Genghis Khan: Bloodthirsty Tyrant or Progressive Leader? Answer: Yes.

Genghis Khan
"If I only had a heart . . ."
Photo in Spectator

Justin Marozzi informs us that John Man, author of The Mongol Empire: Genghis Khan, His Heirs and the Founding of Modern China, offers the view that "Genghis Khan was tolerant, kind to women – and a record-breaking mass-murderer" (The Spectator, July 12 2014).

Well, as Stalin reputedly said, you've got to break a few eggs if you want to make an omelette:

If you had the misfortune to live in Central Asia during Genghis's rampages in the 1220s, you ran the very real risk of being cut in two, beheaded, disemboweled, perhaps even forced to swallow molten metal by his ferocious soldiers. Cities were razed and depopulated, prisoners slain or ordered to march as a shield before the army, in full battle formation. Mongol bloodlust was such that even cats and dogs were killed. (Marozzi, para. 2)

Big omelette . . . but the Khan was progressive:

Yet the same man who is said to be responsible for the deaths of a world record 40 million is also noted -- admittedly less widely -- for his religious tolerance, enlightened diplomacy and championing of women's rights. (Marozzi, para. 3)

Patriarchal warrior, politically correct on women's issues . . .

My New View on Toledo

Toledo, Spain
Carlos Luján
The New York Times

I've never paid Toledo sufficient attention, I suddenly realize, now that I've just read Geoffrey Gray's description of the city in his recent travel article, "In Toledo, Layers of Spanish History" (New York Times, December 21, 2012), for the city's layered histories, apparently, have all survived, rendering it a mysterious aspect:

The city itself sat on the hill like a medieval Oz, the river wrapped around it like a moat. There were two layers of castle walls, festooned with gargoyles, eagles and crests. On top of the bluff was the Alcázar, which looked out over the city's patchwork of Manchegan red clay tile roofs and the spires and belltowers of churches. The bells started to peal, eventually crescendoing to an explosion of noise that sounded like the finale of a fireworks show. It was still very early in the morning

Sounds like my kind of morning! But based on Gray's title, his description, and the above photo by Carlos Luján, I ask myself, how did this city get to be this way?

Some cities have old quarters. But the whole of Toledo is a historic district, indeed a Unesco World Heritage site, remaining largely intact throughout the many violent takeovers of Spain . . . . Because Toledo was considered the holiest city in Spain in the Catholic faith, its invaders were careful not to destroy hallowed ground. So it survived the Moors, Visigoths, the Spanish Civil War.

Enemies spared the city because it was so sacred for Catholics? I'm doubtful about this reasoning. Holier sites have seen utter destruction. Genghis Khan and his descendants had no qualms about razing entire civilizations, and the Mongols would have obliterated Mecca, had not a great Khan died, bringing about a military withdrawal from the Middle East. The Romans destroyed the city Carthage and later the sacred Temple in Jerusalem. Muslim armies destroyed other cities, so why not Toledo?

I don't know, but I suspect that it's not due to the city's Catholic sanctity . . .

Query: Origin of Hangul

Comparison of Korean and Mongolian Letters

(Image from Wikipedia)

I'm told that there's a bit of an election going on about right now, but people might need a break, so here's a relaxing post on Korean linguistics.

I'm no expert on Korean -- and not much of a linguist generally -- but I have a question about the origin of the Korean alphabet. I recall that when I first came to Korea, many Korean students very proudly informed me that the Korean alphabet, or Hangul, is the "most scientific" alphabet in the world because it can perfectly express any language in the world and that it was invented by King Sejong in 1446 without reliance upon any other alphabet in the world, which meant that it was "perfectly unique."

I knew from my own experience with English words spelled in Hangul that the Korean alphabet cannot express English sounds perfectly, so I dismissed that particular claim as mere exaggeration by my Korean students.

However, I knew nothing about the origin of Hangul, so I checked with my wife about this reputed uniqueness, and she initially agreed but later checked into the issue and discovered that scholars dispute the point (as scholars are wont to do) and that some connection to a Mongolian alphabet had been proposed.

So on a recent post, when a commenter asked about the origin of Hangul, I noted that "there's a lot of dispute about the origins of the Korean alphabet, and I know too little about this vexed issue to risk broaching it."

As it turns out, I had to do more than broach the issue, for a Korean student then posted a comment inquiring what the dispute is:

Hangeul doesn't look like any other alphabets in the world . . . and that's why I referred to its uniquness -- being unique in its shape. I thought you said it is disputed because some people say Hangeul came from, or branched from some other alphabets. I know you mentioned that you know little about the issue, but I'd like to ask you in what way it is being disputed.

I responded by noting two explanations given in a 15th-century scholarly commentary, Hunmin-jeong-eum Haerye, concerning King Sejong's 1446 announcement of the invention of Hangul:

As for the dispute, you need to understand -- first of all -- that scholars dispute nearly everything. That's what scholars do, among other things -- they question received wisdom and analyze discrepancies.

In the case of Hangeul, here's the dispute. The Hunmin-jeong-eum Haerye states that the consonantal letters were designed the positions of the tongue or shapes of the mouth, depending upon the particular consonants, but it also states that the consonants were adapted them from the "Gu Seal Script". These two statements are not easy to reconcile (though I don't assert that reconciliation is impossible), and one important scholar has argued for a link to the Mongolian alphabet.

To find an easy introduction to this issue, see the . . . Wikipedia site on Gari Keith Ledyard.

I realize that Wikipedia is not a scholarly source, but it is a useful resource for getting into a subject. Please understand that I am taking no position in this dispute, but merely noting that a dispute does exist, which was my original point.

Being that I'm neither a Korean expert nor even a linguist, that's the extent of my knowledge, and I merely note the fact of a dispute among scholars. However, I am interested in this disputed point, so if Charles La Shure or some other expert on Korean would care to comment, I would be grateful, and I am sure that the some readers of this blog would also be interested in learning more.

Now, back to the US presidential election, which is already in progress.

Ibn Taymiyyah: Significance for Current-Day Islamism?

Ghazan Kahn (1271-1304) Converts to Islam (1295)

. . . but fails to satisfy Ibn Taymiyyah (1263-1328)

(Image from Wikipedia)

For my course on Islamism, I've recently read Shmuel Bar's article "Jihad Ideology in Light of Contemporary Fatwas" (Hudson Institute, Monographs Series No. 1, Paper Number 1, August 15, 2006), published by the Center on Islam, Democracy and the Future of the Muslim World, which also offers many other articles on contemporary Islamism.

I've found Bar's article very useful in clarifying the role that fatwas, i.e., Islamic legal rulings, play in justifying the violent actions carried out by Islamist militants. Bar explains a central point that can easily escape our notice if we imagine that we can appeal to ethical arguments to dissuade jihadist violence, for "questions that are commonly deemed 'moral' and 'ethical' are subordinated to legal casuistry" (page 1a).

Bar notes that Islamists interpret jihad primarily in military terms and enjoin it as a duty:

According to this viewpoint, not only is jihad a duty, but at least under the present circumstances it may only take the form of a Military jihad, and cannot be interpreted as a spiritual struggle. Furthermore, military jihad -- and of course martyrdom -- has added both spiritual and temporal value. It "implies all kinds of worship, both in its inner and outer forms. More than any other act it implies love and devotion for Allah, [Who is exalted,] trust in Him, the surrender of one's life and property to Him, patience, asceticism, remembrance of Allah and all kinds of other acts [of worship]. And the individual or community that participates in it finds itself between two blissful outcomes: either victory and triumph or martyrdom and Paradise."

According to Bar's footnote 20 (page 17), this quote comes from Ibn Taymiyyah, al-Siyaasa al-shar'iyya fee Islah al-raa'ee wa al-raa'iyya (Governance According to Allah's Law in reforming both the ruler and his flock).

On a website maintained by Ted Thornton, I have found the same passage, albeit in more complete form (cf. the phrase "Who is exalted" in brackets above), citing pages 47-49 of Rudolph Peters, Jihad in Classical and Modern Islam (Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 1996). Perhaps Bar is borrowing the quote from Peters and if so ought to give credit, but perhaps some citations were abbreviated when Bar crafted this article to summarize his book, Warrant for Terror: The Fatwas of Radical Islam (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).

Be that as it may, Thornton quotes Ibn Taymiyyah further:

"Since lawful warfare is essentially jihad and since its aim is that the religion is God's entirely and God's word is uppermost, therefore according to all Muslims, those who stand in the way of this aim must be fought." (page 49 of Peters)

These quotes from Ibn Taymiyyah begin to clarify for me the importance that this Muslim scholar has for contemporary Islamist thinking. Another quote supplied by Thornton clarifies Ibn Taymiyyah's significance for the Wahhabi Islam practiced by Saudi Arabia:

"The religion of Islam turns on these two principles: worshipping God alone and worshipping Him by what He prescribed. He is not served by innovation . . . . It is not permissible when guilt has been established by proof or by witness to suspend the legal punishment, whether by remitting it or by substituting a fine or any other thing: the hand of the thief must be cut off, for the application of the punishments is one of the acts of religion like the jihad in the Way of God."

Thornton borrows this quote from John Alden Williams, The Word of Islam (Austin, Texas, 1994), 164f). This fits with Bar's point that in Islamism (or broader Islam itself?), "questions that are commonly deemed 'moral' and 'ethical' are subordinated to legal casuistry" (page 1a). To think beyond what Allah has prescribed, which would require ethical rethinking, constitutes innovation, such that one is no longer worshipping Allah properly. Ibn Taymiyyah's influence on Ibn Wahhab may be at work here, for the Wahhabist form of Islam found in Saudi Arabia is of this strict sort.

One begins to suspect that the individual in Islamist circles is not encouraged to think at all but merely to listen and obey.

I suppose that there's always a reason for everything, and Thornton gives his speculation for the rigidity pervading Ibn Taymiyyah's views:

Possibly behind much of the conservatism, literalism, and fundamentalism in his thought are the following facts. The Islamic Middle East had just passed through one of its severest ordeals: it had for two centuries been menaced from the West by the Crusaders (eight waves of them). Moreover, the Mongol threat from the East had been neutralized only three years before Ibn Taymiyya's birth in Harran (in Mesopotamia).

The threat re-emerged in the 1290s, despite the Kahn's coversion to Islam. Hence my decision to post the above image of Ibn Taymiyyah's archenemy, Ghazan Kahn.