sign in sign up
<<
Home , 640s, Vizier

292 CHAPTER 8 • THE HEIRS OF THE 600-7SO

Byzantines actually worshiped icons; others, Iconoclasm had an enormous impact on particularly , considered icons a nec- daily life. At home, where people had their essary part of Christian piety. As the own portable icons, it forced changes in pri- St. put it in a vigorous de- vate worship: the devout had to destroy their fense of holy images, "I do not worship matter, icons or worship them in secret. The ban on I worship the God of matter, who became mat- icons meant ferocious attacks on the monas- ter for my sake, and deigned to inhabit matter, teries: splendid collections of holy images who worked out my salvation through matter." were destroyed; vast properties were confis- Other Byzantines abhorred icons. Most cated; and monks, who were staunch de- numerous of these were the soldiers on the fenders of icons, were ordered to marry and frontiers. Shocked by Arab triumphs, they give up their vocation. In this way icono- found the cause of their misfortunes in the clasm destroyed communities that might biblical injunction against graven images. otherwise have served as centers of resis- When they compared their defeats to Muslim tance to imperial power. Reorganized and successes, they could not help but notice reoriented, the Byzantine rulers were able to that Islam prohibited all representations of maintain themselves against the onslaught of the divine. To these soldiers and others who the , who attacked under the banner of shared their view, icons revived pagan idola- Islam. try and desecrated Christian divinity. As icon- oclastic (anti-icon or, literally, icon-breaking) Review: What stresses did the feeling grew, some churchmen became out- endure in the seventh and eighth centuries, spoken in their opposition to icons. and how was Iconoclasm a response to those Byzantine emperors shared these reli- stresses? gious objections, and they also had important political reasons for opposing icons. In fact, the issue of icons became a test of their au- thority. Icons diffused loyalties, setting up in- * Islam: A New termediaries between worshipers and God and a New Empire that undermined the emperor's exclusive place in the divine and temporal order. In ad- In the sixth century, Arabia, today Saudi dition, the emphasis on icons in monastic Arabia, witnessed the rise of Islam, a religion communities made the monks potential that called on all to submit to the will of threats to imperial power; the emperors one God. Islam, which means "submission hoped to use this issue to break the power of to God," emerged under (c. 570- the . Above all, though, the em- 632), a -turned-holy-man from the perors opposed icons because the army did, city of . While the great majority of and they wanted to support their troops. people living in Arabia were polytheists, After Emperor Leo III the Isaurian (r. Muhammad recognized one God, the same 717-741) had defeated the Arabs besieging one worshiped by the and the Chris- at the beginning of his reign, tians. He saw himself as God's last prophet— he turned his attention to consolidating his and thus he is called the Prophet—the per- political position. Officers of the imperial son to receive and in turn repeat God's final court tore down the great golden icon of words to humans. Invited by the disunited Christ at the gateway of the palace and re- and pagan people of the city of to placed it with a cross, while a crowd of come and act as a mediator for them, women protested by going on a furious ram- Muhammad exercised the powers of both a page in support of icons. But Leo would not religious and a secular leader. This dual role budge. In 726 he ordered all icons destroyed, became the model for his successors, known a ban that remained in effect, despite much as caliphs. * Through a combination of per- opposition, until 787. This is known as the suasion and force, Muhammad and his co- period of iconoclasm in Byzantine history. A modified ban would be revived in 815 and last until 843. » caliph: KAY luhf ISLAM: A NEW RELIGION AND A NEW EMPIRE 293 600-750

religionists, the , converted most of Dotting the Bedouins' desert world were the . By the time Muham- cities that arose around oases—fertile, green mad died in 632, conquest and conversion areas. Here more settled forms of life and had begun to move northward, into Byzan- took place. Mecca, near the , tine and Persian territories. In the next gen- was one such commercial center. Meccan eration, the Arabs conquered most of Persia caravans crisscrossed the peninsula, selling and all of and were on their way across slaves and spices. More important, Mecca to Spain. Yet within the territo- played an important religious role because it ries they conquered, daily life went on much contained a shrine, the Ka'ba. Long before as before. Muhammad was born, the Ka'ba, a great rock surrounded by the images of 360 gods, served as a sacred place within which war The Desert and the Cities and violence were prohibited. The tribe that Before the seventh century, the great deserts dominated Mecca, the Quraysh,* controlled of the Arabian peninsula were sparsely pop- access to the shrine and was able to tax the ulated by Bedouins.* These were nomads who flocked there as well as sell who lived in tribes—loose confederations of them food and drink. In turn, plunder was clans, or kin groups—herding flocks for meat transformed into trade as the visitors bartered and milk and trading (or raiding) for grain, with one another on the sacred grounds, as- dates, and slaves. Poor tribes herded sheep, sured of their security. whereas richer ones kept camels—extremely hardy animals, splendid beasts of burden, The Prophet Muhammad and good producers of milk and meat. (Arab was the name camel nomads called them- and the Faith of Islam selves.) Mecca, the birthplace of Muhammad, was a Tribal makeup shifted as kin groups center with two important traditions—one re- joined or left. Though continually changing, ligious, the other commercial. Muhammad's these associations nevertheless saw out- early years were inauspicious: orphaned at siders as rivals, and tribes constantly fought the age of six, he spent two years with his with one another. Yet this very rivalry was it- grandfather and then came under the care of self an outgrowth of shared values. Bedouin his uncle, a leader of the Quraysh tribe. Even- men prized "manliness," which meant far tually, Muhammad became a trader. At the more than sexual prowess. They strove to be age of twenty-five, he married Khadija, a rich brave in battle and feared being shamed. widow who had once employed him. They Manliness also entailed an obligation to be had at least four daughters and lived (to all generous, to give away the booty that was the appearances) happily and comfortably. Yet goal of intertribal warfare. Women were often Muhammad sometimes left home and spent part of this booty, for Bedouins practiced some time on the nearby Mount Hira, devot- polygyny (having more than one wife at the ing himself to prayer and contemplation. same time). Bedouin wars rarely involved In about 610, on one of these retreats, much bloodshed; their main purpose was Muhammad heard a voice and had a vision to capture people and take belongings. that summoned him to worship Allah, the Tribal, nomadic existence produced its God of the Jews and Christians. (AUoh means own culture, including an poetry of "the God" in Arabic.) He accepted the call as striking delicacy, precision, and beauty. In coming from God. Over the next years he re- the absence of written language, the ceived messages that he understood to be di- Bedouins used oral poetry and storytelling to vine revelation. Later, when they had been transmit their traditions, simultaneously en- written down and arranged—a process that tertaining, reaffirming values, and teaching was completed in the seventh century, but new generations. after Muhammad's death—these messages

* Bedouins: BEHD oo ihns * Quraysh: kur RAYSH 294 CHAPTER 8 » THE HEIRS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 600-750

Qur'an More than a holy book, the Qur'an represents for Muslims the very words of God that were dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. Gener- ally the Qur'an was written on pages wider than long, per- haps to differentiate it from other books. This example dates from the seventh or eighth century. It is written in Kufic script, a formal and majestic form of Arabic that was used for the Qur'an until the eleventh century. The round floral decoration on the right-hand page marks a new section of the text. Property of the Ambrosian Library. All rights reserved

became the Qur'an,* the holy book of Islam. ognize authorities whose interpretations of (See pages of a Qur'an above.) Qur'an means the Qur'an and related texts are considered "recitation"; each of its chapters, or suras, is decisive. The Ka'ba, with its many gods, had understood to be God's revelation as told to gathered together tribes from the surround- Muhammad by the archangel Gabriel, then ing vicinity. Muhammad, with his one God, recited in turn by Muhammad to others. It forged an even more universal religion. begins with the Fatihah, frequently also said as an independent prayer, and continues with suras of gradually decreasing length, Growth of Islam, c. 610-632 which cover the gamut of human experience First to convert to Muhammad's faith was his and the life to come (see 'The Fatihah of the wife, Khadija; then a few friends and mem- Qur'an," page 295). For Muslims (literally, bers of his immediate family joined him; and, "those who submit to Islam") the Qur'an con- as Muhammad preached the new faith, even- tains the foundations of history, prophecy, tually some others became adherents. Soon, and the legal and moral code by which men however, the new faith polarized Meccan so- and women should live: "Do not set up another ciety. Muhammad's insistence that the cults god with God— Do not worship anyone but of all other gods be abandoned in favor of one Him, and be good to your parents— Give brought him into conflict with leading clan to your relatives what is their due, and to members of the Quraysh tribe, whose control those who are needy, and the wayfarers." over the Ka'ba, a polytheistic shrine, had The Qur'an emphasizes the nuclear given them prestige and wealth. Lacking po- family—a man, his wife (or wives), and chil- litical means to expel him, they insulted dren—as the basic unit of Muslim society. Muhammad and harassed his adherents. Islam cuts its adherents adrift from the pro- tection and particularism of the tribe but Hijra: Journey to Medina. Disillusioned gives them in return an identity as part of the with Mecca and angry with his own tribe, ummafi, the community of believers, who Muhammad tried to find a place and a popu- share both a belief in one God and a set of re- lation receptive to his message. Most impor- ligious practices. Islam stresses individual tant, he expected support from Jews, whose belief in God and adherence to the Qur'an. monotheism, in Muhammad's view, prepared Thus, Muslims have no priests, no mass, them for his own faith. When a few of Muham- and no intermediaries between the divine mad's converts from Medina promised to and the individual. However, Islam does rec- protect him if he would join them there, he eagerly accepted the invitation, in part be- »Qur'an: Kur AN/Koo RAHN cause Medina had a significant Jewish popu- ISLAM: A NEW RELIGION AND A NEW EMPIRE 295 600-750 lation. In 622, Muhammad made the Hijra,* HBHMMBMHHBHMM or emigration, to Medina, an oasis about two hundred miles north of Mecca, This journey proved a crucial event for the fledgling move- The Fatihah ment. At Medina, Muhammad found followers ready to listen to his religious message and to of the Qur'an regard him as the leader of their community. They expected him to act as a neutral and The Fatihah (or Prologue) is the prayer that begins impartial judge in their interclan disputes. the Qur'an. It emphasizes God's oneness and the Muhammad's political position in the com- believer's recourse to God alone, without inter- munity set the pattern by which Islamic so- mediaries of any sort. The "path that is straight" is ciety would be governed afterward; rather than the path of right worship. adding a to political and cultural life, Muslims made their political and religious in- The Fatihah stitutions inseparable. After Muhammad's In the name of Allah, most benevolent, ever- death, the year of the Hijra was named the merciful first year of the Islamic calendar; it marked All praise be to Allah the beginning of the new Islamic era.l Lord of all the worlds, Although successful at Medina, the Mus- 2. Most beneficent, ever-merciful, lims felt threatened by the Quraysh at Mecca, 3. King of the Day of Judgement. who actively opposed the public practice of 4. You alone we worship, and to You alone Islam. For this reason Muhammad led raids turn for help. against them. At the battle of Badr* in 624, 5. Guide us (O Lord) to the path that is aided by their position near an oasis, Mu- straight, hammad and his followers killed forty-nine of 6. The path of those You have blessed, the Meccan enemy, took numerous prisoners, 7. Not of those who have earned Your anger, and confiscated rich booty. At the battle of nor those who have gone astray. Badr, Bedouin plundering was grafted onto the Muslim duty of jihad (literally, "striving").2 Source: AI-Qur'on: A Contemporary Translation, trans. Ahmed The battle of Badr was a great triumph All (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993), 11. for Muhammad, who was now able to con- solidate his position at Medina, gaining new adherents and silencing all doubters, in- cluding the Jews. Muhammad had first seen the Jews of Medina as allies, but they had not Defining the Faith. As Muhammad broke converted to Islam as he had expected. Sus- with the Jews, he instituted new practices to pecting them of supporting his enemies, define Islam as a unique religion. Among Muhammad expelled two Jewish tribes from these were the zakat, a tax on possessions to Medina and killed the male members of an- be used for alms; the fast of Ramadan, which other. Although Muslims had originally took place during the ninth month of the Is- prayed in the direction of , the lamic year, the month in which the battle of center of Jewish worship, Muhammad now Badr had been fought; the , the - had them turn in the direction of Mecca. age to Mecca during the last month of the year, which each Muslim was to make once in his lifetime; and the salat, formal wor- 'Thus, 1 A.H. (1 annoHegirae) on the Muslim calen- ship at least three times a day (later in- dar Is equivalent to 622 C.E. creased to five), which could include the 2Jihod means "striving" and is used in particular in shahodah, or profession of faith—'There is the context of striving against unbelievers. In that no divinity but God, and Muhammad is the sense, it is often translated as "holy war." But it can messenger of God." Detailed regulations for also mean striving against one's worst impulses. these practices, sometimes called the five » Hijra: HID jruh pillars of Islam, were worked out in the eighth *Badr: BAHD ihr and early ninth centuries. 296 CHAPTER 8 • THE HEIRS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 600-750 600-750

Meanwhile, Muhammad sent troops to were obliged to treat them equally; their profits at the subdue Arabs north and south. In 630, he wives received dowries and had certain in- from intertri entered Mecca with ten thousand men and heritance rights. But beginning in the eighth people who \f God ag£ took over the city, assuring the Quraysh of le- century, women began to pray apart from the niency and offering alliances with its leaders. men. Like Judaism and Christianity, Islam Prophet," sa; By this time the prestige of Islam was enough retained the practices of a patriarchal society believers ani to convince clans elsewhere to convert. in which women's participation in commu- them firmly, Through a combination of force, conversion, nity life was circumscribed. what a wretc and negotiation, Muhammad was able to Even though Islamic society was a new unite many, though by no means all, Arabic- sort of community, in many ways it did func- speaking tribes under his leadership by the tion as a tribe, or rather a "supertribe," obli- The Caliph; time of his death two years later. gated to fight common enemies, share plunder, Successors, In so doing, Muhammad brought about and resolve peacefully any internal disputes. important social transformations. The Muslims participated in group rituals, such as In founding ummah included not only men but also the salat and public recitation. The Qur'an Arabia, Mul women; as a result, women's status was en- was soon publicly sung by professional re- Arab society hanced. Islam prohibited all infanticide, a citers, much as the old tribal poetry had been. and welcorr practice that had long been used largely Most significant for the eventual spread of forged the IV against female infants; and at first, Muslim Islam, Muslim men continued to be warriors. force, and h women joined men during the prayer periods They took up where Meccan traders had been into the By; that punctuated the day. Men were allowed forced to leave off; along the routes once taken ing them bj to have up to four wives at one time, but they by caravans to , their armies reaped War and Ci lims easily and moved To the east Expansion under Muhammad, 622-632 pire, defeat Expansion under the first caliphs, to 661 of their cap I I Expansion under the Umayyads, to 750 of Persia w Battle ing the las the beginn ATLANTIC rtrn A \r KINGD0M extended t and to Ind Black Sea How w Constantinople pecially in NTINE EMPI** forces can The Byzan hausted fn the Middle Persians a depopulat with heav; welcomed territories Monophys and Egypt Byzantine lamic ovi physites, MAP 8.3 Expansion of Islam to 750 best irrel In little more than a century, Islamic armies conquered a vast region that included numerous different Kings anc people, cultures, climates, and living conditions. Yet under the Umayyads, these disparate territories nal reaso were administered by one ruler from the capital city at Damascus. The uniting force was the religion also inter of Islam, which gathered all believers into one community, the ummah. used to i ISLAM: A NEW RELIGION AND A NEW EMPIRE 297 600-750 profits at the point of a sword. But this differed Arab Coin from intertribal fighting; it was the jihad of The Arabs learned coinage people who were carrying out the injunction and minting from those of God against unbelievers. "Strive, O whom they con- Prophet," says the Qur'an, "against the un- quered—the Persians believers and the hypocrites, and deal with and the Byzantines. them firmly. Their final abode is Hell: And Although one branch of what a wretched destination!" Islam barred depicting the human form, others 1 were less condemning. The Caliphs, Muhammad's Thus, the Umayyads saw Successors, 632-750 nothing wrong with imitat- ing traditional numismatic In founding a new political community in models. The ruler depicted on Arabia, Muhammad reorganized traditional this silver coin wears a headdress Arab society as he cut across clan allegiances that echoes the one worn by the Sassanid ruler de- and welcomed converts from every tribe. He picted on page 287. The word for this type of coin, forged the Muslims into a formidable military dirham, is Greek, from drachma. The Umayyad fiscal force, and his successors, the caliphs, moved system, which retained the old Roman land tax, was into the Byzantine and Persian worlds, tak- administered by Syrians, who had often served Byzan- ing them by storm. tine rulers in the same capacity. The British Museum. War and Conquest. To the west, the Mus- lims easily took Byzantine territory in Syria and moved into Egypt in the 640s (Map 8.3). united as a supertribe. The tribes of the cities To the east, they invaded the Sassanid Em- had been the first to convert to Islam; they pire, defeating the Persians at the very gates then brought the Bedouins into the fold, con- of their capital, Ctesiphon, in 637. The whole solidating all of Arabia under one Islamic of Persia was in Muslim hands by 651. Dur- state. Under the banner of jihad, these united ing the last half of the seventh century and tribes exercised their skills as warriors not the beginning of the eighth, Islamic warriors against one another but rather against un- extended their sway to Spain (in the west) believers. Fully armed, on horseback, em- and to (in the east). ploying camels as convoys, they conquered How were such conquests possible, es- with amazing ease. Then, making their vic- pecially in so short a time? First, the Islamic tories permanent, they built garrison cities forces came up against weakened empires. from which soldiers requisitioned taxes and The Byzantine and Sassanid states were ex- goods. Sometimes whole Arab tribes, includ- hausted from fighting each other. The cities of ing women and children, were imported to the that had been taken by the settle conquered territory, as happened in Persians and retaken by the Byzantines were parts of Syria. In other regions, such as Egypt, depopulated, their few survivors burdened a small Muslim settlement at sufficed with heavy taxes. Second, the Muslims were to gather the spoils of conquest. welcomed into both Byzantine and Sassanid territories by discontented groups. Many The Politics of Succession. Struck down Monophysite Christians (see p. 276) in Syria by an illness in the midst of preparations for and Egypt had suffered persecution under the an invasion of Syria, Muhammad died quietly Byzantines and were glad to have new, Is- at Medina in 632. His death marked a crisis lamic overlords. In Persia, Jews, Mono- in the government of the new Islamic state physites, and Nestorian Christians were at and was the origin of tension between Shi'ite best irrelevant to the Zoroastrian King of and Sunni Muslims that continues today. Kings and his regime. These were the exter- The choice of caliphs to follow Muhammad nal reasons for Islamic success. There were was difficult. They came not from the tradi- also internal reasons. Arabs had long been tional tribal elite but rather from a new inner used to intertribal warfare; now they were circle of men who had participated in the 298 CHAPTER 8 • THE HEIRS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 600-750

Hijra and remained close to Muhammad. Peace and Prosperity The first two caliphs ruled without serious in Islamic Lands opposition, but the third caliph, (r. 644-656), a member of the Umayyad* Ironically, the Islamic warriors brought peace. family and son-in-law (by marriage to two While the conquerors stayed within their for- daughters) of Muhammad, aroused discon- tified cities or built magnificent hunting lodges tent among other clan members of the inner in the deserts of Syria, the conquered went circle and soldiers unhappy with his distri- back to work, to study, to play, and—in the bution of high offices and revenues. Accusing case of Christians and Jews, who were con- Uthman of favoritism, they supported his sidered protected subjects—to worship as rival, All, a member of the Hashim clan (to they pleased in return for the payment of a which Muhammad had belonged) and the special tax. At Damascus, local artists and husband of Muhammad's only surviving craftspeople worked on the lavish decorations child, Fatimah. After a group of discontented for a in a neoclassical style at the very soldiers murdered Uthman, civil war broke moment Muslim armies were storming the out between the Umayyads and All's faction. walls of Constantinople. Leaving the Byzantine It ended when Ali was killed by one of his own institutions in place, the Muslim conquerors erstwhile supporters, and the re- allowed Christians and Jews to retain their mained in Umayyad hands from 661 to 750. posts and even protected dissidents. Nevertheless, the Shi'atAli, the faction of During the seventh and eighth centuries, Ali, did not fade away. All's memory lived on Muslim scholars wrote down the hitherto among groups of Muslims (the Shi'ites) who largely oral . They deter- saw in him a symbol of justice and righ- mined the definitive form for the Qur'an and teousness. For them, All's death was the compiled pious narratives about Muham- martyrdom of the only true successor to mad (hadith literature). Scribes composed Muhammad. They remained faithful to his these works in exquisite handwriting; Arab dynasty, shunning the mainstream caliphs of became an art form. A literate the other Muslims (Sunni Muslims, as they class, composed mainly of the old Persian were later called, from Surma, the practices of and Syrian elite now converted to Islam, cre- Muhammad). The Shi'ites awaited the arrival ated new forms of prose writing in Arabic— of the true leader—the imam—who in their official documents as well as essays on top- view could come only from the house of Ali. ics ranging from hunting to ruling. Umayyad Under the Umayyad caliphate, which poetry explored new worlds of thought and lasted from 661 to 750, the be- feeling. Patronized by the caliphs, who found came a state with its capital at Damascus, in written poetry an important source of pro- the historic capital of Syria—and today's as paganda and a buttress for their power, the well. Borrowing from the institutions well poets also reached a wider audience that known to the civilizations they had just con- delighted in their clever use of words, their quered, the Muslims issued coins and hired satire, and their invocations of courage, piety, former Byzantine and Persian officials. They and sometimes erotic love: made Arabic a tool of centralization, impos- ing it as the language of government on re- / spent the night as her bed-companion, gions not previously united linguistically. each enamored of the other. For Byzantium, this period was one of And I made her laugh and cry, and stripped unparalleled military crisis, the prelude to her of her clothes. iconoclasm. For the Islamic world, now a I played with her and she vanquished me; multiethnic society of Muslim Arabs, Syrians, I made her happy and I angered her. Egyptians, Iraqis, and other peoples, it was That was a night we spent, in my sleep, a period of settlement, new urbanism, and lit- playing and joyful, erary and artistic flowering. But the caller to prayer woke me up. Such poetry scandalized conservative * Umayyad: oo MAH yuhd Muslims, brought up on the ascetic tenets of WESTERN EUROPE: A MEDLEY OF KINGDOMS 299 600-750 the Qur'an. But this love poetry was a prod- borrowing from and adapting to local tradi- uct of the new urban civilization of the tions and to the very powerful role of the Umayyad period, during which wealth, cul- Christian religion in every aspect of society. tural mix, and the confidence born of con- quest inspired diverse and experimental lit- Prankish Kingdoms erary forms. By the close of the Umayyad period in 750, Islamic civilization was multi- with Roman Roots ethnic, urban, and sophisticated, a true heir The most important kingdoms in post-Roman of Roman and Persian traditions. Europe were Prankish. During the sixth cen- tury, the had established themselves as dominant in Gaul, and by the seventh cen- Review: How and why did the Muslims conquer so many lands in the very short period 632-750? tury the limits of their kingdoms roughly ap- proximated the eastern borders of present- day , , the Netherlands, and Luxembourg (Map 8.4). Moreover, the Frank- »> Western Europe: ish kings, known as the Merovingians* (the A Medley of Kingdoms ^Merovingians: Mehr oh VIN jians With the demise of Roman im- perial government in the west- ern half of the empire, the re- gion was divided into a number I 1 Merovingian kingdoms of kingdoms: various monarchs I I Tributary regions 0 100 200 kilometers ruled in Spain, , England, and Gaul. The primary foun- dations of power and stability in all of these kingdoms were kinship networks, church pa- tronage, royal courts, and wealth derived from land and plunder. In contrast to Byzan- tium, where an emperor still ruled as the successor to Au- gustus and Constantine, draw- ing upon an unbroken chain of Roman legal and administra- BAVARIA Salzburg • tive traditions, political power Limoges, 1 BURGUNDY '-, in western Europe was more AQUITAINE / /Lyon . diffuse. There were kings, to be sure; but in some places churchmen and rich magnates were even more powerful than royalty. Power lodged too (as KINGDOM OF THE people believed) in the .PROVENCE ' Adriatic and relics of , who rep- KINGDOM OF Marseille Sea resented and wielded the di- THE Mediterranean Sea vine forces of God. Although MAP 8.4 The Merovingian Kingdoms in the Seventh Century the patterns of daily life and By the seventh century, there were three powerful Merovingian kingdoms: , the procedures of government , and Burgundy. The important cities of Aquitaine were assigned to one of in western Europe remained these major kingdoms, while Aquitaine as a whole was assigned to a or other recognizably Roman, they were governor. Kings did not establish capital cities; they did not even stay in one place. Rather, also in the process of change, they continually traveled throughout their kingdoms, making their power felt in person. 326 CHAPTER 9 • UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THREE SOCIETIES 750-1050

such links through his own marriage and All's memory) and non-Arabs who had been those of his sons and daughters to rulers excluded from Umayyad government and and princely families in France, Hungary, now demanded a place in political life. The and Scandinavia. laroslav encouraged intel- new regime signaled a . The center lectual and artistic developments that would of Islamic rule shifted from Damascus, with connect Russian culture to the classical past. its roots in the Roman tradition, to Baghdad, At his own church of St. Sophia, at Kiev, which a new capital city, built by the Abbasids copied the one at Constantinople, laroslav right next to Ctesiphon, which had been the created a major library. Sassanid capital. Here the Abbasid caliphs When laroslav died, his kingdom was imitated the Persian King of Kings (whose divided among his sons. Civil wars broke image they knew from sculptures such as the out between the brothers and eventually be- one on page 287) and adopted the court cer- tween cousins, shredding what unity Russia emony of the Sassanids. Their administration had known. Massive invasions by outsiders, grew more and more centralized: the caliph's particularly from the east, further weakened staff grew, and he controlled the appointment Kievan rulers, who were eventually displaced of regional governors. by princes from northern Russia. At the The Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid» crossroads of East and West, Russia could (r. 786-809) presided over a flourishing em- meet and absorb a great variety of tradi- pire from Baghdad. His contemporary Frank- tions; but its situation also opened it to un- ish ruler, Charlemagne, was very impressed remitting military pressures. with the elephant Harun sent him as a gift, along with monkeys, spices, and medicines. Review: What were the effects of expansion on But these items were mainstays of everyday the power of the Byzantine emperor? commerce in Harun's . For example, a mid-ninth-century list of imports invento- ried "tigers, panthers, elephants, panther skins, rubies, white sandal, ebony, and co- conuts" from India, as well as "silk, - * The Islamic World: From ware, paper, ink, peacocks, racing horses, Unity to Fragmentation saddles, felts [and] cinnamon" from China. The Abbasid dynasty began to decline A new dynasty of caliphs—the Abbasids— after Harun's death. Obliged to support a first brought unity and then, in their de- huge army and increasingly complex civil cline, fragmentation to the Islamic world. service, the Abbasids found their tax base in- Caliphs continued to rule in name only as re- adequate. They needed to collect revenues gional rulers took over the real business of from their provinces, such as Syria and government in Islamic lands. Local tradi- Egypt, but the governors of those regions tions based on religious and political differ- often refused to send the revenues. After ences played an increasingly important role Harun's caliphate, ex-soldiers seeking better in people's lives. Yet, even in the eleventh cen- salaries recognized different caliphs and tury, the Islamic world had a clear sense of fought for power in savage civil wars. The its own unity, which came from language, caliphs tried to bypass the regular army, commercial life, and vigorous intellectual made up largely of free Muslim foot soldiers, debate across regional boundaries. by turning to slaves, bought and armed to serve as mounted cavalry. This tactic failed, however, and in the tenth century the caliphs The , 750-c. 950 became figureheads only. Religious leader- In 750, a civil war ousted the Umayyads and ship was now in the hands of religious schol- raised the Abbasids* to the caliphate. The ars. Political leadership fell into the hands of Abbasids found support in an uneasy coali- independent rulers, who established them- tion of Shi'ites (the faction of Islam loyal to selves in the various Islamic regions. To sup-

* .Abbasids: A buh suhds * Harun al-Rashid: huh ROON ahl run SHEED THE ISLAMIC WORLD: FROM UNITY TO FRAGMENTATION 327 750-10SO

Normandy ^~~\S "«"<

ATLANTIC Bu OCEAN

Black Sea . Constantinople * fiy^ UMAYYAD HAMDANID AL-ANDALUS 4JVTIN DYNASTY (SPAIN) 7 •'-,. •Cordoba SYRIA IRAQ IRA1 ijS ^Baghdad Jamascus '^fvABBASID CALIPHATE ()

r-r-n Territories dependent on Fatimid overlordship

MAP 9.2 Islamic States, c. 1000 A glance back at Map 8.3 on page 296 will quickly demonstrate the fragmentation of the once united Islamic caliphate. In 750, one caliph ruled territory stretching from Spain to India. In 1000, there was more than one caliphate as well as several other ruling dynasties. The most important were the Fatimids, who began as organizers of a movement to overthrow the Abbasids. By 1000, they had conquered Egypt and claimed hegemony over all of North Africa. port themselves militarily, many of these Regional Diversity new rulers came to depend on independent military commanders who led armies of A faraway caliph could not command suffi- Mamluks*—Turkish slaves or freedmen cient allegiance from local leaders once he trained as professional mounted soldiers. demanded more in taxes than he gave back Mamluks were well paid to maintain their in favors. The forces of fragmentation were mounts and arms, and many gained renown strong in the Islamic world: it was, after all, and high positions at the courts of regional based on the conquest of many diverse re- rulers. gions, each with its own deeply rooted tra- Thus, in the Islamic world, as in the ditions and culture. The Islamic religion, Byzantine, a new military elite arose. But with its Sunni/Shi'ite split, also became a the Muslim and Byzantine elites differed in source of polarization. Western Europeans key ways. Whereas the Byzantine dynatoi knew almost nothing about Muslims, calling were rooted in specific regions—tied to their all of them Saracens* (from the for estates and extended families—the Mam- "Arabs") without distinction. But, in fact, luks were highly mobile. They were not sup- Muslims were of different ethnicities, prac- ported by land but rather were paid from ticed different customs, and identified with taxes collected by local rulers. Organized different regions. With the fragmentation of into tightly knit companies bound together by political and religious unity, each of the devotion to a particular general and by a tenth- and early-eleventh-century Islamic strong camaraderie, they easily changed em- states built on local traditions under local ployers, moving from ruler to ruler for pay. rulers (Map 9.2).

•Mamluks: MAM looks * Saracens: SAIR uh suhns 328 CHAPTER 9* UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THREE SOCIETIES 750-1050

themselves rulers of Egypt. Their dynasty last- ed for about two hundred years. Fatimid lead- ers also controlled North Africa, Arabia, and even Syria for a time.

The Spanish Emirate. Whereas the Shi'ites dominated Egypt, Sunni Muslims ruled al- Andalus,* the Islamic central and southern heart of Spain. Unlike the other indepen- dent Islamic states, which were forged during the ninth and tenth centuries, the Spanish emirate of Cordoba* (so called because its ruler took the secular * "comman- der," and fixed his capital at Cordoba) was created near the start of the Abbasid cali- phate, in 756. During the Abbasid revolution, Abd al-Rahman—a member of the Umayyad family—fled to , gathered an army, invaded Spain, and was declared emir after only one battle. He and his successors ruled a broad range of peoples, including many Jews and Christians. After the initial Islamic Dome of the Mihrab of conquest of Spain, the Christians adopted so the Great Mosque at Cordoba much of the new language and so many of The mihrab is the prayer niche of the mosque, located the customs that they were called , * so that the worshiper facing it is thereby facing Mecca. that is, "like Arabs." The Arabs allowed them For the one at Cordoba, built between 961 and 976 freedom of worship and let them live ac- by the Andalusian caliph al-Hakam, Byzantine mo- cording to their own laws. Some Mozarabs saicists were imported to produce a decoration that were content with their status, others con- would recall the mosaics of the Great Mosque at verted to Islam, and still others intermar- Damascus (see page 282). Why would this caliph, ried—most commonly, Christian women a Umayyad, be particularly interested in reminding married Muslim men and raised their children Andalusians of the Damascus mosque? Institut Amatller as Muslims, since the religion of the father de- d'Art Hispanic, Barcelona. termined that of the children. Abd al-Rahman* III (r. 912-961) was powerful enough to take the title of caliph; the The Fatimid Dynasty. In the tenth century, caliphate of Cordoba that he created lasted one group of Shi'ites, calling themselves the from 929 to 1031. Under Abd al-Rahman's Fatimids* (after Fatimah, Muhammad's only rule members of all religious groups in al- surviving child and wife of All), began a suc- Andalus were given absolute freedom of wor- cessful political movement. Allying with the ship and equal opportunity to rise in the Berbers in North Africa, the Fatimids estab- civil service. The caliph also initiated impor- lished themselves in 909 as rulers in the region tant diplomatic contracts with Byzantine and now called . The Fatimid Ubayd Allah* European rulers, ignoring the weak and tiny claimed to be not only the true imam,* Christian kingdoms squeezed into northern descendant of Ali, but also the mahdi,* the Spain. His successor, al-Hakam, built a "divinely guided" messiah, come to bring splendid mihrab at Cordoba (see Dome of the justice on earth. In 969, the Fatimids declared *al-Andalus: al AND uh loos * Fatimids: FAT ih mihds * Cordoba: KAWR duh buh * Ubayd Allah: ub EYED a LAH *emir: ih MIHR *imam: ih MAHM * Mozarabs: moh ZAR ruhbs * mahdi: MAH dee *Abd al-Rahman: uhb dur rahk MAHN THE ISLAMIC WORLD: FROM UNITY TO FRAGMENTATION 329 4 750-1050 Mihrab at Cordoba, page 328). Yet under verted to Islam and became vizier (chief later caliphs, al-Andalus, too, experienced ) to the Fatimids in Egypt. But the the same political fragmentation that was sophisticated Islamic society of the tenth occurring everywhere else. The caliphate of and eleventh centuries supported networks Cordoba broke up in 1031, and rulers of even more vast than those represented by small, independent regions, called tai/os,* the Tustari family. Muslim took power. brought tin from England; salt and gold from Timbuktu in west-central Africa; amber, gold, and copper from Russia; and slaves from Unity of Commerce and Language every region. Although the regions of the Islamic world were diverse culturally and politically, they The Islamic Renaissance, maintained a measure of unity through trade networks and language. Their principal bond c. 790-c. 1050 was Arabic, the language of the Qur'an. At The dissolution of the caliphate into separate once poetic and sacred, Arabic was also the political entities multiplied the centers of language of commerce and government from learning and intellectual productivity. Unlike Baghdad to Cordoba. Moreover, despite po- the Macedonian renaissance, which was con- litical differences, borders were open: an centrated in Constantinople, a renaissance of artisan could move from Cordoba to ; a Islam occurred throughout the Islamic world. landowner in Morocco might very well own It was particularly dazzling in capital cities property in al-Andalus; a young man from such as Cordoba, where tenth-century rulers North Africa would think nothing of going to presided over a brilliant court culture, patron- Baghdad to find a wife; a young girl pur- izing scholars, poets, and artists. The library chased as a slave in Mecca might become part at Cordoba contained the largest collection of of a prince's household in Baghdad. With books in Europe at that time. few barriers to commerce (though every city Elsewhere, already in the eighth cen- and town had its own customs dues), traders tury, the Abbasid caliphs endowed research regularly dealt in various, often exotic, goods. libraries and set up centers for translation Although the primary reason for these where scholars culled the writings of the an- open borders was Islam itself, the openness cients, including the classics of Persia, India, extended to non-Muslims as well. We happen and Greece. Many scholars read, translated, to know a good deal about the Tustari* broth- and commented on the works of ancient ers, Jewish merchants from southern . philosophers. Others worked on astronomy The Tustaris' commercial activities were typ- (see Andromeda C, page 330), and still oth- ical in the Arabic-speaking world. By 1026, ers wrote on mathematical matters. Al- they had established a flourishing business Khwarizmi's* book on equations, written in Egypt. They did not have "branch offices," around 825, became so well known in the but informal contacts allowed them many of West that the word al-jabr in the title of his the same advantages and much flexibility: book became the English word algebra. friends and family in Iran shipped the broth- Muhammad ibn Musa* (d. 850) used nu- ers fine textiles to sell in Egypt, and the Tus- merals such as 1, 2, and 3, which had been taris exported Egyptian fabrics to sell in Iran. created in India, in his treatise on arith- Dealing in fabrics could yield fabulous metical calculations. Inventing the crucial wealth, for cloth was essential not only for placeholder zero, Musa was for the first time clothing but also for home decoration: textiles able to manipulate very large numbers (some- covered walls; curtains separated rooms. thing impossible with Roman numerals). When The Tustari brothers held the highest rank in these numerals were introduced into western Jewish society and had contacts with Muslim Europe in the twelfth century, they were known rulers. The son of one of the brothers con- as Arabic, as they are still called today.

»taifos: TYfuhs »Al-Khwarizmi: al KWAHR ihz mee *Tustari: tus TAR ee * Muhammad ibn Musa: moh HAM uhd 330 CHAPTER 9 » UNITY AND DIVERSITY IN THREE SOCIETIES 750-1050 . the natural sciences, and physics. His Canon of Medicine systematized earlier trea- tises and reconciled them with his own ex- perience as a physician. Active in the centers of power, he served as vizier to various rulers. In his autobiography he spoke with pleasure and pride about his intellectual development:

One day I asked permission [of the ruler] to go into /his doctors'] library, look at their books, and read the medical ones. He gave me permission, and I went into a palace of many rooms, each with trunks full of books, back-to-back. In one room there were books on Arabic and poetry, in another books on jurisprudence, and similarly in each room books on a single subject.... When I reached the age of eighteen, I had com- pleted the study of all these sciences. Long before there were universities in Europe, there were important institutions of higher learning in the Islamic world. Rich v