Byzantine Attitudes toward Islam during the Late Middle Ages VRYONIS, SPEROS Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies; Summer 1971; 12, 2; ProQuest pg. 263

Byzantine Attitudes toward Islam 
during the Late Middle Ages 

Speros Vryonis Jr 

THE PRIMARY SOURCE for tracing Byzantine views of Islam is, of 
course, the body of mediaeval Greek literature, some of which 
is specifically devoted to Islam, while other writings reflect 

these attitudes only indirectly. But this literature comes from the 
hands of a restricted number of literati, and though some of its con­
tents undoubtedly filtered down to the masses in one form or another, 
its most immediate audience were the literate upper classes, the 
carriers of Byzantine formal culture. 

The utterances and articulated attitudes of the illiterate masses 
toward Islam have largely gone unrecorded. Traces have survived in 
the works of the literati, as when they record certain popular beliefs 
and prophecies. Beyond these a certain element in the folklore of the 
masses has survived, on a limited scale. Thus both the upper and 
lower classes were aware of respective attitudes toward Islam, and 
undoubtedly these writings and beliefs formed a common frame­
work of attitudes toward Islam within which the popular or learned 
ingredients predominated, according to the social and intellectual 
outlook of each individual. But, where contemporary literature and 
surviving records of popular belief fail, we are forced back on induc­
tion from actions and deeds. 

Finally, one must take into account the bearers ofIslam with whom 
the Byzantines came into contact during this late period. Though to 
modern historians Islam as a religion and the Turks as conquerors of 
the Byzantines are two distinct and discernible historical entities, they 
were often indistinguishable to contemporary Greek observers. Thus 
the frequent confusion of Turk and Muslim, of ethnic and religious 
qualities, further and erroneously colored the Byzantine attitudes to­
ward Islam. As the Turk was also a Muslim, the mediaeval Greek 
often attributed characteristics which were Turkish to the Islamic 

263 



264 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

religion. In this case we would be concerned not so much with Islam 
as with what the Greeks considered Islam to be. 

I 
The early Byzantine attitudes toward Islam emerge primarily from 

the genre of religious polemic of the eighth and ninth centuries.1 The 
remainder of Byzantine literature from this earlier period, as well as 
recorded historical events, tells us considerably less. Though there 
were very extensive religious conversions in the former Byzantine 
provinces of Syria, Palestine and Egypt, these largely affected the 
heretical Monophysite populations; the Byzantine authors do not 
concern themselves with the fate of these populations under Arab 
rule, and their actions reflect Monophysite rather than Orthodox 
views of Islam. The religious polemic between Islam and Byzantine 
Christianity arose in the lands of the Caliphate, where such Orthodox 
clergy as John of Damascus and Theodore Abu Qurra felt the need 
to defend the Christian religion against the attacks of Muslims who 
now held political mastery. As defence also implies attack, these 
theologians defended Christianity by attacking the Islamic religion. 
It was through these Orthodox Christians in Islamic lands that a de­
tailed, and hostile, knowledge of Islam came into Byzantium during 
the ninth century in the writings ofNicetas of Byzantium. There were, 
from the beginning, four principal categories in this religious disputa­
tion: (1) the reasons for the historico-political situation, explained in 
terms of God's will, (2) dogma, (3) ethics, and (4) cult practice. Since 
they remained constant in Byzantine religious polemic and carried 
over into the late period, I shall defer discussing them. 

The classical Byzantine view of the Byzantine Empire was founded 
on the Graeco-Romano-Christian theories of a world state ruled by 
a saviour emperor who was the vicar of Christ. He ruled over an 
oecumene in which the religion was Christian and the formal culture 
Greek. The ancient antithesis between Greek and barbarian was 

1 W. Eichner, "Die Nachrichten tiber den Islam bei den Byzantinern," Der Islam 23 
(1936) 133~2, 197-244. C. Guterbock, Der Islam im Lichte der byzantinischen Polemik (Berlin 
1912). A. Abel, "La poUmique damascenienne et son influence sur les origines de Ia 
theologie musulmane," L'Elaboration de /'Islam (PariS 1961) 61-85. J. Meyendorff, "Byzantine 
Views ofIslam," DOPapers 18 (1964) 113-32. A.-T. Khoury, Der theologische Streit der Byzan­
tinern mit dem Islam (Paderborn 1%9). 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 265 

essentially retained and metathesized into the antithesis between 
New Rome and the barbarian world. In this traditional Byzantine 
view imperium, divine providence, Greek culture, and therefore 
superiority, were the monopoly of Byzantium.2 This Weltanschauung, 
which was characteristic of the upper social classes, determined in large 
measure the Byzantine attitudes toward Islam. During the period 
of the Macedonian expansion from the ninth to the eleventh century, 
the pretentions of such a theory were more easily fitted to reality than 
they were during the later period. After the appearance of the Turks 
the disparity between theoretical claims to superiority and the daily 
demonstrations of political inferiority increased greatly with the pro­
gress of time. Psychologically the Byzantine attitudes toward Islam 
were based upon the formal Byzantine self-image, but Islamic victory 
began to erode and then to cause a rearrangement of this self-image. 

The broadly oscillating fortunes of war had a direct effect on cer­
tain Byzantine attitudes toward Islam. At the onset of Arab expansion 
Byzantium suffered the loss of her fairest provinces. Later, under the 
direction of the Macedonian dynasty the Byzantines took the offensive 
and effected substantial reconquests. But the internal decline of the 
state and the conquests of the Turks in the late period led to the 
destruction of the empire. The traditional values and attitudes which 
the Byzantines entertained about Islam and themselves were called 
into question by an unparalleled succession of catastrophes stretching 
over the four centuries from Manzikert to the fall of Constantinople. 

The first and most important impact of Islam on Byzantine society 
during this later period was military conquest and political subjuga­
tion. Together they forced Byzantine literati to offer explanations for 
the shocking decline of Byzantium and the success of Islam. There 
were, fundamentally, two categories of responses, secular and re­
ligious.a Of the two, the secular interpretation deviated further from 
the classical Byzantine Weltanschauung which the upper class had 

2 O. Treitinger, Die ostromische Kaiser- und Reichsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im hofischen 
Zeremoniell (Darmstadt 1956). N. H. Baynes "The Hellenistic Civilization and East Rome," 
Byzantine Studies and other Essays (London 1955) 116-43. K. Lechner, Hellenen und Barbaren 
im Weltbild der Byzantinern. Die alten Bezeiehnungen als Ausdruck eines neuen Kulturbewussteins 
(Munich 1954). 

3 C. J. G. Turner, "Pages from the Byzantine Philosophy of History," BZ 57 (1964) 346-73. 
H.-G. Beck, Vorsehung und Vorherbestimmung in der theologischen Literatur der Byzantinern 
(Orientalia Christiana Analeeta 114, Rome 1937). I. Sevcenko, "The Decline of Byzantium 
Seen through the Eyes of its Intellectuals," DOPapers 15 (1961) 167-86. 



266 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

entertained of their empire and culture. For at the outset such authors 
removed divine providence from their aetiological schemes, an act 
which implied that from its very beginning the fortunes of the empire 
had not been ordained by God. 

The writings of the Byzantine statesman and humanist Theodore 
Metochites (1269/70-1332) present a clear formulation of the attempt 
to explain the Turkish victories and Byzantine decline in a secularist 
manner, or at least in terms not traditional to Christian and Muslim 
concepts.4 Metochites had witnessed the political humiliation of 
Byzantium in the critical decades of the late thirteenth and early 
fourteenth centuries. By that time the Turks had conquered the em­
pire's richest provinces in western Asia Minor, and the Byzantines 
were retreating before the Serbs in the Balkans. The commercial 
stranglehold of the Italian cities was consuming the economic strength 
of the empire from within, and all these factors heightened the evils 
which dynastic and social strife threatened. Obviously the old Byzan­
tine Weltanschauung did not correspond to the realities of his day. 

Though Metochites sees certain immediate causes for the fall from 
greatness-dissension, envy, stupidity, luxury, abuse of religious life­
his writings are permeated by the concept ofTyche. It is Tyche, rather 
than the Christian God, which guides the affairs of men, and Tyche 
is blind and arbitrary. The lives of men, nations and lands are governed 
by inconstancy, uncertainty, oscillations, and the only certainty in 
life is this very uncertainty. He soliloquizes upon the inconstancy of 
the history of states in chapter 110 of the Miscellanea, which appro­
priately deals with the <Scythians'. The theme is that nations which 
formerly ruled over others were then enslaved in their turn. "This 
was formerly the case with the Assyrians who, having failed, passed 
under the Persians, the Persians and all their subjects passed under 
the Macedonians, and the Macedonians under the Romans," he 
wrote.S "And these events constantly occur in an alternating fashion 
according to chance of both time and Tyche. Nor is there anything 
constant in human affairs nor unchangingly eternaL Just as there is in 
an individual man, or in whatever animal, birth, progress toward the 
prime, the prime, afterward decay, and finally destruction and death, 
thus is it also in human affairs, politics and despotisms. These are to 

'Fundamental is H.-G. Beck, 'Theodoros Metcchites, Die Krise des byzantinischen We1tbildes 
im 14. Jahrhundert (Munich 1952). 

I Theodore Metochites. Miscellanea, ed. T. Kiessling (Leipzig 1821) 725-26. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 267 

be seen in constant flux and change, in no way remaining constant, 
but coming into being, advancing, little by little decaying and chang­
ing into the opposite state, coming to an end and dying." 

In substituting the old pagan Tyche for divine providence Meto­
chites had broken directly with the canonized interpretation of the 
Byzantine phenomenon. In the Miscellanea one looks in vain for 
Christianity's rival, but Islam is virtually ignored. He views the Turks 
as though they had remained pagan tribesmen, untouched by Islam. 
Thus his 'secular' view of Byzantine history seems to be further re­
flected in his treatment of the Turks, whom he apparently divests of 
their Islam. 

Other writers too, both thinkers and politicians, presented Byzantine 
history in untraditional ways. George Gemistus Pletho represents 
an extreme in which the Roman component of the Byzantine Weltan­
schauung is replaced by a pagan Hellenism, and in the realm of causa­
tion it is pagan fate, €ip,apldvT}, which determines men's fortunes. The 
Emperor Manuel Palaeologus and the historian Chalcocondyles 
record the victories of Islam as more the consequence of ordinary 
than divine factors.6 

Though TV)(Y} and €1p,app,€VTJ enjoyed a certain vogue in the explana­
tions which some prominent late Byzantine intellectuals gave for the 
Islamic victories and Byzantine defeats, their view was not the 
dominant one. The majority of authors retained the old Byzantine 
view of imperial, providential and cultural monopoly, and proceeded 
to view the alterations in Byzantine prosperity against the background 
of this complex of ideas. Consequently their attitudes toward Islam 
were conditioned by the old ideology which had asserted a divinely 
ordained Byzantine Empire. So long as the rulers and people had 
remained pious and moral, the empire had prospered. But when the 
Byzantines fell into sinful ways, divine displeasure sent the Turkish 
Muslims as an instrument of chastisement. The role of Islam and its 
victories over the Christian Empire are thus made an integral part of 
the older theological concept of the Byzantine Empire. The eleventh­
century historian Attaliates remarks that when the Turks first in­
vaded the provinces inhabited by the Armenians and Syrians, the 
Greeks reasoned that the invasions were a punishment sent by God 
for the heresy of these peoples. When, however, the Turks entered the 

I Turner, op.cit. (supra n.3) passim. Theod. Metoch. Mise. 792. E. Trapp, Manuel II 
Palaiologos. Dialoge mit einem "Perser" (Vienna 1966) 56-57. 



268 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

Greek portion of Anatolia, the Greeks changed their minds and de­
cided it was their own sins which had caused the invasions. In a 
differing version Michael the Syrian declared that God had sent the 
Turks to punish the Greeks for their religious persecution of the 
Monophysite Christians of eastern Anatolia. Even many Turks seem 
to have considered their victories over the Greeks as having been due 
to the wickedness of the latter and God's desire to punish them. The 
synodal documents of the late thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries which refer to the sad condition of the Christian communi­
ties within the Turkish Anatolian emirates explain these conditions 
in a similar fashion. There were also ideas among some that the 
coming of the Turks foretold the days of Anti-Christ and the end of 
the world.7 

One of the more interesting texts of religious causation is chapter 
47 from the work Seven Times Seven Chapters of the Byzantine preacher 
Joseph Bryennius, entitled "Some causes of the pains which afflict 
us." Bryennius, like so many moralizing preachers throughout history, 
bemoaned the fact that the morals of his own time were far below 
those of the "olden days," and so God had punished the Christians 
through the Turks. "If one who views the chastisements inflicted 
upon us by God is astonished and perplexed, let him consider not 
only these but our wickedness as well, and then he will be amazed 
that we have not been struck by thunderbolts. For there is no form of 
evil which we do not anxiously pursue through all of life."8 

Bryennius complains of virulent irregularities in religiOUS life. For 
example, some are baptized by single immersion, others by triple. 
Many Christians do not know how, or simply refuse, to make the 
sign of the cross. Priests perform ordinations, administer communion 
and remit sins all for cash payment. They live with their wives before 
marriage, and the monks cohabit with the nuns. There is no blas­
phemy which Christians do not employ. "We grumble at God when­
ever it rains and whenever it does not rain; because he creates summer 
heat or cold weather; because he gives wealth to some and allows 

7 Michael Attaliates, ed. 1. Bekker (CSHistByZ, Bonn 1853) 140-41. Joannes Scylitzes. 
ed.1. Bekker, II (CSHistByZ, Bonn 1839) 686-87. Joh. Schiltberger, Reisen . .. in Europa, Asia 
lind Afrika von 1394 bis 1427, ed. K. F. Neumann (Munich 1859) 133-34. Michael the Syrian, 
Chronique, ed. and tr. J. B. Chabot (Paris 1899) III.l54. F. Miklosich et J. MUller, Acta ,1 

diplomata graeca medii aevi sacra et pTofana (Vienna 1890) VI.61-62. 
8 L. Oeconomos, "L'etat intellectuel et moral des Byzantins vers Ie milieu du XIve 

siecle d'apres une page de Joseph Bryennios," Melanges Charles Diehl I (Paris 1930) 227. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 269 

others to be poor; because the south wind rises; because a great 
north wind blows, and we simply appoint ourselves irreconcilable 
judges of God."9 The morality of the laity is not superior to that of 
the clergy. "Not only men, but the race of women also, are not 
ashamed to sleep as nakedly as when they were born. They give over 
immature daughters to corruption. They dress their wives in men's 
clothing. We are not ashamed to celebrate the holy days of the feasts 
with flutes, all satanic songs, carousals, drunkennesses and other 
shameful customs. "10 

The low moral level is matched by widespread crass superstition, 
surviving from pagan antiquity. Future events are predicted by the 
movements of icons; omens are taken from greetings and farewells, 
and in the taking of auguries the cries of domestic fowl and flights of 
ravens are observed; people deceive themselves in believing, like 
astrologers, that hours, fates, chances, the zodiac, planets, control 
life; they believe in the Nereids of the sea and that spirits inhabit the 
land. Some burn incense before fig trees, cucumber plants and house 
plants; others greet the new moon and worship it; calends are cele­
brated, the amulets of March are worn, wreathes are placed on 
houses in May, and the jumping over of fires is practised. "Spells are 
our refuge in the fertility of fields, in health and increase of flocks, 
fortune in the hunts, fruitfulness of the vineyards. The pursuit of sin 
grows and the flight of virtue accelerates."ll 

Society has come apart at the seams and is disintegrating. "Our 
rulers are unjust, those who oversee our affairs are rapacious, the 
judges accept gifts, the mediators are liars, the city dwellers are 
deceivers, the rustics are unintelligible, and all are useless. Our virgins 
are more shameless than prostitutes, the widows more curious than 
they ought to be, the married women disdain and keep not faith, the 
young men are licentious and the aged drunkards. The nuns (have) 
insulted their calling, the priests have forgotten God, the monks have 
strayed from the straight roads .... Many of us live in gluttony, 
drunkenness, fornication, adultery, foulness, licentiousness, hatred, 
rivalry, jealousy, envy and theft. We have become arrogant, braggart, 
avaricious, selfish, ungrateful, disobedient, irreconcilable ... It is 
these things and others like them which bring down upon us the 
chastisements of God. "12 

t Oeconomos, op.cit. (supra n.8) 227. 
10 Oeconomos, op.cit. (supra n.8) 227. 

11 Oeconomos, op.cit. (supra n.8) 228. 
12 Oeconomos, op.cit. (supra n.8) 228. 



270 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

II 
The basic secular and religious explanations of Byzantine failure 

and Muslim success reveal only certain broad attitudes toward Islam. 
In the one case the secularist often ignores Islam, in the other the 
Byzantines do mention Islam, but only in the negative sense of con­
sidering Muslims the vehicle by which God is chastising the errant 
Greeks. Though such a historical role did not necessarily prove the 
superiority of the Islamic religion, at the same time it did not prove 
its religious inferiority to Christianity. What then, in the eyes of the 
Christians, were the signs and proof of the fact that religiously Islam 
was inferior to Christianity? In order to answer this fundamental 
question Greek authors once more turned to religious polemic. 
Essentially a religious exercise, polemic retained the old ideological 
outlook wherein the Byzantine Empire was divinely ordained. The 
polemicists of the later period followed the older categories which 
earlier authors had established and in this respect were not innovative. 
That which is new in the revival of religious polemic is the sense of 
immediacy and relevance. The Turks were now threatening the 
heartlands of the empire, and the subjugated Christians were being 
exposed to the relentless forces of cultural absorption, that is to say, 
Islamization. Much of this literature was composed not as a theoretical 
literary or religious exercise but with a view to specific circumstances. 

The twelfth-century author Bartholomaeus of Edessa wrote in a 
city which was the focus of very bitter warfare between Christianity 
and Islam, which changed hands frequently, and which finally fell 
victim to a frightful massacre at the hands of the Muslims. All this is 
reflected in the vitriol and virulence of Bartholomaeus' refutation of 
Islam. The disputations of Gregory Palamas transpired in the domains 
of the Ottoman sultan Orhan, where, he relates, both Christians and 
Muslims asked him repeatedly to explain the religious significance of 
the Turkish conquest. When the Turks finally allowed a Greek 
metropolitan to re-enter Ephesus thirty-five years after the conquest, 
Matthew of Ephesus soon got into difficulties as a result of frequent 
religious debates with the newly settled Muslims. The emperor John 
Cantacuzene composed his polemical treatise at the request of a Turk 
from the Ottoman court who had fled to Byzantium and then con­
verted to Christianity. Perhaps the most remarkable of such <relevant' 
compositions is the treatise which Manuel Palaeologus recorded of 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 271 

his twenty-six debates with the Persian muderris of Ankara in 1390-91. 

These examples emphasize two interesting points: all levels of 
Byzantine society were concerned with the Islamic advance, and so 
were compelled to reformulate certain aspects of their Weltan­
schauung. It was such a burning issue that not only clergymen but 
emperors themselves turned their pens to the subject. In fact the 
search for new source materials led Demetrius Cydones to translate 
the important Latin treatise of the Florentine Dominican Ricoldo da 
Monte Croce (t1320), the Improbatio Alcorani, into Greek between 
1354-60. This became the most important reference for late Greek 
authors writing on Islam. 

Having satisfied themselves that the Turkish Muslims had pre­
vailed over Byzantium because of the sins of the Christians, the Greek 
authors embarked upon a demonstration ofIslam's inferiority to the 
Christian religion. First and foremost they rejected the revealed 
character of the Muslim scriptures and the status of Muhammad as 
a prophet. The Koran is not the law of God because the Old and New 
Testaments (which Muslims accept) do not prophesy Muhammad's 
coming and revelation. And, the polemicists continue, this is proved 
by further considerations. The Koran differs in literary form, being 
written in verse, from other divinely revealed texts. Its contents, too, 
are at variance with the essentials of God's law and even with the 
teachings of the philosophers on virtue, for Muhammad said nothing 
of virtue but concerned himself with war and rapine. The Koran is 
not only self-contradictory, illogical, and devoid of proper order and 
arrangement, but it contains falsehoods. For these reasons, the 
polemic of Ricoldo-Cydones concludes, the Koran is not truly a re­
vealed book.13 

The Christian theologians dwelt in particular upon the proposition 
that Muhammad's revelation was not satisfactorily witnessed, as had 
been that of Christ. The coming of Christ had been prophesied in the 
Old Testament, and it had been witnessed by the numerous miracles 
of the New Testament and by the Evangelists. These miracles, as 
essential to the witnessing of divine revelations, continued long after 
Christ's sojourn on earth. The very spread of Christianity by the 
Apostles and the gift of tongues, the miracles wrought at the graves 

13 Ricoldo-Cydones, in PG 154 (1866) 1052-1112. 



272 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

of the martyrs, all present valid testimonial to Christian revelation. If 

In contrast, Muhammad's mission was not only unmentioned in the 
Jewish and Christian scriptures, it was not reliably witnessed either 
by individuals or by miracles. Palamas and other Greek polemicists 
argued that nothing can be accepted without proof or witness, and 
this proof can be of two categories, proof from Muhammad's works 
and pronf from reliable individuals. Both were lacking. Muhammad 
did not resurrect the dead, heal the sick, or halt the winds and waves, 
as had Christ. And the few miracles which were claimed by the 
Muslims were not satisfactorily witnessed. Who saw Gabriel convey 
God's revelation to Muhammad as the latter slept? Even if the angel 
had actually appeared to Muhammad, it was the angel rather than 
Muhammad who was the real apostle. And was it not strange that 
though the Muslims required several witnesses to the taking of a 
wife, yet they accepted Muhammad's miraculous leap to heaven on 
the sole testimony of Fatima? The conclusion of the argument was 
that Muhammad had come to deceive. Christ had warned that though 
prophecy had come to an end with John, there would be pseudo­
prophets. The basic attitude of the Christians in regard to Muhammad 
and the Koran was that they were both false because they were un­
prophesied and unwitnessed.15 

Doctrinally the Christian theologians charged the Muslims with 
believing in a God who was pure matter, devoid of intellect and 
spirit. They arrived at this position by a curious argument which com­
menced with the Muslim attack upon the Christian Trinity as a 
manifestation of polytheism, denying that God had as associates the 
Son and the Holy Spirit. The Christians reasoned that by divesting 
God of the Son A6yoc and of the Spirit 1TV£VJLU, the Muslims rendered 
God aAoyoc (without reason') and a1TVovc (spiritless'), and so reduced 
Him to dead matter. Then by a mistranslation of God's epithet, 
samad, which occurs in Sura 112, the Christian polemicists attempted 
to drive home their charge. In this Koranic passage samad actually 
refers to God Eternal. But inasmuch as the term also had the meaning 
of 'not hollow', or 'solid', the Greek translators rendered the term 
not as ulcfJv£Oc (eternal') but as oA6ccpvpoc, 'compact, solid: In short, 

I4 Euthymius Zigabenus, PG 131 (1864) 33. John Cantacuzene, PG 154, 392-433, 500, 
512-13,517. 

16 Nicetas Choniates, PG 140 (1887) 108. Euthymius Zigabenus, PG l31, 333. Bartholo­
maeus of Edessa, PG 104 (1896) l389-93. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 273 

the Greeks took the denial of the Trinity as an indication that the 
Muslims believed in an impotent God who was pure matter.16 In 
the twelfth century this mistranslation of samad as o>..6ccf>vpoC proved 
to be a stumbling block in the conversion of Turkish Muslims to 
Christianity. For in the formula of abjuration the clergymen had 
actually inserted an abjuration of God as 'eternal'. Consequently the 
emperor Manuel Comnenus attempted to delete the term from the 
formula so that the objections of the Turks could be removed.!' 

But attitudes of the Byzantines toward Islam were more frequently, 
and more vividly, reflected in their comments on Muslim ethics and 
ritual. The outward manifestations of religious differences were more 
immediately obvious than obscure doctrinal subtleties. In those 
regions where Muslims and Christians lived side by side, differences 
of this nature were constantly and saliently evident. The Christian 
argument fastened upon the ethical teachings of Muhammad and 
the Koran, charging the Muslims with following a religion which not 
only condoned the life of the "lascivious and murderer," but one 
which also purported to give divine sanction for such a life. How could 
a religion which permitted a man to acquire several wives and in­
numerable concubines be considered moral?18 The unrestrained 
hedonism of Muslim life was, to the Christians, manifested in a 
variety of ways. Not only were 'sodomic' practices allowed19 and the 
defloration of virgins and the custom of prostitution,20 but wives were 
easily and frequently divorced. The immorality in such "easy" 
divorce was compounded, in the eyes of the Christians, by the fact 
that should the husband wish to remarry the wife, he could not do 
so until she had been taken in wedlock by another man. Thus the law 
of divorce and remarriage involved further and legalized adultery.21 
This was not to be wondered at, the Christians charged, for Muham­
mad himself was a fornicator who used aphrodisiacs,22 a pseudo-

16 Euthymius Zigabenus, PG 130 (1865) 1337. John Cantacuzene, PG 154, 392, 440-92. 

Eichner op.cit. (supra n.l) 159--61. 
17 Nicetas Choniates, ed. I. Bekker (CSHistByZ, Bonn 1835) 278-84. C. Bones, '''0 e€cca­

>'OVlK7JC Eikra8LOC Kat ot SOo ''T6J-J-ot' 'TOV aV'TOKpa'TOpOC Mavou7}>' A' KOJ-J-V7Jvov (1143/80) tJ'1T~p 

'TWV €lc 'T7}v XptCnavLK7}v 'Op8oSo~lav w8tc'TaJ-J-ivwv !v1wap.£8avwv," Epet 19 (1949) 162-69. 
18 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1065. John Cantacuzene, PG 154,548,549,552. 
19 Euthymius Zigabenus, PG 130, 1349. Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1045. 
20 John Cantacuzene, PG 154, 545. 
21 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1081. Nicetas Choniates, PG 140, 112. 
22 Bartholomaeus of Edessa, PG 104, 1388, 



274 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

prophet who manufactured a revelation ordering his companion 
Zeyd to relinquish his beautiful wife so that Muhammad could marry 
her.23 The very hedonistic and physical character of Muhammad's 
teaching was, to Byzantines, sufficient to indicate that it was a false 
teaching. 

"In addition, there is no sin which is so unendurable among pro­
phets as licentiousness and depravity, because, as says Hieronymous, 
the Holy Spirit will not touch the prophetic heart during erotic 
acts."24 The philosophers themselves had stated that man, when in­
volved in carnal acts, cannot think. And so it was that many learned 
Muslims and Christians accepted Islam by reason of the hedonistic 
intensity of these acts which defeated their reason.25 Since Muhammad 
pronounced his law as a man who was enslaved by the carnal know­
ledge of his wives, it followed that the Koran is entirely senseless.26 
"For as Aristotle said, in the fourth book of the Ethics and in the 
twelfth of the Metaphysics, life of the mind is the noblest. The 
gluttonous and aphrodisiacal (life) is the basest, for it becomes an 
obstacle to the good of the mind."27 Muhammad had cleverly utilized 
this hedonism in his teachings to convert men to Islam and to keep 
the Muslims in his religion despite their reason.28 

Muhammad also preached a religion of violence, the Byzantine 
authors continue, not one of peace. He admonished the Muslims to 
kill the Christians because God will reward them in heaven for this 
religious murder.29 In the Koran the Muslims are admonished to slay 
all those Christians who do not pay a tax to the Muslims. But is it 
possible, inquire the Christian theologians, that God would be 
pleased with the one-fifth of the booty and spoils taken in wars and in 
the slaying of men? Obviously God, who is just and merciful, could 
never demand such a tribute.30 Muhammad, whose religion en­
courages conversion by the sword and the slaying of Christians, is 
obviously not preaching the commands of God but of Satan, who has 
armed him with the sword. Hence the false religion which he has 

23 Nicetas Choniates, PG 140, llZ-13, 128. Euthymius Zigabenus, PG 130, 1353. 
24 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1077. 
26 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1105. 
26 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1077. 
27 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1084. 

28 John Cantacuzene, PG 154, 552. 

29 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1045, 1080. Nicetas Choniates, PG 140, 17. 
30 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, lUZ. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 275 

created has inaugurated the third great period of the persecution of 
the Christian Church. The first era had been that between the 
Crucifixion and Constantine's conversion, and the second had been 
coterminous with the Arian, Sabellian, Macedonian and other here­
sies which the Church Fathers successfully combatted.31 

Muslim ritual was considered to be legalistic and hypocritical, and 
it was frequently, though often incorrectly, ridiculed. At Ramadan 
the Muslims are forbidden to eat or drink during the day, and yet at 
night they are free to stuff themselves and to copulate with their 
wives. What kind of fasting is this? In performing ablutions before 
the prayer the 'believer' must wash his 1TPWKTOV with finger and water, 
and then with the same finger he must wash his mouth. If he has 
drunk wine, he must be careful that none of the wine has spilled on 
his clothing. If the clothing has been soiled by wine, it must be 
washed. Bartholomaeus of Edessa, the most virulent of the polemi­
cists, jeers, "The pithos is full of wine, but on the outside it is 
washed."32 

Themselves accused of idolatry in connection with the devotion to 
icons and the cross, the Christians believed that it was the Muslims, 
in fact, who were idolatrous. The Byzantines assumed that the 
Ka'bah was a remnant of Arab paganism, indeed a head of Aphrodite, 
and that the Muslims performed ceremonies about the Ka'bah 
foolishly believing that either Abraham had copulated with Agar on 
the stone or else that he had tied his camel there when he was about 
to sacrifice Isaac.33 

The composition of these polemical treatises represents only one 
measure which Byzantine society adopted in the face of the Muslim 
threat. It might appear that the composition of polemics and the 
spread of their contents not only among the upper classes but also 
among the masses of the Christians were insignificant in the struggle 
with Islam and simply represent another instance of Byzantine 
archaism and ineffectiveness. But this polemic did serve an important 
function in that it provided a simple and credible rationalization for 
Christian low fortunes and thus furnished an important emotional 

81 Ricoldo-Cydones, PG 154, 1104-5, 1037-40. 

82 Bartholomaeus of Edessa, PG 104, 1405, 1393, 1408-9. Euthymius Zigabenus, PG 130, 

1349. 
33 Nicetas Choniates, PG 140, 109. Euthymius Zigabenus, PG 130, 1340-01. 



276 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

and intellectual basis for the partial survival of Christianity in Asia 
Minor and for its mass survival in the Balkans. 

The contents of this literature. by ignoring those elements in Islam 
which were derivative of Christianity and Judaism and therefore 
common to both Islam and Christianity. presented Islam as a com­
pletely unrelated religion. It was not conceived as a heresy or schism. 
on the level of Monophysitism and Nestorianism. or Catholicism, 
nor was it on as exalted a rung of the religious ladder as Judaism. 
Though it has often been asserted that after the initial impact ofIslam 
in the seventh century the Byzantine literati had considered Islam to 
be a heresy much as Monophysitism, most often this was not the case 
in the late Byzantine outlook. Byzantine Christians by and large 
believed Islam to be a false religion propounded by a pseudo-prophet. 
It was no mere a'tp€CLC or deviation from the true religion but 
ad{3€La, avoJLla. The Muslims were a7TLC7'OL, Muhammad was a 
7'pLCKa7'apa7'oc rp€V807TpOCP~77JC who had promulgated aO'CfJ,OVC 
Ev7'oAac.34 Consequently Islam was a pseudo-religion, the political and 
military triumphs of its adherents were a thing of the moment 
ordained by God as chastisement of the Christian world, and all this 
reflected the unworthiness of the Christians rather than of Chris­
tianity. 

III 
The discussion of polemical literature provides a convenient point 

of transition from consideration of the attitudes of the dominant 
social classes to an examination of the attitudes which the masses 
entertained of Islam. The highly intellectual secularism of a Meto­
chites would have been restricted to the small circles of atticizing 
savants and would have been virtually incommunicable to the 
majority of Byzantine society. The attitudes projected in the religious 
and religiously oriented literature, however, were less heady, were 
couched in familiar terms if not always in intelligible language, and 
penetrated society at large through the preachings of the monks and 
clergy. Just as in the upper classes there were those who rejected the 
classical view of superiority, so among the less well educated there 
were those who saw the absurdity in such claims and who left com-

34 Georgius Sphrantzes. ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest 1966) 34, 436. Michael Ducas, ed. V. 
Grecu (Bucharest 1958) 39. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 277 

positions in the vernacular ridiculing the old outlook.35 By and large, 
however, the masses adhered to the belief that Islam was a false 
religion, Christianity was the true religion, and that Muslim victory 
arose from the fallen state of the Christians. 

Under the impetus of military defeat and political subjugation 
which brought new dimensions into their Weltanschauung, the 
illiterate masses reacted with their own characteristic manifestations: 
the development of a folklore which attempted to explain the altera­
tion of their world. These various folkloristic and prophetic elements 
had as a common and unifying element the belief that Byzantium 
would be conquered by the Muslim Turks, but that after varying 
periods of time the Greeks would rise, defeat the Turks and recon­
stitute their empire. By the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the most 
widespread of these legend-prophesies centered about the fLCXPfLCXPW­

JLEVOC {JcxaA.£ac (,the petrified emperor'), the last liturgy in St Sophia, 
the fate of the officiating priest and altar, and finally the red or 
golden apple.36 

The most popular element in these legends, an element which was 
common to the entire Greek world, was the story of the petrified 
empire. According to versions of this legend an angel intervened 
during the final battle of29 May 1453 to save the emperor Constantine 
Palaeologus as he was fighting the Turks. The angel took him away 
from the battle to an underground cavern near the Golden Gate in 
the western regions of Constantinople. Here he would remain in a 
petrified state (or asleep) until God should again send His angel. At 
this time God's messenger would raise the emperor, return his sword 
to him, and the emperor would then issue forth with his army. He 
would enter Constantinople through the Golden Gate and give chase 
to the Turks as far as the Red Apple Tree, where he would massacre 
them. The legend of the final mass in St Sophia and of the fate of the 

86 F. DOlger, "Byzantine Literature," CMH IV.2 (1967) 257-59. 
88 W. Heffening, Die tUrkischen Transcriptionstexte des Bartholomaeus Georgievits aus den 

Jahren 1544-1548. Bin Beitrag zur historischen Grammatik des Osmanisch-tUrkischen (AbhKM 
27.2, Leipzig 1942) 22-37. R. Dawkins, "The Red Apple," 'ApX€LOV Tov@paKtKOV Aaoypac/>tKOV 

Kal yAwCCtKOV 8'T]cctvpov, J7TtP.€TPOV J:T' T6p.ov (1941) 401-06. For a different view of the 'red 
apple', E. Rossi, "La leggenda turco-bizantina del Porno Rosso," StBiz 5 (1937) 542-53. 
G. Megas, "La prise de Constantinople dans la poesie et la tradition populaire," Le cinq­

centibne anniversaire de la prise de Constantinople, L'Hellenisme contemporaine (Athens 1953) 
125-33. C. Mango, "The Legend of Leo the Wise," Zbornik radova vizantoloshkog instituta 
6 (1960) 59-94. 



278 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

great altar was similarly widespread. In this story the Turks broke 
into St Sophia just prior to the consecration during the divine liturgy, 
at which point the priest disappeared into the walls of the church. 
The interrupted liturgy will, however, be completed when the Greeks 
retake the dty, at which time the priest will emerge from his hiding 
place to consummate the liturgy. The altar of the church, which sank 
into the sea of Marmara, will also return to the church at this time. 

Of this genre is the legend of the golden apple, a legend which had 
a slightly more complicated evolution. The great bronze statue of the 
emperor Justinian, which was located in the Augustaeum, enjoyed 
a long history of popular legend. The mounted emperor held in his 
left hand the globus crucifix, and his right hand was outstretched in 
the direction of the east. Procopius not only describes the statue but 
reports the interpretation of its symbolism which was current in the 
sixth century: the orb signified the world, the cross symbolized the 
faith by which Justinian held world dominion, and his right hand 
was raised to stay the advance of the barbarians from the east. After 
the disappearance of the Sassanid state the symbolism of the out­
stretched hand was re-interpreted to refer to the Muslim Empire. By 
the fourteenth century, at a time when the Turks were preparing to 
cross from Asia Minor into Europe, the fall of the globe (or <apple' as 
it came to be called) from the statue's hand was interpreted as an 
unmistakable sign that the Greeks had lost their political power to 
the Turks. The Turks adopted the legend of the Red Apple, or kiZil 
elma, for whom it symbolized the political dominion of the Christian 
infidels. First it had resided in Constantinople, then it moved west to 
Buda, Vienna and Rome. The legend in Turkish hands became bound 
to the legend of the end of the Ottoman Empire after a certain 
number of years. In a later Greek tradition of the destruction of the 
Turkish empire at the hands of the Blond Race there is even an appor­
tioning of the defeated Turks into three groups: one-third will be 
massacred, one-third driven out, and one-third will be converted to 
Christianity. 

These legends, though they gave no immediate impetus to historical 
action, became a vital part of the Greek <world of ideas' which, along 
with the religious polemical literature, helped to sustain the Christian 
faith among the conquered Greeks. The vitality of some of this 
material is indicated by the fact that a portion of it was absorbed into 
contemporary Turkish folklore. But the legend of the reappearance 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 279 

of the last emperor and the reconquest of Constantinople remained 
central themes in a folklore which was to become the basis of the Greek 
ILeyaA1] iMa of modern times, for these particular legends invariably 
ended with the positive avowal that possession of the empire would 
return to the Greeks. As one popular song proclaimed, Romania 
would once more bloom! Popular attitudes toward Islam, as embodied 
in Greek folklore, tended to fuse with and reinforce those of the 
religiously oriented literature. Indeed there are indications that the 
spirit of Metochites' arbitrary Tyche in human affairs was also present 
in the manner with which the populace at large viewed political 
change. 

IV 
But as I indicated in the beginning, the written documents and 

folklore are not the only sources for Byzantine attitudes toward Islam. 
There are the deeds and actions of the Greek Christians, whether 
noble or peasant, in the face of the Islamic imposition. An interpreta­
tion of these historical reactions to Islam is as important as the docu­
ments. In fact one must search the history of the late mediaeval 
period to see whether the attitudes toward Islam reflected in the 
written and folkloristic testimony were effectively held by Byzantine 
society at large, or whether they were the beliefs of a restricted 
number of literate laymen and clergy and of restricted numbers of 
the lower classes. 

Until the fall of Constantinople there is clear evidence that the 
representatives of Byzantine formal culture embodied the traditional 
attitudes toward Islam in concrete actions. There were unflagging 
efforts of the emperors to save the Church and the Christians in 
lands conquered by the Turks. For some two centuries they made 
vigorous, but only partially successful, efforts to maintain the de­
clining ecclesiastical administrative structure in Turkish Anatolia. 
Greek aristocrats and princesses in Turkish courts did what they 
could to alleviate the conditions of the sultans' Christian subjects. In 
many instances the emperors organized wholesale migrations of 
Christians in order to bring them from Muslim lands in Anatolia to 
Christians domains. In numerous other instances large numbers of 
Christians fled the Turkish conquest, seeking to avoid subjugation to 
a foreign people who professed the Islamic faith. The emperors even 



280 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

had ambitions to convert the Turks themselves, and extensive con­
versions of Turks did take place, but within Byzantine rather than 
Turkish domains. 

The depth of Byzantine inimical attitudes toward Islam is most 
graphically manifested in the phenomenon of martyrdom and cryp­
to-Christianity. Martyrdom in the Byzantine Church had, up to the 
Turkish conquest, been restricted to the period of the Roman perse­
cutions and to the Iconoclastic era. But the process of the Turkish 
conquest imposed anew the conditions of both martyrdom and 
crypto-Christianity.37 Such conditions were sufficiently widespread 
to create a whole new category of martyrs in the Greek Church, the 
so-called neo-martyrs. The first record of neo-martyrdom is that of 
the Byzantine general Gabras, who was martyred in the late eleventh 
century.3S The thirteenth-century Nicetas the Younger was a mer­
chant who shed his blood for the faith in the town of Nyssa.39 St 
George of Sofia, martyred in the Ottoman capital of Adrianople in 
the fifteenth century, had been a soldier in the Ottoman armies.40 

Byzantine general, Greek merchant, Christian soldier in the sultan's 
armies, all three could have escaped the fires of their tormentors had 
they merely accepted Islam. And in the latter two cases it was the 
Christians who, by their undiplomatic actions, had entered into 
quarrels with Turks and literally provoked their own martyrdom by 
damning Islam and Muhammad as a false religion and pseudo­
prophet respectively. Lest there by any doubt as to the frequency of 
martyrdom in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, one need only 
read such contemporary accounts as that of the sixteenth-century com­
mercial representative of the house of Fugger, Hans Dernschwam.41 
The traditional Byzantine attitude toward Islam as expressed in 
literature was, as is illustrated in these cases, certainly a vital one. 
Its believers followed this attitude to its logical conclusion. Crypto-

87 Miklosich et Miiller, op.cit. (supra n.7) 1.183-84, 197-98. 
38 A. PapadopouIos-Kerameus, "EVJL{3oAat Elc ~v [cTop{av Tpa7TE'oWroc," Vizantiiskii 

Vremennik 12 (1906) 132-37. 
39 H. Delehaye, "Le martyre de Saint Nicetas Ie ]eune," Melanges G. Schlumberger I 

(Paris 1924) 205-11. 
'0 C. Patrinellis, "Mia c£vlKa0'TTl odnlYT1c'7 "La TOV ayvwcTo NEop.apTVpa nWp"yLO (1437)," 

'Op86&goc IIapovda 1 (1964) 65-74. 
U Hans Dernschwam's Tagebuch einer Reise nach Konstantinopel und Kleinasien (1553/55), 

ed. F. Babinger (Munich Leipzig 1923) passim. Nicodemus Agiorites, Nlov MapTvpoAO"LOV, 
3rd ed. (Athens 1961). 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 281 

Christianity, already widespread in fourteenth-century Bithynia, 
demonstrates again the power of the traditional Byzantine attitude 
but tempered with a more temporal outlook as to its consequences.42 

Finally, and most importantly, there is the historical fact that Ortho­
dox Christianity survived, among the inhabitants of the Ottoman 
Empire, into the modern period. This demonstrates that in the minds 
of most of those who remained Christian, Christianity was superior 
as a revealed religion. Had they not had this belief, economic, sodal, 
political and legal conditions were so much in favor of Muslims that 
Christians would not have chosen to remain Christian. Demonstrably 
the traditional attitudes toward Islam were widespread and deeply 
rooted. 

However strong were these traditional attitudes toward Islam and 
Orthodox Christianity-and we have seen how powerful they were­
nevertheless Christians did apostasize to Islam. By the early sixteenth 
century the formerly Christian peninsula of Anatolia was about 90 

per cent Muslim and the Balkan region slightly less than 20 per cent 
Muslim.43 The reasons for the preponderance of Islam in Anatolia 
and for the numerical superiority of Christianity in the Balkans are 
complex, and as they have been treated elsewhere there is no need to 
deal with them here. The disparity between the traditional Byzantine 
attitudes and the actions of religious apostates demonstrates the fact 
that ideologies lose their vitality and cannot survive when the insti­
tutions behind the ideologies either disappear, atrophy, or experience 
repeated and severe shocks. The mass conversions of Anatolians, and 
the large-scale Christian survivals of the Balkans are to be explained 
by this basic principle.44 Under such stresses many lost their faith in 
the traditional explanations. Then there were the skeptics who 
simply had not time to wait for God's angel to awaken the sleeping 
emperor in order to remove the Turks. The attitudes of many were 
simply reflections of their concern with the convenience and pleasures 
of this world. Many were ultimately persuaded by the simple 

42 Miklosich et Milller, op.cit. (supra n.7) 1. 183-84, 197-98. R. M. Dawkins, "The Crypto­
Christians of Turkey," Byzantion 8 (1933) 247-75. F. Hasluck, "The Crypto-Christians of 
Trebizond," JHS 41 (1921) 199-202. 

43 O. Barkan, "Essai sur les donnees statistiques des registres de recensement dans 
J'empire ottoman aux xye et XYle siec1es," Journal of the Economic and Social History of the 
Orient 1 (1958) 9-36. 

H S. Vryonis, "The Conditions and Cultural Significance of the Ottoman Conquest in 
the Balkans," IIeme Congres international des etudes du Sud-Est Europeen (Athens 1970) 1-9. 



282 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

decision to save their lives. There were large numbers, however, 
particularly in Asia Minor, who, long deprived of the support of their 
Christian institutions, were gradually and peacefully persuaded by 
the dervishes that there was little difference between Islam and 
Christianity. These converted to Islam, though in many respects they 
remained semi-Christian through the retention of much from their 
Christian cult. 

Ricoldo-Cydones grasped all this when he divided the Muslims into 
four groups. "Let it be known that those who follow the error of 
Muhammad are four groups. The first group is that which came into 
Islam through the sword, as it is said. Even now those recognize their 
error, (and) they would renounce it if they did not fear the sword. 
Another group is that which has been deceived by the devil and 
believes the lies to be true. The third group is that which does not 
wish to renounce the error of their ancestors but (who) say that they 
(will) maintain that which their fathers followed ... The fourth 
group is that of those who because of the ease of the path, (because) 
of the multitude of women, and (because) of the other laxities, pre­
ferred rather the impurity."45 

Two Greek texts refer to specifically Turkish rather than Islamic 
practices, but contributed to a coloration of Byzantine attitudes to­
ward Islam. One of the criteria for the rejection of Islam as a truly 
revealed religion was its supposed advocacy of violence. In illustrating 
this 'murderous' character of Islam John Cantacuzene made an in­
teresting but perhaps irrelevant observation. "What could be worse 
than such cruelty and misanthropy when they murder the innocent? 
For whenever the Muslims go to war and one of them falls in battle, 
they do not blame themselves as causers of the war, but each one 
slaughters as many living men as he can over the dead body. The 
more he slays the more does he reckon it to be of aid to the soul of 
the dead man. If, however, he who wishes to aid the soul of the dead 
man has no captives, he buys Christians if he can find any. And these 
he slays over the dead body or over the latter's grave. How can he 
(Muhammad) who legislates such things be of God?"46 This is a 
reference not to Islamic practice but rather to a shamanistic funeral 
custom associated with the nomadic peoples of the Asiatic steppe, a 

t6 Ricoldo-Cydones. PG 154. 1105. 

'8 John Cantacuzene. PG 154, 545. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 283 

practice already described in the pages of Herodotus dealing with the 
Scythians:17 Cantacuzene had undoubtedly seen such ceremonies 
among the Turkish mercenaries whom he had hired, and so he as­
sumed them to be of Islamic origin. Here a specifically Turkish 
phenomenon gave further emphasis to the Byzantine view of Islam as 
a religion of violence. 

A quite different view of the Turks (Scythians) emerges from the 
pen of Metochites. Among the immediate causes for the defeat of 
Byzantium and the victory of the Turks Metochites lists the superior 
virtue of the latter. The CScythians', Metochites relates, were from 
time immemorial a great and unsubjugated race. That is not to say 
that some of them were never at any time under foreign rule, rather 
that the entire race was never under one rule. They are a numerous 
and bellicose people, prone to wars with foreigners and with one 
another. In ancient times they crossed the Danube, plundered Thrace, 
and passing through the Ionian regions they overran Italy, the Celtic 
lands, Spain, and crossed over into Libya. In more recent times these 
CScythians' have enslaved most of Asia, Babylon, Assyria and lands as 
far as India. 

Metochites explains why the cScythians' throughout their history 
have remained unconquered. It is because they have lived a type of 
life entirely different from that of the rest of mankind, a manner of 
existence which foreign peoples cannot assail and destroy. Though the 
cScythians' live together in a society as do all other men, they live a 
beastly life, unpracticed in any contrivance and productivity. The 
cScythians' neither dwell in cities nor safeguard their lives with walled 
enclosures, nor do they live in rural villages. They know not the care 
of crafts, commerce, the cultivation of fields and gardens, and they 
are not familiar with the customs of men in normal societies. They 
wander constantly, not merely to one land in summer and to another 
in winter, but to other lands as well. They move about in search of 
water and pasture, remaining largely under the open skies. If they 
need protection against winter they erect felt huts on a circular frame­
work oflittle sticks, and these huts, which they carry about on wagons, 
satisfy their needs for housing. Their cuisine is simple and devoid of 
lavish gastronomical preparations. They eat the flesh and milk from 
their flocks and also wild animals and fowl which they hunt. They 

47 J.-P. Roux, La mort cheZ les peuples altarques anciens ct mediCvaux (Paris 1963). 



284 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

warm a little meat over the flames and without any further prepara­
tion eat it, doing so only to discharge the inescapable demands of the 
body. It is in this manner, Metochites relates, that the 'Scythians' were 
from the beginning accustomed to a light, simple, unburdened life, 
naturally avoiding twisted reasoning, knavery, trials, arguments, 
contraditions of speech, court pleadings and slander. They have no 
elected judges, orators, assessors of laws, interpreters of dogmas, 
distorters, professors and perverters of speech in advocacies and 
accusations, contests of wordiness, such as are customary among 
Greeks and among other barbarians. Because of the simplicity of their 
life and its freedom from material concern, the 'Scythians' have led 
a more just life than many other peoples. As support for his assertion 
Metochites adduces Homer, who also alludes to these qualities and 
virtues.48 

The II€p~ EKV(}WV of Metochites is of considerable interest inasmuch 
as it appears, on first glance, to be an objective evaluation of the 
superior qualities of the Turks, their moral virtues arising from the 
simplicity of their life. In fact Metochites is praising the 'noble savage' 
(so familiar in the literature of more modern times), who living close 
to nature is free from the artificialities of urban life which so pervert 
human character. A closer look at the II€p~ EKV(}WV reveals it as a 
stereotyped piece which goes back to classical Greek and Roman lit­
erature, reminding one of the best known of this genre, Tacitus' Ger­
mania. Tacitus idealized the low state of development among the 
Germanic barbarians in order to hurl his literary shafts at conditions 
in Roman society which he found disagreeable and undesirable. 
Metochites similarly converted Scythian barbarity into a state of 
moral purity, so that using it as a foil he might attack the shortcomings 
of his own society. He admits that he has 'lifted' the material for this 
chapter on the Scythians from Herodotus, Diodorus, Dionysius, 
Aelian and Homer. The chapter is, accordingly, a'scissors-and-paste' 
product taken from ancient authors and applied to the Turks. The 
term 'Scythian', as Metochites employs it, refers to all the Germanic 
peoples of the early mediaeval period as well as to the Turks and 
Mongols. In short, it is synonymous with 'nomad' and 'migratory' 
and therefore with a way of life, rather than with any ethnic group. 
His observations on nomadic life are vastly oversimplified and ignore 

'8 Theod.Metoch. Misc. 732-34. 



SPEROS VRYONIS JR 285 

the fact that nomadic groups are possessed of certain crafts, do indulge 
in commerce and marginal agriculture, often live in close symbiotic 
relationship with sedentary groups. It further oversimplifies the 
phenomenon of the Turkish conquest, which after all was not ex­
clusively a nomadic affair. Had the Seljuks and Ottomans never 
developed beyond the nomadic state, they could never have erected 
the political structures of the Seljuk sultanate and Ottoman Empire. 
In addition, these Seljuk-Ottoman states had all the trappings of 
society-cities, guilds, elaborate court ceremonial, teachers and 
students of law, judges and theologians. 

The parallel between Metochites and Tacitus is striking: both 
moralize and use the <noble savage' as a literary device to this end. 
One can hardly imagine Tacitus or Metochites, products of a highly 
developed urban and intellectual milieu, adopting the crude life 
which they pretended to admire. Thus what on first view seems to be 
a new attitude of the Byzantines toward Islam is doubly deceptive. 
If it is an attempt to display Islamic society under the Turks it has 
failed completely, for it has ignored the essence of Ottoman society, 
from both the religious and the urban points of view. Second, Meto­
chites is not really concerned with Turco-Islamic qualities, but rather 
with the decline of his own society. 

The more usual view of the Turks in the fourteenth and fifteenth 
centuries among the Byzantines was that they were among the less 
elevated in terms of civilization. Indeed they were barbarians, and 
the high civilization ofIslam is somehow not related to them. Witness 
even the eulogistic description which Metochites presented. The 
nomadic life which he describes is in no way related to the complex 
of Islamic higher urban, economic, social and cultural institutions. 
To the Byzantines these barbarians appeared as cruel (xaAerroL, 
&:VEAE~/J,OVEC) infidels (amCTot) who persecute Christianity (XPLCTO­

/Laxot). Their thirst for money (c/)tAoxp~/LaTov y~voc) is matched only 
by their sexual lusts for maids and youths, which lust does not abate 
even before the beasts of the field.49 These particular attitudes toward 
the Turks coincided with opinions held about Muslims even prior to 
the appearance of the Turks, and so they were reinforced. 

In this sketch of Byzantine attitudes toward Islam, a vast subject 

49 Pseudo-Sphrantzes, ed. V. Grecu (Bucharest 1966) 468. Michael Ducas, ed. V. Grecu 
(Bucharest 1958) 59, 85, 361. 



286 BYZANTINE ATTITUDES TOWARD ISLAM 

which would justify a book, I have made no attempt to disengage all 
the errors of fact in the views which Orthodox Christians entertained 
ofIslam. Despite the fact that opponents rarely make efforts to under­
stand the positions of their foes, their erroneous conceptualizations 
are not any the less effective bases for conduct and action. 

We have examined the attitudes of both the upper and lower classes 
and then measured the strength and efficacy of these attitudes in 
terms of historical events and phenomena. Implicit in this discussion 
has been the proposition that ideas and ideology are not autarkic, 
that they have no autonomous life or independent dynamic. The 
classical Byzantine ideology survived only where the Turkish con­
quests did not cause a disastrous failure of the institutions supporting 
this ideology, that is to say in the Balkans. But in Asia Minor the 
disappearance of the traditional Byzantine ideology was due to the 
failure of its supporting institutions rather than to a failure of the 
ideology itself, a failure induced by the nature of the Turkish con­
quests.50 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Los ANGELES 

January, 1971 

10 The substance of this essay was presented at a conference on Islam in the Late Middle 
Ages. held at the University of Washington. Seattle. in spring 1970.