For lust of knowing what should not be known/ We take the Golden Road to Samarkand. [[1]]

The Silk Road has always been known for providing pathways that allow the Far East to exchange goods and ideas with the European West. History often remembers that the Silk Road helped Europe expand and flourish. However, the cities that lived in close proximity to the Silk Road routes also benefited economically and culturally. Samarkand, specifically, became a multi-ethnic city of trade under the leadership of Tamerlane in the 14^th century. According to historian Christopher I. Beckwith, Tamerlane formed Samarkand into a “model city” [[2]]. But was it Tamerlane’s skill as a political leader, or the influence of the trade routes that brought glory to the grand city? While Tamerlane’s empire was vast and incredible, it is impossible to deny that the Silk Road played a larger role in the flourishing of Samarkand due to the market established in the city, as well as its toleration of those with different cultural and religious identities.

Timur the Lame, or Tamerlane, was a successful military and political ruler in the city of Samarkand. As a child, Timur found himself living on the Central Asian steppes where he and his tribe would migrate at the mercy of the seasonal weather [[3]]. However, as he grew older, Timur soon found himself gaining a foothold and conquering tribes, making alliances with other warlords, and looting as a missionary throughout Central Asia [[4]]. One of Timur’s most influential alliances was made with the Balkh warlord Amir Husayn. Throughout the course of the alliance between Timur and Husayn, tensions were high and it eventually disintegrated [[5]]. Despite Timur facing betrayal during his previous experience with Husayn, the two again joined forces to eventually overthrow the Sarbadar government in Samarkand in 1366 [[6]]. While ruling alongside Husayn in Samarkand, Timur gained many followers. Timur was regarded as a brave, intelligent, and generous ruler among his people though it was well known that he was also ruthless to his enemies [[7]]. With his skill to gain followers and prestige all across the Central Asian steppes and cities, Timur was finally able to make his way into the Mongol courts. After Genghis Khan died, Timur was able to cement his control as the sole ruler of the Chagatai territory on April 9, 1370 [[8]].

The ancient city of Samarkand is well known to be a melting pot of people with different races and religions. The Sogdian people are considered to be one of the first to populate the area. In fact, the first traces of the Sogdian people date back to 700 BC. Valerie Hansen of Yale University writes that it is likely that the early Sogdian settlers lived peacefully within the city as merchants, farmers, and servants. She also states that the Sogdians were also able to continue using their native language although it was not the mainstream language of the city [[9]]. However, the Sogdians were not the only people to occupy the city. When Ruiz Gonzales de Clavijo visited the city while on embassy in 1412, he noted that there were people from across the world living in the city. Clavijo wrote:

…The population now of all nationalities gathered together in Samarqand… [Amounting] to about 150,000 souls. Of the nations brought here together there were to be seen Turks, Arabs and Moors of diverse sects, with Christians who were Greeks and Armenians, Catholics, Jacobites, and Nestorians…[[10]]

These different religious and ethnic groups likely lived in peace and toleration of one another and focused on improving commerce within the city.

While Tamerlane was a successful ruler and won the respect and loyalty of his citizens, that alone did not cause the city of Samarkand to become great. Instead, the Silk Road routes are most likely the reason for the city’s strong economy. The Silk Road was a series of trade routes that stretched from China, located in the Far East, to the European West. These dangerous trade routes allowed merchants to not only sell silk, but also chemicals, spices, minerals, leather goods, and paper [[11]]. While China traded with many different countries across the known world, the country mainly focused its trade with Samarkand. The Chinese likely had a special trading partnership established with the Sogdians, who were seen as the “main contributors” to the Silk Roads [[12]]. Hansen refers to the painting that was seen in the Panjikent House. In this painting, a woman is shown who appears to be a deity. The style of art was likely influenced by the Chinese because of their relationship with the city [[13]].

The city of Samarkand also had an elaborate trading marketplace set up with the city itself. Ruiz Gonzalez de Clavijo also mentioned that the city of Samarkand was stocked full of goods and other merchandise from around the world. Some items were even exclusively sold within the city. Spices from India, for example, were “never to be found in the markets of Alexandria.” According to Clavijo, when Timur succeeded in conquering new lands, he would often bring the best craftsmen of the conquered territory to Samarkand. For example, Timur brought weavers from Damascus, gun smiths from Turkey, as well as glassmakers and armorers that were found in other locations [[14]]. Additionally, the fertile soil in the areas surrounding the city helped farmers to harvest wheat, wine, fruit, and cotton. The price of goods was then controlled to prevent inflation from rising too high. Clavijo mentions that the price of a pair of sheep would normally cost a “ducat,” which is equivalent to about six shillings. A person in Samarkand could also pay a “half a real,” equivalent to about three pence, for a bushel and a half of barley [[15]].

Aside from the strong economy and ethnic tolerance in the city, Samarkand is also known for its beauty. On his trip, Clavijo noted that Samarkand was larger than Seville and also noticed surrounding suburbs, orchards, and vineyards outside of the city. It is noted that the “most noble and beautiful houses” are also located among the vineyards, gardens, and farmlands [[16]]. Inside the city, Samarkand also possessed beautiful buildings. Historian Xinru Liu of the College of New Jersey writes that the city’s close proximity to the Silk Roads and the cultural influences from within caused Samarkand to have several different cultural buildings erected from within. For example, Liu mentions that Islamic scholars traveled along the Silk Roads and, eventually, Islamic architectural building and centers sprang up throughout the city [[17]].

Initially, the city of Samarkand was established as a military garrison by the Arabs after defeating the Turks in 712 [[18]]. Overtime, the city became prosperous and a large trading hub where people from across the world could trade for exclusive items. How did the city of Samarkand become such an influential power at this time? Some, including Christopher I. Beckwith, and Clavijo, argue that the rule of Tamerlane is what expanded the city’s influence, wealth, and power. However, it is more plausible that the presence of the Silk Roads and the city’s multi-ethnic identity is what made it great. Today, Samarkand still remains a prosperous city of trade with multi-ethnic identity [[19]].

Bibliography

• Beckwith, Christopher I. Empires of the Silk Road: A History of the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009).
• de Clavijo, Ruiz Gonzales. “Clavijo’s Embassy to Tamerlane.” University of Washington, http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/clavijo/cltxt1.html (accessed April 26, 2017).
• Flecker, James Elroy. “The Golden Road to Samarkand.” AllPoetry.com, https://allpoetry.com/The-Golden-Road-to-Samarkand (accessed April 24, 2017).
• Hansen, Valerie. The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
• Liu, Xinru. The Silk Road in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).
• Marozzi, Justin. Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (Cambridge: Da Capo  Press, 2004).

Footnotes

[1] James Elroy Flecker, “The Golden Road to Samarkand,” AllPoetry.com, https://allpoetry.com/The-Golden-Road-to-Samarkand (accessed April 24, 2017).

[2] Christopher I. Beckwith, Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 203.

[3] Justin Marozzi, Tamerlane: Sword of Islam, Conqueror of the World (Cambridge: Da Capo Press, 2004), 28.

[4] Ibid, 30, 40-48.

[5] According to Justin Marozzi, Timur and Amir Husayn, formed an alliance via a marriage between Timur and Aljai Turkhan-agha, who was Husayn’s sister. The two men went undercover as missionaries when Timur decided that he did not want to submit to Moghul rule. It was even during this time as a missionary that Timur most like injured his leg, which never healed, giving him the nickname “Timur the Lame.” In 1365, the partnership ended when Husayn left Timur on the battlefield after resentment tore the two allies apart. They eventually worked together once more in the battle for Samarkand, but while ruling the city, the alliance once more became strained due to differences in political policies and beliefs. Husayn, reportedly, began to tax Timur and his followers because the two leaders had opposing styles of leadership. The alliance between the two officially ended when Aljai, Timur’s wife and Husayn’s sister, died. In 1370, Timur, backed by the government in Bukhara marched with his followers on Balkh to conquer Husayn’s city. Husayn was captured by one of Timur’s men and reportedly tried to bribe the guard with pearls. He was eventually brought before Timur, surrendered, and then executed.

[6] Ibid, 40.

[7] Beckwith, 197-200.

[8] Beckwith, 198.

[9] Valerie Hansen, The Silk Road: A New History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 117, 120.

[10] Ruiz Gonzales de Clavijo, “Clavijo’s Embassy to Tamerlane,” University of Washington, http://depts.washington.edu/silkroad/texts/clavijo/cltxt1.html (accessed April 26, 2017).

[11] Hansen, 5.

[12] Ibid, 4.

[13] Ibid, 126-127.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Clavijo’s Embassy to Tamerlane.

[16] Ibid.

[17] Xinru Liu, The Silk Road in World History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 106-107.

[18] Beckwith, 133.

[19] Liu, 66-67.

Of course, the city did exist – and it flourished, despite its desert climate and a cultural identity distinct from those of other African metropolises. Yushau Sodiq described Timbuktu as “one of the most radiant seats of culture and civilization in West Africa,” which has now “become a city of sand and dust.” During its height, “West Africans perceived Timbuktu as the economic and cultural capital equal to Rome, Fez, and Mecca.”

Located in the lower Sahara desert near the Niger River and founded in the 12th century by the nomadic Tuareg people, the site initially existed as a camp for traders before blossoming as a scholastic hub. By the 14th century it had become an Islamic center of learning, bringing students from across the region to its universities and libraries. A century later, it would replace Djenné of Niger’s Mopti and Inner Delta region as the epicenter of scholarship in the Muslim world. One critique of the city’s education system was that instruction was limited to those who came from wealthy families, while many other learning centers throughout the Islamic world were not controlled by the hereditary elite.

At its peak, Timbuktu’s Islamic Sankore University hosted 25,000 students who studied literature, philosophy, religion, and science. Natural science, geography, and medicine were also important areas of study for scholars, many of whom traveled from across the region to learn at the prestigious institution.   The grand mosques of Djingareyber, Sankore, and Sidi Yehia shone over the city and still exist centuries later, showcasing the dominant and lasting effect Islam had on the region.

Timbuktu existed for much of its history not as a sub-Saharan or black African community, but instead as an Islamic center, more in line with other Middle Eastern cities.   No one is quite sure how, or when, this happened: the precise date Islam was introduced to the city has not been recorded. Trade with Muslims from Morocco likely first introduced Islam to the region. As trade expanded, it drew people from across the Muslim world to Timbuktu. Other scholars point to Mansa Musa, who ruled over the city in the 14th century and built mosques and encouraged the expansion of Islam. He also stressed Islam’s teachings to his companions and successors, who followed his urgings.

In 1964, researchers from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization studied works written by 14th century travelers to Timbuktu. They provided insights into the then-new idea that there existed sophisticated, free-thinking peoples in southern Africa at a time when Europe was still stuck in the Middle Ages.

In the 15th century, Timbuktu surpassed Walata, in southeast Mauritania, as the chief southern endpoint of the trans-Sahara trading network, which supplied gold, Sudanese slaves, cotton, and grains to North Africa, the Middle East, and even Europe. Among the famous scholars and explorers of the era, Ibn Battuta, Cadamosto, and Leo Africanus wrote highly of the wealth of the city from the 13th to mid-16th centuries. Africanus stated in 1526, “Here are great stores of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men,” while also praising the standing army of 3,000 horsemen, waiting to defend the city. Of the town’s residents, Battuta said that the people, “Were Muslims of old, and are distinguished by their piety and their quest for knowledge.”

Libraries and collections of books were the focal points of the city’s emphasis on education. Michael Dumper and Bruce E. Stanley referred to the land as the “city of books,” stating that the “the city literally lived off its books.” During Timbuktu’s peak, many works were published in the city and then sold throughout the Islamic world. These were vital components of the trans-Saharan trade. One native scholar, Ahmad Baba, owned a collection of 1,600 books and manuscripts, and was quoted as saying that his group of texts was rather small in comparison to other collections in the city. Baba, who wrote studies on Islamic law and biographies of Islamic scholars, was one of the three most prominent scholars from Timbuktu during the 16th and 17th centuries. Joining him were Mahmud Kati, who wrote the Tarikh al-Fattash, translated as the History of the Seeker of Knowledge, and Abd-al Rahman as-Sadi, the author of Tarikh as-Sudan, which has provided much of the known information about historical Western Sudan. Public libraries were also formed under the management of the Songhai leader, Askia Daoud.

Trade flourished thanks to markets that saw western Sudanese goods, including gold, ivory, and tortoise shell, dealt for incoming commodities from southern African regions. Timbuktu, a premier port town, owed much of its wealth to trade with areas further inland or south on the African continent. The city was blessed with a good location: the presence of the Niger river, and the vast floodplain that it produced, allowed for rich farming and fishing industries during different parts of the year.  

Timbuktu survived the fall of the Ghana Empire, the rise and fall of the Mali Empire, and persecution by the Songhai Empire. In fact, it was following an initial period of conflict between the Songhai and Timbuktu that the city achieved its golden age, thanks to dynastic leaders and accommodating attitudes from certain Songhai monarchs. In today’s Timbuktu, the majority of the population still speaks the Songhai language.  

Timbuktu’s decline began in 1591, when the city was destroyed by Moroccans invaders, who were attempting to control the lucrative reserves of gold and salt in the area. Many of Timbuktu’s most highly regarded scholars were then kidnapped and forcibly taken to northern Africa. This included Ahmed Baba, who was deported to Marrakesh along with his vital collections. Moroccan mercenary armies utilized firearms to overwhelm Timbuktu’s army, and they stormed the city with English-made cannons and muskets.

While the Moroccan invasion hastened the demise of the city, Riccardo Pelizzo stated that, “Timbuktu lost power and prestige because its market decayed. However, no single factor can account individually for this event.” Other reasons for the city’s downfall include the decline of Mediterranean trade throughout the Eastern Hemisphere and internal strife following the fall of the Songhai Empire. These helped to set up the collapse of the once-great beacon of trade and education.

The Moroccan conquest would give way to occupations by the Oulminden, the Peuhls, and the Tuaregs. The city, captured numerous times during this era, was viewed as a place of sin, impurity, and a haven for anti-Islamic ideology, thanks to the growth, in the rural and poor communities, of so-called “militant jihad” movements, beginning in the 1700s. The eventual cessation of trade by Portuguese colonists and the decline of Arabic and Islam under the French occupation in the late 19th century furthered Timbuktu’s decline, as the city would never again reach its 16th century heights, when it had 100,000 residents and was a trading hub. Outside of still-existing structures in modern-day Timbuktu, most of the city’s known history comes from Arabic chronicles, tārīkh, which have preserved the city’s records since the late 16th century. These Arabic records again showcase Islam’s venerable legacy in the city. However, in comparison to other highly populated or well-traveled centers in Africa or the Middle East, there is limited documentation about Timbuktu.

In the 21st century, Timbuktu is a shell of its former self, with a population of 54,000. Over the last few decades, historians and preservationists have shown a renewed interest in the city, marked by the placement of several of Timbuktu’s mosques on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1988 and the establishment of the Cultural Mission of Timbuktu in 1993, both meant to conserve the city’s historic area and educate those in the region about its history. Sankore University has received restoration funds, while international donors have contributed to the preservation of the city’s approximately 70 libraries and the valuable collections held within them.

The bustling universities and vibrant shopping centers of half a millennium ago may no longer be Timbuktu’s beating heart. However, the legacy of the city lives on in the historical records left by scholars and explorers who saw the ancient city in its heyday. They serve as an illustration of Islamic learning and culture in a climate unique to its characteristics.

Perhaps the discovery of consciousness will begin with a simple assumption like: Humans are self-aware; animals are not. Although at first this seems to be valid, it will be very hard to support it with examples. Nobody ever saw a monkey crying and looking at mirror while thinking about its self-origin; or a fish committing suicide because of something it did; a snake becoming depressed, or a bird fearing God. However, just because we cannot see such things does not mean that they do not exist. Moreover, we hardly see such behavior among people. Perhaps they will say that self-awareness is a condition of the human brain and soul that lasts for a few seconds, during which people experience their own consciousness and thus realize their place in the universe, that death is inevitable, that they are responsible for their actions, or, in principle, that their existence has no meaning if they do not invent one.

Such statements, which seem dull to today’s freshman philosophy students, will be welcomed with great enthusiasm in the scientific community. Although nobody can argue for the above human-animal assumption, empiricism, which always has been biology’s main path, will cause researchers to compare the differences between animal and human brains, cell molecules, neural connections, and all other aspects.

It seems almost certain that the faculties of consciousness controlled by our souls will remain completely unknown to us until the end of time. However, the materialistic part of self-consciousness probably will turn out to be a group of cells connected to each other in a very special way, hopefully in a localized area of the brain. When this discovery is made with certain electrodes or other receptors, maybe we will be able to observe our free will’s decision-making process. In fact, although our free will and self-awareness are somewhat related, it is easier to trace the free will. It will really be something when an article relates that a scientist will ask a human subject to put a knife in his hand without reason. He might do it, but a monkey would never deliberately hurt himself. It is quite possible that some form of communication between the neurons making up the consciousness will occur when the free will is deciding what to do.

Transplanting the consciousness

Once the group of neurons that make up self-awareness are determined, work will start on clinical trials to learn how to transplant consciousness (c). Since c and memory are two different things, it will be argued that, in principle, it is possible to transplant c from a dead person to another and thereby increase the recipient’s quantity of self-awareness. It is almost trivial that one’s memory is also one’s self. A person begins with no memories, acquires them while alive, begins losing them as death approaches, and then loses all of them through death.Only a deep perception of these memories by c can give a person a view and idea of the world. Given this, it follows that a person with more c will understand life and the world better, and will find more accurate solutions to problems regarding existence. Obviously, this person would need a certain memory that the c can work on”in other words, education. In summary, with c-transplantation studies, humanity will be able to produce individuals that can perceive the world from a higher perspective.

When c-transplantation surgeries are considered safe and that patients start seeing the world from a very different angle, most likely the organization that holds the rights to and carries out c-transplantation operations will become the richest medical company on Earth. Who would not want to be more intelligent, to lie down a normal person and stand up an ubermensch? There might even be government-funded research projects designed to see if more c will allow people to answer such questions as the meaning of life or the simultaneous existence of fate and free-will. This c-trade will make its founders rich, but only for a very short time.

Sadly, one of the fastest financial growth curves in history will end unexpectedly and very rapidly. The idea that a person with more self-awareness can understand life and the world better will still be valid, but after a couple of years people will not want it. This might be hard to 

believe, for we have never been given such a choice. Consider this: Do we really want to live our own self-awareness now? Or is it that whenever our c finds us alone thinking about life, the universe, God, death, and so on, we run away from it like we saw a beast? Even though this makes us a lesser human being, do we really care about all that or do we just want to forget?

Remember the adventure of European philosophy, in which the Middle Age’s ignorance was disrupted by the Renaissance and the Enlightenment’s philosophical proceedings. Moreover, advances in science and positivism have augmented the self-awareness of intellectuals and of society in general. However, at the height of this awareness, we see the emergence of a pessimistic worldview, modern philosophy, and even ignorance”an intentional escape from thinking in the shape of postmodernism. The story of c-trade will closely resemble that of philosophy: Stocks will lose their value in a single day, and nobody will want any more self-awareness than they already have.

However, one day, when everybody has forgotten about c-trade, a person will emerge and lead humanity to everlasting happiness. This person will first perform a c-transplantation surgery on a living person to remove the c as if it were a tumor that does not kill but sometimes gives unbearable pain. And he will not transplant that c to someone else, but just throw it away.

The popularity of Crusoe

Excepting the Gospel narrative, no story has so dominated the imagination of Europe as Robinson Crusoe. First published in London in 1719, it went through an unprecedented six editions the same year. Over the next century or so, it saw 700 editions and innumerable translations into every major European language. Since then, it has undergone adaptation and abridgement into other media – opera, pantomime, film, serial, cartoon, and so on. For over 250 years Crusoe has been a part of the self-image of every schoolboy with a European education. The author, Daniel Defoe, to cash in on the instant success of Crusoe, had a sequel ready for the press within four months (The Farther Adventures), and later wrote a more philosophical and contemplative third volume of Crusoe’s ‘Serious Reflections’. These sequels never caught on. What holds the imagination is the original situation: how a quite ordinary man, stranded for about 25 years on an uninhabited island, retains his sanity and dignity through every hardship and even emerges from this ‘trial’ with a modest fortune. The novel is a working up of the actual experiences of Alexander Selkirk, a sailor marooned five years on an island off Chile (subsequently named Isla Robinson Crusoe) who got back to England in 1708 and recounted his experiences to an eager public.

Crusoe: the myth derived from the novel

A book so widely read for over ten generations during which the world has undergone remarkable transformations cannot be un-connected to those transformations. The novel has in fact become a modern European myth, and the myth varies from the novel in important ways.

The transformation of Crusoe began very early, through the status accorded to it by the French philosopher Rousseau in Emile (first English trans. 1762). In this treatise on ‘natural education’ (i.e. education without the religious/cultural preconceptions used to adapt children to their future role in society), Rousseau wrote:

I hate books; they only teach people to talk about what they don’t understand… Since we must have books, there is already one which, in my opinion, affords a complete treatise on natural education…. Emile [the boy whose education is being planned] will need no other book in his library for many years. It will afford us the text to which all our conversations on the objects of natural science will serve only as a comment. It will serve as our guide during our progress to a state of reason…. You ask impatiently what is the title of this wonderful book? Is it Aristotle, Pliny….? No. It is Robinson Crusoe.

Robinson Crusoe, cast ashore on a desolate island, destitute of human assistance, and of mechanical implements, providing, nevertheless, for his subsistence, for self-preservation, and even procuring for himself a kind of competency …The most certain method for [Emile] to raise himself above vulgar prejudices and to form his judgement on the actual relations of things, is to take on himself the character of such a solitary adventurer, and to judge of everything about him, as a man in such circumstances would, by its real utility. This romance beginning with his [Crusoe’s] shipwreck on the island, and ending with the arrival of the vessel that brought him away, would, if cleared of its rubbish, afford Emile…. both instruction and amusement …. The practise of simple manual arts, to the exercise of which the abilities of the individual are equal, leads to the invention of the arts of industry the exercise of which requires the concurrence of the many. The former may be practised by hermits and savages; but the latter can be exercised only in a state of society.

This account of Robinson Crusoe the novel is inaccurate and unfair. But it is a near perfect account of the myth. The explicit contents of that myth are: a man can enter upon an unknown land with nothing and, by applying his native energies without inhibition, learn the arts and crafts necessary for survival and economic success; later, he can improve this success by using the labour of others as well as his own to exploit resources in a more organised way. The implicit elements of the myth are less attractive: the adventurer is a white man (not a woman), a European. He never enters into abstract speculations about the moral worth or ultimate purpose or far consequences of particular actions; instead, he calculates their present utility and applies the necessary means to secure himself and make economic surpluses. The land is there for him to subdue and use to his present advantage. Ideally, the land should be uninhabited, but if it happens to be inhabited, he must act as if it were in fact empty. For reasons never uttered, the European adventurer has a right to eliminate any competition: the natives will eventually understand that it is better for them to be ruled by the adventurer.

Crusoe: the novel vs. the myth

The reason is that the myth is still carried by the novel and the novel, being better and greater than the myth, saves the myth. Among several inaccuracies of the myth vis A vis the novel, one is the notion that Crusoe enters upon the island unequipped. In fact, though he lacks needle and thread and a metal spade (for which he improvises with characteristic resolve), Crusoe has pretty well everything else – some food, rice and barley seed, cloth and clothing, an axe and other tools, guns and gunpowder, pen ink and paper, the Bible, a dog and two cats, also his comfort drugs: tobacco and the pipe to put it in and rum. He is not, as the myth pretends, humanly unassisted: the assistance of others is available to him in the compacted form of the ‘capital of all that he salvages from the shipwreck. Without this capital’, Crusoe could not have begun, let alone succeeded, as an entrepreneur. Similarly, on the land itself, he has no rivals – neither predatory animals nor fellow- Europeans nor, until he is relatively securely established, natives. In sum, the Europeans complete self- sufficiency is a fabrication. It has been added to what is there in the novel, namely his resourcefulness with his capital.

Most significantly of all, the myth has wiped from the novel its religious dimension: this is probably what Rousseau meant by the phrase: ‘if the romance were cleared of all its rubbish’. But the religious dimension is not rubbish, it shapes the character and temperament of Robinson Crusoe. The novel has pretensions to spiritual autobiography, in the tradition of Pilgrim’s Progress, but without overtly allegorical characters or plot: the events and the central character are meant to be believed as literally true, not figuratively true. Defoe, it is worth noting, was the author of a very popular book of moral guidance, The Family Instructor, first published the year before Crusoe, and often reprinted.

Crusoe is a first-person diary of events told, as they were experienced at the time, by the wise Christian the narrator has become. Crusoe tells us that his ‘original sin’ was to disobey his father’s instruction to make a career as a lawyer; he could not resist the urge to wander, and ran away to make a fortune in the slave-trade; though he had opportunities to learn the skills of a sailor, he disdained to do so, dressing instead as a ‘gentleman’ (one who does not need to labour with his hands). Through the vicissitudes of storms and capture by pirates, Crusoe tells us, he hardly ever looked upward to heaven or inward to the condition of his own soul. But alone on the island, an earth-tremor that destroys much of his painstaking handiwork, and the sight of seeds sprouting, and his own near death by fever, lead Crusoe to recover his spiritual senses. His life thereafter is one of steady, solitary labour in a state of constant fear – fear of want, of hunger, of attacks by unknown animals or persons. But he maintains a gritty composure, looking regularly for signs of Divine Providence in whatever occurs, expressing gratitude for God’s care of him, in particular of his soul. There are constant references to the patriarchs and prophets of the Bible, so that Crusoe is, as it were, in a state of continual dialogue with his own soul. It is by dint of these inward as well as his outward labours to secure the necessities of life that, little by little, he comes to regard his island not as his prison but as his garden. He accepts his fate by choosing it as his destiny and, till the day he finds a human footprint on the sand, he imagines that he could live there alone and content until Providence decreed his death.

The footprint throws him into turmoil. In part he is afraid of a threat to the security of his person and property. But his chief fear is that the company of men will reintroduce to his life the temptations to sin and forgetfulness of God. Alone, he has no use for money, his needs are minimal; in company, his needs will grow as opportunities for commercial exchange and competition are presented. The ‘state of nature’ (man on his own), conceived as a state of fear, can be relieved by a conscience resigned to Providence; but from the state of society (conceived as a ‘state of conflict’, the war of each against all), there is no relief.

In relation to the natural world, Crusoe is no contemplative or scientist: he sees a tree, not with the eye of botanist or poet but of an entrepreneur, as timber fit for building. He assesses all the islands resources in the same way, and desires to improve them, by which he means quite explicitly ‘to increase their economic value’. His understanding of God does not come through reflection on the natural world as signs of God It comes, instead, through his feeling inwardly that circumstances, and the resources put at his disposal, are all arranged by God to test his faith and actions. His response to the testing is to work hard, resigning success or failure to the wisdom of Providence, and to keep up a stable, steady thankfulness. Once he has attained this peace with himself he can hope that, whatever crisis occurs, he will act in a decent way pleasing to God and his conscience. Thus, for example, when disgusted by the sight of cannibals feasting on the sea-shore, he has an impulse to kill them all in cold blood, but he overcomes the impulse.

Among the resources Crusoe manages and improves is himself.

This aspect of the story is what most delights its young readers: the analysis of how things work or are made, the resort to first principles, the improvisation with inadequate or insufficient materials and tools, the delight in whatever gets made, however clumsy or incompetent. Crusoe is a self-made man, in the moral as well as the economic sense: from the materials provided by Providence, he makes his character – his humility conscience, forbearance, composure, open-mindedness – as well as his outlandish clothes, rickety furniture, leaky bowls, the famous umbrella. Moreover, his religion is not a passive observance, but active personal prayer, personal turning to God, personal reading of the Scripture. What deeper wish does a young boy have, instructed to believe or pray or think in particular ways, and surrounded by things that enter his world ready- made, than to obtain some understanding and mastery of himself and his things through his own effort? Robinson Crusoe is the fulfilment of that wish. It enacts in rich, realistic detail the attainment of economic and moral independence by an individual of ordinary abilities and background, assisted by an omnipresent and benevolent Providence.

Crusoe builds himself a little domain, colonises a little empire. But he did not intend to do so; his empire just came to him by way of economic reward for initiative and effort. On the individual scale, his enterprise involved relatively little cruelty to others, no ugly national or racist pride, no brutal genocide, no violent competition with other colonisers. Crusoe is a decent man, disciplined, humble and, in a typically English way, composed and self-deprecating. It is through this self-achieved moral character and temperament that the novel saves the myth: it allows the English in particular to delude themselves that they did not mean to build a world-wide empire, it just came to them – as if armies and navies, mechanised industries and compelled trade, savage taxation of natives and cynical diplomacy, and the rest, had nothing to do with it. The appeal of the novel rests on this principle: provided an individuals own conscience is clear with respect to his personal actions, whatever evil may be done collectively by the state or society or the nation of which he is a part need not be an additional burden to that conscience. Morally, the individual is independent of the collective: at liberty to protest and to take personal initiatives to help alleviate the consequences of collective actions, he is not charged with moral responsibility for those actions themselves. The evident contradiction may be illustrated from the incident of naming Crusoe’s slave, Man Friday.

Naming the native

This incident was described earlier from the perspective of the myth: as Crusoe names his dog, so he names his slave, Friday, the day he ‘discovers’ him. It is not like that in the novel. At the time Defoe was writing, it had been reported by returning travellers that some of the ‘savages’ they encountered did not have names for each other until the Europeans gave them names. The fact is utterly impossible: there are no human beings who do not use human language, and no human language is conceivable where consciousness of one’s self and the other’s self (which necessitates naming each other) does not exist. But we must allow that such reports were accepted as plausible, even as true, without any particular malice – simply as a mistake – by Defoe’s contemporaries. In this way, giving a name is a positive and indeed kindly act. It is certainly the case that Crusoe sees Friday as a person like himself, a fellow human being with feelings like his own (for example homesickness) and faculties like his own (for example curiosity and dexterity), above all with a past and a mind of his own, to whom he imparts the story of his own life and misfortunes as well as his religion. Crusoe learns from the companionship with Friday, and he says so. Because readers may suspect I am overstating the case, they will allow me an extensive quotation. On spotting his homeland from a hill-top, Friday expresses great delight. Crusoe quickly and wrongly suspects that Friday will now return to his people, come back with them in great numbers and kill and eat him. Here are his reflections on his suspicion:

I wronged the poor honest creature very much, for which I was very sorry afterwards. However, as my jealousy [suspicion] increased, and held me some weeks, I was a little more circumspect, and not so familiar and kind to him as before, in which I was certainly in the wrong too, the honest grateful creature having no thought about it, but what consisted with the best principles, both as a religious Christian, and as a grateful friend, as appeared afterwards to my full satisfaction.

Can there be any doubt that Crusoe means well by his Man Friday? Yet, he is patronising in calling him ‘creature’, even as he praises him and criticises himself. The distance between master and slave is taken as a given; Crusoe never questions its propriety. He contemplates entering the slave- trade and his only negative comment on it is that it is a risky business, that it may be more prudent for him to purchase and pay a traders profit margin than risk the financial perils of capturing and transporting his own slaves. Since Crusoe abhors cannibalism without reserve, we may be sure he is capable of recognising something as an absolute evil; evidently, the slave-trade did not rate as such at that time.

The treatment by Europeans collectively of those natives or imported Negro slaves whose abused lives fuelled their commercial wealth is well known; natives and slaves were not accorded a status much above that of property or livestock, and their mistreatment continued long after such policies were officially condemned and outlawed. At the end of the 20th century, the attitudes behind that abuse have begun to die away, but the economic relations and political structures within which that abuse happened are proving more durable. The individual kindnesses in attitude and practice – and one could give historical as well as fictional examples – were irrelevant to affect or contain the evil done collectively.

The novels relationship with the myth is, in short, that it justifies the secularisation of economic and political life then taking place in Europe. Fifty years after Crusoe, the publication of Adam Smiths Wealth of Nations, marked the formal and permanent separation of economics/politics from ethics/ jurisprudence.

All of Crusoes moral and religious reflections are now read (outside specialist academic circles) as idiosyncrasies of the individual, a part of the charm of his character. Most modern Christians, and especially Christians of the Dissenting Non-Conformist Protestant tradition to which Defoe belonged, do not, as Crusoe did, rely upon Providence and their own industry, they rely upon their own industry exclusively, appealing to God only when they are unable to help themselves, and after they are helped, they are oblivious again – precisely the loss of grace Crusoe dreaded on seeing the human footprint. That loss was inevitable. For the reality is that the economic surplus that Crusoe achieves on his island in the state of nature (i.e. alone) is an impossibility: it can only be achieved in the ‘state of society’ (the conflict of each against all). This reality is represented in this realistic novel by (1) the ‘capital’ with which Crusoe starts his enterprise, a fact which, as we noted, the myth simply denies; and (2) Crusoe’s re-joining the economic mainland, his returning to England and voyaging Out again to new colonialist ventures, and (3) the revival of his hopes of entering the slave trade.

(Note: Robinson Crusoe Part 2:Economic individualism and secularisation and Part 3: The Muslim castaway: Hayy bin Yaqzan will appear in subsequent issues of The Fountain.