Medieval Muslim Princes and Princesses and Intermarriage with Christian kingdoms

[RubiconDecision]

I'm modding MTW 2 Kingdoms and I'm looking for some historical information about intermarriage during the medieval period. I believe that at least some of this occured in the area of Sicily with the Almohads or other later tribes that are usually labeled the Moors. Since at different times in history, Makuria and the Ayyub were Coptic Christians, then there remains the possibility that some intermarriage occured in order to prevent wars too. It might have been that some Muslims married Christians in Iberia as well.

Today, while it's fine for a Muslim man to marry a Christian woman, the opposite is frowned upon. It's expected for a Christian woman to convert after marriage, but it's unusual and not acceptable for a Muslim woman to marry a Christian man since he's less likely to convert.

Does anyone know how often it happened during the medieval period from say 1100 to 1400 AD (CE)? There are issues with turning on Muslim princesses, and given the state of culture in the Middle East of the period, despite the Crusades, with some of the Europeans becoming "poulains" then I think while unlikely it still remains within the realm of possibility but with the understanding that conversion would be automatic as a condition of the marriage.

I'm most wondering about Muslim princesses who married among the Coptics because that seems very plausible.

I'm possibily going to have some traits such that a Muslim who married a Christian or vice versa will be a "Secret Christian" or a "Secret Muslim" in order to have some complicated things happen as a result. If you know of those kinds of circumstances, would you also comment here?

EDIT1: Something like this about the Mozarabs in Iberia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozarabs

Or this about the Arab Christian who remained in the Levant after the Fall of Jerusalem. They had to pay the Jizyah (in place of the Zakat) and were exempted form military service, but some did actually serve as I recall, and in MTW2 they make an appearance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_Christians

But while tolerated, I wonder if Muslim nobles would allow their daughter to marry Christian husbands or would they convert due to intermarriage even though tolerated as a seperate people under the Jizyah? What's more likely are Christian daughters marrying Muslim nobles, I think, but looking for verification.

[Roma_Victrix]

Aside from this perhaps never happening historically between Christian and Islamic royal houses (or even the lower gentry for that matter), what accent would you be able to provide for the Muslim princesses on the map, anyway? None of the existing cultures match up with their voices. Also, you'd have to introduce entirely new avatar pictures for them that vanilla Medieval II Total War does not accommodate.

[Euphoric]

None of the existing cultures match up with their voices.

I'll totally do the Muslim princess voiceovers for you, Rubicon. My Arabic is decent, if you can deal with falsetto.

[RubiconDecision]

Actually I believe at least one Sicilian leader allowed the marriage of his Christian daughter to an Almohad. If you clicked those links at least some of that was going on in border regions in times when there wasn't open war. A Christian might be in the service of a Muslim leader and so it might be possible for a marriage to occur. Or vice versa. It really gets loose when the makeup of spiritual/cultural folks within urbanized zones has an influx of many kinds of specialists.
http://www.bestofsicily.com/religion.htm

http://books.google.com/books?id=0PK...muslim&f=false

And regarding accents, I LOATHE them as some of you well know. MTW2 would be a great game if we did away with the crazy off the top accents and used native speakers with subtitles. It would be far more immersive.

It really doesn't matter to match up portraits of the strat map cas files to accomodate this kind of blending of ethnic groups. In history lots of marriages occured and yet we think of these folks as being purely Greek, purely Armenian, purely English, when nothing could be more WRONG. Look at English nobles who were a blend of all kinds of Briton tribes, Scottish, Irish, Welsh, Norwegian, Danish, French, Italian, etc.

I actually thought of having genetic traits for the father and mother and then having these result in certain traits which don't do anything but describe the named characters. It's something that adds to the story. One can't easily match up a portrait to a named character because so many names are possible and it would bog down the script to try to do this. Still one could see it in the character record.

The way that Broken Cresent is set up, the Makurians who are Coptic Christians don't have princesses and so they are completely isolated. That's doesn't make sense. Neither does Muslim princesses being unable to marry into another kingdom. Does anyone know if that kind of intramarriage happened in the Middle East? I would think that an Ayyub would marry an Abbasid?

EDIT1: Besides the book the Crown of Aragon, here's a link discussing two literature references whether they happened in fact or not:
http://books.google.com/books?id=61O...muslim&f=false

This is echoed in the tale of Othello in Shakespeare.

Naturally after the Fall of Jerusalem, you have migrations of Jews entering Western civillization as well as Eastern Europe. Some of these changed their name and intermarried despite it being against the one Lateran Council declaration (it was considered at the time to be strictly a sin equated with adultery. Some of these ended up among the nobility.

Or this regarding Georgian and Armenian internarriages with Muslims among the nobility:
http://books.google.com/books?id=AZW...muslim&f=false

I would think that in Broken Crescent that it all got very blended in India between Muslims of diverse kinds might have intermarried with Hindus or even Christians from long ago. There were Christians in Persia who probably intermarried with Muslims as well.

Here's one from the Kingdom of Navarre to the leader in Cordoba (Almohad):
http://books.google.com/books?id=FPz...muslim&f=false

[hellheaven1987]

The reality was no, since there are strict rules forbidden Muslims marry non-Muslims - a chief reason why Muslim population has trouble to integrate into other society today. I don't disagree there might be a few exceptions here and there, but those should be considered as infidel practice instead anything normal and acceptable in Islamic culture.

[RubiconDecision]

Sure. I'm thinking if I enable Muslim princesses in MTW2 Kingdoms, then naturally some of these will occur. I think it will be very rare though. Ever rarer still will be an intermarriage that results in a husband or wife having to hide their true beliefs with "Secret Muslim or Secret Christian". The main three places it sometimes happened was the ones I mentioned above: Iberia, Sicily, and Armenia/Georgia.

Mostly these would be captains who got promoted into the nobility and NOT royal houses. Unfortunantly that's difficult to do with the AI princesses randomly trying to snag a general-husband.

Interestingly enough is that many Sicilians had intermarriage with Moors and Abbasids but this mostly happened in the 900's. There were cases of Christian wifes leaving their husbands for Muslim nobles too.

[hellheaven1987]

Interestingly enough is that many Sicilians had intermarriage with Moors and Abbasids but this mostly happened in the 900's. There were cases of Christian wifes leaving their husbands for Muslim nobles too.

Non-Muslims could only marry Muslims once they converted, and Islam did use marriage to convert non-Muslims quite effectively. Such practice, however, does not count as non-Muslim married Muslim as the non-Muslim must always convert before the marriage could even proceed.

[Stavroforos]

I think you'll find that Christians aren't allowed to marry people from other faiths either, hellheaven.

[Keyser]

Actually, nowaday, it's technically possible, for catholics at least (i have no knowledge of the internal workings of other christian denominations), they can be granted a special authorisation by the pope (But practically, it's a formality who is decided at the bishop level, there must be some conditions though (like educating the children as catholics iirc), but it's light enough that interconfessional marriages at the church do happen).
Initially it was made to allow people to marry other christian churches (especially protestants), it's obviously far more widely used nowaday, in Europe at least, that it was in the past though (where initally it really was a papal authorisation and so mostly for rulers).

As to muslims, a muslim man can marry a christian girl (or a zoroastrian) without the girl having to convert (it's better but not mandatory). Because they can marry people "from the book" (IE religions considered as precursors to Islam, that include christianism, the jewish faith and zoroastrianism (maybe a few others too)).

Muslim men and girls can't marry "pagans" (people not from the book).

Muslims girls can't marry even people "from the book", mostly because in Islam, the husband is seen as the pater familias, so his religion his considered to be the defaut one of the children and his wife is under his authority.
For the same reason, muslim men can't marry jewish girls (despite the fact the jews are people from the book too) because in judaïsm, the mother give her religion to the children.

As far as i know.

Someone more knowledgeable than myself in Islam might want to correct me.

[AngryTitusPullo]

The reality was no, since there are strict rules forbidden Muslims marry non-Muslims - a chief reason why Muslim population has trouble to integrate into other society today. I don't disagree there might be a few exceptions here and there, but those should be considered as infidel practice instead anything normal and acceptable in Islamic culture.

"Made lawful for you this day are At-Tayyibat (all kinds of lawful foods, which God has made lawful. The food (slaughter cattle etc.) of the people of the scripture (Jews and Christians) is lawful to you and yours is lawful to them. (Lawful to you in marriage) are chaste women from the believers and chaste women from those who were given the scripture (Jews & Christians) before your time." (5:5)

[Keyser]

And so i stand corrected.

[RollingWave]

I think you'll find that Christians aren't allowed to marry people from other faiths either, hellheaven.

The reality was no, since there are strict rules forbidden Muslims marry non-Muslims - a chief reason why Muslim population has trouble to integrate into other society today. I don't disagree there might be a few exceptions here and there, but those should be considered as infidel practice instead anything normal and acceptable in Islamic culture.

No, not really, these theories hardly held up when faced with realities of living right next to each other.

The Seljuq Princes married multiple Christian princess, granted, all of them were either Georgian or Armenian. for example Rusudun, the Grand Daughter of David the Builder, Married Ahmed Sanjar, the final Great Seljuq Sultan. or this example, Zaida of Seville though more dubious because she was in exile and probably converted to Christianity.

Constance of Antoich was also offered up for marriage to Zengi (or one of Zengi's sons.) it didn't happen, but as it can be seen that the proposal was hardly considered impossible at the time.

or this example Onneca Fortunez married the Caliph of Cordoba in a clear strait forward political marriage.

It was not common, but it was really nowhere near impossible for these marriage to happen. As practicality overtakes all ideology.

[AngryTitusPullo]

And so i stand corrected.

There are of course various interpretations regarding the issue and of of those is that nowadays (at least) there are no more 'people of the book'. However I would not go to much into those to not turn this into Ethos thread.

In the medieval era however muslims I believe don't use marriage as political tools unlike Christian kingdoms so while there were muslims rulers/caliphs who married Christians (or keep as harem) those are not political/dynastic marriage. They were more like political gifts or taken as captives after wars.

[RubiconDecision]

No, not really, these theories hardly held up when faced with realities of living right next to each other.

The Seljuq Princes married multiple Christian princess, granted, all of them were either Georgian or Armenian. for example Rusudun, the Grand Daughter of David the Builder, Married Ahmed Sanjar, the final Great Seljuq Sultan. or this example, Zaida of Seville though more dubious because she was in exile and probably converted to Christianity.

Constance of Antoich was also offered up for marriage to Zengi (or one of Zengi's sons.) it didn't happen, but as it can be seen that the proposal was hardly considered impossible at the time.

or this example Onneca Fortunez married the Caliph of Cordoba in a clear strait forward political marriage.

It was not common, but it was really nowhere near impossible for these marriage to happen. As practicality overtakes all ideology.

Thanks, this is the kind of information I am specifically looking for for the medieval period. Yes, it's doubtful that in England a offer of marriage would happen with a Muslim prince. But it happened in Iberia. Such marriages could result in things like a distant noble being related to a Castille or Navarre noble, affecting future French intermarriages which subsequently affected others. The same is true in early medieval history in Sicily. The same is true in Armenia. There are genuine historical examples despite Latteran Council declarations or Sharia law or prohibitions among Orthodox Jews. People are people and they marry their neighbors on occasion while in the medieval period, political marriages of exigencies were the norm, not love matches. This is what most eliminated intermarriages. People lived in very seperate ways because of cultural differences.

A quick cursory look at Malta shows lots of intermarriages occuring.

All of which will be very rare in the mod because of turning on Muslim princesses and the distances required and controllable in the desc_character to limit how far they can travel (royal entourages and all without the pressing need of say diplomatic envoys). Some of this controlled by the AI having recruitable named generals.

[white-wolf]

There are many instances of early Ottoman rulers marrying with Rome princesses. Till the not marrying became a custom after the capture of Bayezit I by Timurlane and humilating him with his wife who was a Serbian princess. One big exception was the marriage of Hürrem Sultan aka Roxanna of plain slave girl from Ukrania.

[RollingWave]

There are of course various interpretations regarding the issue and of of those is that nowadays (at least) there are no more 'people of the book'. However I would not go to much into those to not turn this into Ethos thread.

In the medieval era however muslims I believe don't use marriage as political tools unlike Christian kingdoms so while there were muslims rulers/caliphs who married Christians (or keep as harem) those are not political/dynastic marriage. They were more like political gifts or taken as captives after wars.

Muslim marriage were very political as well, just not in the same way, the bigger issue is that there was no clear cut feudal system that gave girls a reasonable chance of inheritance. and Muslim rulers on average took up more wives and thus had more children, which diminish the importance of individual wife / child.

But lets point out for example, that after Nur Ad Din died, one of the first major political move by Saladin to take over his possession was to marry his widow. how was that not political?

Thus, there were also practical concerns as to why you rarely marry Muslim princess, because the incentive is rather low, you are almost certainly not going to cut a share of the father in law's inheritance. and even if you do, your brother in laws would never stand for it anyway. That along with the fact that outside of a few example, dynasties in the Islamic world were fragile, and often only last a couple generation. thus reducing the incentive even more.

This was why marrying widow was often the more common / practical political marriage in the islamic world, because women's power in the islamic world was not guaranteed through inheritance, but some often fought their way to it (usually due to their husband.) the widows of Demascus virtually shaped the fate of the entire Mid East during the 12th century, just read through the lives of Zengi / Nur Ad Din / Saladin and this should be obvious.

[Sher Khan]

The mid 12th century Andalusian writer Ibn Bassam relates a story of how a Jewish ambassador was sent to a French knight to ransom a Muslim noble's daughter who was captured along with his city. The ambassador found the knight in Moorish costume surrounded by his own harem of Muslim girls and said he couldn't return the daughter because he'd already married her and expected to sire his heirs through her.

The early 14th century French writer Pierre Dubois writes about how he planned on converting Muslim kings to Christianity by marrying beautiful and educated Christian princesses to them who might influence their new husbands into converting, but also feared the opposite would happen.

Miscegenation across religious and cultural lines was a common concern for a lot of social theorists of the age, but when they usually speak of such interactions as being religiously impossible or decadent, they spoke of their own perfect world in contrast to the real one where such things occurred more often than we know. Sorry for the month old bump, just felt like chiming in.