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An Introduction, of Sorts
During the eventful childhood of the future ruler of Scotland, James Stewart underwent a profound change in his life that would have reverberations throughout the course of history. After his older brother had starved to death in a prison in Fife, the young child was spirited away to France to safety. He would just miss being caught by an English ambush that surely would have captured the young heir to the throne. During his time in France, the young James came under the influence of a number of influential Islamic scholars and teachers who effectively raised him. His conversion to Islam came as a great shock to his family and the nation and only deepened the Scottish civil war that raged at home. However through perseverance and monies, the young James’ fortunes foresaw his return, thanks in part to Henry V of England, as further dividing Scotland between the Islamic and Catholic worlds. His hopes were in vain. James family success in crushing the rebel army outside Perth was the turning point in the civil war. As a sign of good will, and the future of the Scottish leadership, James in his youth took Joan Beaufort, a cousin of Henry V as his wife. Although she never converted to Islam, Joan never the less remained steadfast by his side and boar him a number of children, to be raised under the banner of Islam, that would guarantee at least that the heirs of the Scottish throne would revel in Islamic regalia.
The introduction of Islam to Scotland, is often viewed by scholars today as something of an aberration – albeit one that lasted for some four hundred years. Indeed Scotland was never completely Islamic. In the latter half of the fifteenth century, Islam was in the minority, but it was soon to expand; it would never completely dislodge the Catholic and later reformist faiths, particularly in the Highlands where government control was more than often lacking. It was then subsided and eventually began to recede as growing English influence, the affects of the reformation and the isolation from the rest of the Islamic world took its toll. It is debatable as to whether there was a ‘Golden Age’ of Islam in Scotland, but with the grow of ventures overseas, Islam continued to appear the religion of the aristocracy and the merchant classes, though it should be noted that both retained portions of Catholic sympathies, that were never totally eradicated. Islam enjoyed mixed influence among the peasantry and later ‘working’ classes of Scotland. The penetration of Islamic thinking and practice had limited affects on the early peasantry, although its incursion into the ranks of the army and navy led to an increase in influence in many of the post war years. The implementation of Islamic law into Scottish affairs was haphazard at best and hypocritical at worst, depending on the monarch of the time. The main issue was alcohol, which may explain why Islam was unable to penetrate into the lower strata of society as much as it did the upper.
The affects and influence of the Islamic faith on the royal household and the military were profound and dictated the influence over which Islam held on the subjects of the Scottish throne. Indeed that has been a major debate within historical circles today, whether the use of traditional ‘English’ titles can be applied to Scotland during this time. The crux of the argument over titles and positions can be surmised as a clash between Christian, English or a growing trend of revisionist Scottish historians, who tend to play down the impact of Islam on Scotland during this period and the ‘traditionalists’ of Scottish history. The main argument, and one that has caused considerable disagreement is over the title of the Scottish throne, whether the traditional western European ‘King’ or the more Islamic ‘Sultan’ can be applied to the likes of Jarir Kamal Stewart [eng. King James II, scot. Sultan Jarir I], who succeeded his father to the Scottish throne. As sources and surviving official records indicate, this was the first official use of the term ‘Sultan’, however it is thought that informal use, gathered from the records of the Scottish parliament suggest that James I was the first to use the title. Whether the term ‘Sultan’ can be applied has been endless enough that it has spawned a number of books and historical thesis. However, many existing Scottish titles, both English and Gaelic existed beside the Islamic, with some falling in and out of favor depending on who held the throne at the time.
The influence that Islam had over the military of Scotland is not as apparent as it seems, nor indeed as influential as it appears in retrospective analysis. Any contemporary visitor to Edinburgh cannot fail to miss the most obvious sign of the Islamic penetration of the Scottish army, that of the towering minaret over Edinburgh Castle, a piece of architecture that captures a mix of local and Islamic architecture. However, although grandiose, Islam was not the mainstay religion of the Scottish army. Although Islam was the preference of officers, the religion of a regiment largely depended on its origin. Regiments from the lowlands or urban areas would tend to be largely Islamic, with a minority of protestants, whilst Highlanders and more remote regiments would retain either mixed or Christian roots. Mercenary regiments used by Scotland were often a mixed affair, and many times Scottish mercenaries of both Christians and Moslems would enter into a European conflict and be the deciding factor.
Education, either common or in classics was essentially a two tier affair. In the upper echelons, just as in other parts of the world Latin was read, so was Arabic, so as the Qur’an could be read without a literal translation. Indeed by the 1600s, Scotland would be on the first Islamic nations to introduce the English language version of the Qur’an into general circulation and use for prayers – sometimes recalled as the ‘King James edition’ by contemporary historians, but viewed with mixed feelings in the rest of the Islamic world. Indeed, it would be a great state occasion, for a reigning Scottish monarch to make the great pilgrimage to Mecca, and indeed as seen in the history of Scotland, more than one opportunistic man would make trouble with the ruler absent from the land.
The eventual demise of Islam in Scotland can be attributed to a number of factors. These include the general weakening of the Islamic world as a whole, whilst other attribute it to the constant presence of English influences south of the border. A more revisionist school of historian today also looks at the gradual decline in the influence and power of the royal household, and the growing importance of Parliament in Scottish affairs over the monarch. Moves were made towards the end of the eighteenth century as the liberalization and indeed radical movements in not only Scotland, but in Europe, the traditional power contained within Islam began to fade and decline.
This therefore, will be the story, of the Scottish Sultans, there tale and meanderings through the world, their rise and fall as Gibbon might have said. The likes of Thomas Carlyle would produce volumes of work on the Sultans, from which he argued that they were aberrations in history, and should be viewed, as nothing more than that.
