Christian merchants traded arms with Islam even during crusades and Ottoman wars.

Evidence

Even at times of major clashes between Christen­ dom and Islam—the crusaders in the East, the Ottomans in Austria—there was a lively commerce between the two worlds, mainly due to European enterprise and activity. In 1174 Saladin, the hero of the counter-crusade, wrote to the Caliph in Baghdad to explain his decision to allow the European Christian merchants to remain in the Levant ports even after they had been reconquered. These mer­ chants, he said, rendered a valuable service, bringing the choicest of Western products, and in particular, weapons and other war materials. Christian author­ ities, not surprisingly, took a less benign view of this trade, and the Holy See in particular tried to stop it by decrees of prohibition and threats of excom­ munication. But all these efforts were of no avail. This profitable traffic contin­ ued, and even as the Ottoman armies were advancing into the heart of Europe, there were Christian merchants eager to supply their needs, and Christian bankers willing to finance their purchases. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 693

Categorization

• CANDY: Saladin protecting European arms merchants in his own conquered ports is a tidy counterintuitive fact for cocktail-party conversation.
• SEED: Angle: the recurring image of the “enemy” as paying customer — how the weapon-supplier relationship between Christendom and Islam undercuts civilizational clash narratives.