital for Christian salvation. Now, if you stick
to the traditional clash of civilizations script,
you would think, oh, the sultan would just burn
the garden to the ground or cut off the supply
to cripple the Christian faith. Right. Strike
a massive blow against the enemy. But they didn't
do that at all. They monetized it. They absolutely
monetized it. And they used it as a brilliant
diplomatic tool. It became a legend. The balsam
of Mataria was famous throughout Europe and the
Middle East. And what is really fascinating is
the blend of lore surrounding this garden. The
Christians believed the garden was. Right. So
for Christians, this is deeply sanctified ground.
It's a major holy site. Exactly. But the Mamluks,
the Muslim rulers, were the caretakers of this
Christian holy site. They actively maintained
the garden. They organized the harvesting of
the oil. Hani Hamza's research shows that this
wasn't just a simple commodity being traded.
It was heavy diplomacy. Sultans would gift small,
precious vials of this oil to European kings
or even directly to the pope. Wow. It shows such
a complex, layered relationship. It's like the
sultan is saying, you are my enemy. technically,
but I control the literal keys to your religious
rituals and I am going to use that leverage to
keep you talking to me. But I'm also going to
protect the site because it's valuable to me
too. It is the... ultimate frenemy situation.
I hate you, but I desperately need your holy
oil. I hate you, but I really like your diplomatic
gold. It proves that the economic and ritual
ties were so much stronger than the ideological
divide. And it goes even deeper than just trade
and ritual. It goes to the very look of knowledge
itself. We have another incredible case study
here by Alison Oka about book bindings. Now,
this is something that actually affects us even
today when we think about books. Being a massive
book lover, this one really resonated with me.
Because we all think of the classic old scholarly
book. You picture dark leather, gold tooling,
maybe a protective flap on the edge. It just
screams old world Europe to us. Right. If you
picture a quintessential Renaissance book sitting
in a beautiful library in Florence or Venice,
you are actually picturing something that looks
very, very Islamic. Really? Still? Yes. Because
before this period. European books, what we call
Gothic books, were extremely heavy. They had
thick wooden boards for covers. They were clunky.
They had big heavy metal clasps to keep them
shut. They were basically meant to sit on a heavy
wooden lectern and just stay there. Like a chained
library book. Exactly. But in the Islamic world,
specifically the Mamluk and Ottoman empires,
they had developed an entirely different, much
more advanced technology for books. They used
pasteboards, which are layers of paper glued
together instead of thick wood. It was so much
lighter. They used incredibly fine leather. They
pioneered gold tooling, which is stamping intricate
gold geometric patterns directly into the leather.
And they used the envelope flap that folds over
the front to protect the pages. And the Italians
saw this and just said, We want that. Exactly.
As the Italian humanists started reviving classical
knowledge, you know, translating Plato and Aristotle,
they wanted a completely new look for this new
wave of learning. They did not want the clunky,
heavy Gothic style that was heavily associated
with what they saw as the Dark Ages. They wanted
sophistication. And to them, the high culture
of the East, the Islamic world, visually represented
that intellectual sophistication. That is so
interesting. So the physical vehicle for the
European Renaissance, the actual physical book
itself, was technologically and aesthetically
an Islamic import. The container of the knowledge
was Islamic, even if the text inside was Latin
or Greek. Allison Ota traces exactly how these
specific bookbinding techniques migrated across
the sea from Cairo and Istanbul straight into
Venice. It's just another amazing example of
how the aesthetic... the cool factor, if you
will, completely overrode any religious prejudice.
To be modern, to be seen as a true intellectual
in Renaissance Italy, meant holding a book that
looked like it came straight out of the Sultan's
personal library. I love that so much. It's literally
like buying the latest tech today. It's entirely
about the design language. You want the sleekest,
most advanced design completely regardless of
where it was invented or who manufactured it.
It really is. And sometimes this intense mixing
of design languages creates something that is
truly baffling to historians, a hybrid object
that completely defies simple categorization.
Which perfectly brings us to segment three, the
hybrid object. When three hands touch one artifact,
we're looking at a very specific artifact found
at Mount Athos, specifically at St. Paul's Monastery.
And this thing sounds like a complete puzzle.
It is a massive puzzle. This is research done
by Nikolaos Frisidis and Pascalis Ingroudis.
This object is, well, the best word for it is
a survivor. It's a composite object. Describe
it for the listener. What does it actually look
like? So imagine a metal candlestick. The base
of it is beautifully worked metal. It features
a prominent double -headed eagle and various
astrological symbols. Now this base is seljuk.
It comes from Muslim Anatolia, probably made
in the 12th or 13th century. Okay, so a Muslim
-made candlestick base. Right. But attached firmly
to the top of it is a cross, a distinctly Venetian
Catholic cross. Okay. And the whole composite
thing is currently sitting in a strict Orthodox
monastery on Mount Athos, and it was used in
Greek liturgy. That is absurd. A Muslim base,
a Catholic top, and an Orthodox home. It is like
the turducken of... religious artifacts that
is well that's a very vivid image but yes yeah
it physically embodies the micro history of the
entire region this object isn't just one thing
it is a literal collision of three distinct cultures
how does that even happen practically do they
just find a base weld across onto it and call
it a day essentially yes but the analysis goes
so much deeper than the physical joining the
real question is why did they keep the base Why
didn't the Christians just melt it down and forge
a properly Christian base for their cross? And
the answer lies in that symbol on the base. The
double -headed eagle. Now wait, I know the double
-headed eagle is a distinctly Byzantine symbol.
It represents the Roman Empire looking both east
and west. You still see it on flags in the region
today. That is the Byzantine and Orthodox interpretation,
yes. It is imperial. It represents the divine
authority of Constantinople. But in the Seljuk
context, the Islamic context where the base was
originally made, the double -headed eagle was
also a very common symbol. But there it was cosmological.
It represented power, sure, but often in an astrological
or talismanic sense. It was viewed as a protector
figure. Oh, so you have a symbol that easily
passes. in both cultures. Exactly. This is the
absolute key to its survival. The visual overlap
allowed the object to survive the transition
between religions. A Christian monk looks at
this candlestick base and sees the Byzantine
eagle, his own imperial heritage. A Muslim artisan
looks at the exact same base and sees a Seljuk
cosmological symbol. because the symbol was completely
ambiguous, or rather, because it held a shared
yet different meaning for both TDs. The object
could be seamlessly repurposed rather than destroyed.
It could just pass. It is like linguistic code
switching, but for physical objects. It speaks
whatever visual language the viewer happens to
speak. Perfectly said. And that ability to code
switch visually is the only thing that saved
it. It allowed a Seljuk object to literally hold
up a Venetian cross on a Greek altar. It proves
that these cultures were not hermetically sealed
by... Speaking of things being misunderstood,
and this is honestly my favorite story in the
entire collection of sources we read that we
have to talk about the marble slabs. This story.
I mean, of all the stories we've covered, this
one feels the most ironic. It feels like a comedy
scriptwriter wrote it. Oh, this is the ultimate
historical irony. This is the story of the marble
slabs of 1166. Segment four, misunderstanding
is preservation. Let's dive in. What exactly
are these slabs? These are massive, incredibly
heavy marble inscriptions. Originally, they were
set up inside the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople
during the height of the Byzantine era. And they
contain the text of a very specific, incredibly
dense theological decree. It's from a church
council held in 1166 that was furiously debating
the meaning of a phrase from the Gospel of John.
My father is greater than I. My father is greater
than I. OK, that is heavy theology. Extremely
heavy. It is fundamentally about the nature of
Christ. Is he totally equal to God the Father?
Is he somehow subordinate? The council ultimately
decided on a specific orthodox interpretation
that Christ is equal in his divinity but inferior
in his humanity. Now, the minute details don't
matter as much as the fact that this text is
hardcore, uncompromising Christian dogma. It
is explicitly Trinitarian. It rigidly defines
the nature of Jesus as the Son of God. Okay,
so massive Christian text carved into marble
on a wall in the Hagia Sophia. Standard Byzantine
stuff. Standard. Until the year 1453, the Ottomans
conquer Constantinople. The Hagia Sophia is converted
into a mosque. Now, usually you would expect
the new Islamic rulers to smash these slabs to
dust, right? Yeah. The text completely contradicts
Islamic theology, which views Jesus strictly
as a mortal prophet, not the literal son of God.
God has no partners. That is the absolute central
tenet of Islam. Right. So technically, to the
new rulers, this marble slab is pure blasphemy.
But they didn't smash it. Fast forward a century
or so. These massive slabs are moved from the
Hagia Sophia. And where do they end up? They
end up decorating the mausoleum, the grand tomb
of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent. Wait, wait,
wait, wait. Let me process this. You're telling
me the tomb of one of the absolute greatest Muslim
sultans in history is decorated with huge Byzantine
slabs proclaiming the literal divinity of Christ.
Yes, the longest lapidary Byzantine inscription
in existence ended up protecting the body of
the Caliph of Islam. How? Why would they do that?
That seems completely impossible. That is exactly
the question the researchers asked. Forik Bilici
and Helene Fregaki call this phenomenon misunderstanding
as preservation. The most likely explanation
is that the Ottoman architects simply could not
read the Byzantine Greek theology. Or, perhaps
more accurately, they just didn't care what the
words actually meant. They cared deeply about
what the words looked like. They just really
liked the font. In a way, yes. They viewed the
script as deeply ancient. There is this widespread
medieval concept of talismanic power. The sheer
otherness of the text, the fact that it was ancient,
incomprehensible Greek, beautifully carved into
high -quality marble, gave it a profound sense
of magic, of lingering power. They likely saw
it as spolia -reused material that carried the
baraka, the divine blessing or power of the ancient
conquered city. So they looked at it and thought,
this looks incredibly powerful, it looks magical,
let's put it on the sultan's tomb to protect
him. Even though if they had bothered to translate
it, it would be a total heresy to them. Exactly.
The aesthetic space trumped the theology completely
and totally. The stones were preserved and elevated
because they were impressive artifacts of power,
not because of the actual message they conveyed.
The visual awe completely silenced the theological
conflict. Now there is a story in the notes here
about a mufti. Is this a legend or did this actually
happen? It's a bit of both, but it's a great
little anecdote recounted in the sources that
illustrates the mindset. The legend goes that
Sultan Selim II, Suleiman's successor, eventually
noticed these weird stones and asked a mufti,
a high -ranking religious scholar, what the Greek
words actually said. Put yourself in that mufti's
shoes. You probably don't know ancient Greek.
Or if you do, you know it says something intensely
Christian. You cannot look the sultan in the
eye and say, hey, just so you know, your dad
is buried under a massive monument to Christian
dogma. Oh, my God. That is a career ending move
or honestly a life ending move. Right. So the
mufti thinks fast and claims they are the mysteries
of Ali, referring to Ali, the cousin and son
in law of the prophet Muhammad. He basically
tells the sultan, oh, it's deep secret Islamic
mystery, your majesty. Don't worry about it.
He improvised. He completely. bluffed. He claimed
the Christian text was esoteric Islamic wisdom
just to protect the stones or, more likely, to
protect his own neck. But it is a perfect historical
example of how meaning is entirely malleable.
The physical object stays exactly the same, but
the story we tell ourselves about it changes
to fit our current political or aesthetic needs.
That is just, I love that so much. It perfectly
shows that people will just bend reality to fit
the aesthetic they want. If they want to keep
the pretty powerful looking stones, they will
invent a theological reason to justify keeping
the pretty stones. And that bending of reality,
that negotiation, brings us right into... To
segment five, the idea of identity and architecture,
how individual people actively use these aesthetic
choices to define who they were. It's about blurring
the lines. It's about how minority groups navigated
this deeply mixed up visual world. Right. And
we're talking about tiras again, but this time
specifically Coptic tiras. Right. We touched
on luxury textiles earlier, but this is a very
specific political application of them. This
is Arielle Winnick's research. Tiras were highly
specific inscribed textiles, usually taking the
form of robes of honor. In the Islamic world,
they were officially distributed by the caliph
himself. They had the caliph's name and titles
prominently embroidered right onto the bands
of the fabric. If you wore one in public, it
meant you were in with the in crowd. You actively
had the ruler's favor. Okay. So it's like getting
a varsity jacket from the popular team captain.
Right. Or wearing a branded hoodie from a really
exclusive tech company. Exactly. It was a highly
visible marker of political loyalty and status.
But here is the fascinating twist. Coptic Christians
living in Egypt, who were obviously living as
a religious minority under Muslim rule, adopted
this exact aesthetic form. They started making
their own tiras. But they couldn't possibly wear
the caliph's name if they were doing their own
separate religious thing, right? That would defeat
the purpose. Well, they kept the entire visual
language. They kept the distinct bands of writing
on the sleeves. They kept the exact layout and
colors. But instead of naming the Muslim caliph,
their inscriptions named God or Christ, or they
use specific Coptic Christian prayers. So from
10 feet away in the street, you look exactly
like a loyal, wealthy subject wearing the trendy,
officially sanctioned Islamic court fashion.
But up close, you are actually reading a Christian
prayer. Precisely. It is all about fitting in
while simultaneously standing out. Winnick argues
that these Christians were basically inscribing
their bodies. They were actively adopting the
dominant visual culture because, well, that's
just what power and success look like in that
society. But they were subtly subverting the
text to assert their own specific minority religious
identity. It's a brilliant survival strategy.
You don't retreat into a cultural shell. You
put on the camouflage of the ruling class, but
you tweak it just enough for your own community
to recognize. That is so incredibly smart. It
is visual code switching again, just like the
candlestick. And the sources show it wasn't just
happening on their clothes. It was happening
in their massive public buildings, too. We have
a whole section here on Mucornis. Mucornis, yes.
If you have ever seen pictures of the Alhambra
in Spain or really any great medieval mosque,
you know what Mucornis is. It's that incredibly
complex geometric honeycomb vaulting in the domes
and arches. It almost looks like stone stalactites
hanging down. It is arguably the single most
distinctive, recognizable feature. Islamic architecture.
You see a picture of that, you immediately say
Islam. But Richard Peer and McCleary's research
found them inside Christian churches. Yes, inside
Armenian churches and in other Christian buildings
in Mosul and across Anatolia. A great example
he uses is the Church of the Holy Apostles at
Anani. Now, why on earth would a Christian architect
consciously choose to use the literal brand logo
of Islamic architecture for their church? Because
to them, it wasn't the brand logo of Islam. It
was just the modern style. To be contemporary
in the 12th or 13th century, to show your congregation
and your rivals that you were on the absolute
cutting edge of building technology and high
fashion, you used Muqarnas vaulting. So it wasn't
viewed as Muslim architecture at all. It was
just viewed as... as modern architecture. Exactly.
We modern people are the ones projecting the
strict religious label onto the geometry today.
Back then, it was just the incredibly cool, structurally
brilliant new way to hold up a roof. It shows
that architectural forms were treated as neutral
technology, as fashion trends, not strictly as
loaded religious symbols. If the engineering
works well and it looks beautiful, we are going
to use it no matter who invented it. If it works,
use it. That honestly seems to be the overarching
motto of this entire era we're looking at. Which
brings us to our final major case study in this
segment, esoteric spolia in Cairo. And this one
involves actual magic, doesn't it? It really
does. This is Sami Luigi de Jus' research focusing
on the mosque of Sultan al -Nasir Mohammed in
Cairo. So the sultan is building a massive new
mosque. And he goes out of his way to import
very specific columns, ancient, often Christian
or pre -Christian columns, from completely different
historical sites to hold up his mosque. Right.
Now, typically, older historians would look at
that and say, oh, he is physically conquering
the past. He is taking their ancient columns
and stepping on them to show Islamic dominance,
standard empire stuff. But De Giza argues it
is much more nuanced than that. He connects this
specific architectural choice to... Hermeticism.
Hermeticism. Like Hermes, the Greek god. Yes.
But specifically how he was viewed in the medieval
Islamic mind. Hermes Trismegistus was a legendary
figure often directly associated with the Quranic
prophet Idris. He wasn't just a myth. He was
seen as a profound sage, the ultimate source
of ancient wisdom, early science, and yes, esoteric
magic. So reusing these very specific ancient
columns wasn't just cheap recycling to save stone.
Not at all. It was a highly deliberate attempt
to harness that ancient wisdom, to physically
harness Baraka, which means blessing or spiritual
power. By incorporating these specific ancient
stones into the very fabric of the mosque, the
sultan was trying to tap into a continuous lineage
of power that went back way before Islam, way
before Christianity, to the very mythological
roots of wisdom itself. It shows that the aesthetic
space wasn't just about collecting pretty things.
It was about curating powerful things. It was
about surrounding yourself with objects that
had a poppable esoteric charge to them. It really
changes how you look at a historic building.
You aren't just looking at a pile of dead rocks.
You're looking at a carefully constructed battery
of spiritual power, assembled from whatever potent
parts they could find across the world. A battery
of spiritual power. I really like that phrasing.
That is exactly what they believed it was. So
let's take a breath and look at everything we've
covered. We have looked at ceramic bowls, silk
textiles, holy oil, book bindings, a hybrid candlestick,
misunderstood marble slabs, and magically charged
architecture. And the one glaring common thread
through all of it is that none of these things
stayed in their assigned lane. None of them.
And that perfectly brings us to the synthesis
of this whole deep dive, the concept of the New
Mediterranean. Let's bring it all together for
the listener. What is the big overarching takeaway
from all this microhistory? The big takeaway
is that we fundamentally have to stop looking
at maps of battles if we want to actually understand
human history. The historians Horden and Purcell
talk about this paradigm of fragmentation and
connectivity. Yes, the politics of the Mediterranean
were deeply fragmented. The religious dogmas
were distinct and often violently opposed. But
the connectivity, the relentless trade, the shared
art, the unstoppable flow of beautiful objects
was intense and constant. It's like looking at
a huge dysfunctional family that violently argues
at the dinner table about politics, but they
still pass the salt and share the same food.
Yes. That's exactly it. Islam and Christianity
in the medieval Mediterranean were not just distant
neighbors who occasionally waved or shot arrows
across a tall fence. They were roommates. They
literally shared the furniture. They wore each
other's luxury clothes. They ate off each other's
shiny plates. I am realizing that. It really
humanizes the past, doesn't it? It strips away
the grand, impersonal narrative of holy war.
It does. It reminds us that looking closely at
a single object, a bowl and a wall, a book on
a desk, tells a much truer, more intimate story
of human interaction than any royal treaty or
grand declaration of war ever could. War is an
event, but trade is a life. Art is a life. War
is an event, but art is a life. That is profound.
And I think we really need to highlight the significance
of this research. Why does this matter for the
field of religious studies today? It matters
immensely because it absolutely proves that religions
do not exist in hermetically sealed vacuums.
They never have. We co -construct our visual
and spiritual worlds. Christian art in this period
looks the way it does directly because of Islamic
art and vice versa. You cannot untangle the threads
of one from the other without destroying the
whole tapestry. It forces interfaith understanding.
by showing that at our core, we've always been
borrowing from each other to define ourselves.
So if we look at the world today, we see a lot
of incredibly rigid boundaries. We see a lot
of intense us versus them rhetoric everywhere
we look. We do. But this deep dive, to me, raises
a really provocative final thought. Think about
what we just learned. If a dense Byzantine theological
decree literally defining the Trinity can end
up lovingly protecting a Muslim sultan's tomb,
and if a distinctly Muslim style of vaulting
can be used to hold up the roof of a Christian
church just because it looked cool, what modern
boundaries that we currently think are rigid
and permanent might actually be just as fluid?
That is the ultimate question. If we looked at
our own object today, You know, our phones, our
clothes, our food, the media we consume instead
of our angry politics. Would we see divided enemies
or would we just see roommates sharing the same
space? I think if we look close enough, we'd
see a whole lot of roommates. I think so, too.
We're far more connected by what we find beautiful
than we are divided by what we believe. Expert
speaker, thank you so much for guiding us through
this material. This has been an incredible trip
through history. It was my pleasure entirely.
Indeed, beauty is a remarkably powerful thing.
It truly is. Yeah. And to you, the listener,
the next time you see a piece of art or an old
building or even just a complex pattern on a
rug in your house, take a second to look closer.
Ask yourself, where did this actually come from?
And who might have loved this exact same design
centuries before me? You might be very surprised
by the answer. Thanks for joining us on the Deep
Dive. We will see you next time.