CHAPTER FOUR

HARRAN AFTER THE MUSLIM CONQUEST: MUSLIMS AND SABIANS

HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDS: 640-1271 C.E. It was the pagans of Harran who negotiated the peaceful surrender of their city to the Muslim army of ciyadh ibn Ghanam in late 639 or early 640 C .E.; 1 perhaps their antipathy toward this new faith called Islam was not as strong as that of the Christians in the city; perhaps it was merely revenge against their Christian neighbors; perhaps old rivalries had been stirred up once again. According to Baladhuri' s account, the conqueror negotiated separatedly with the Christian and pagan communities at Harran, and the latter offered to surrender if the pagans of Edessa could be persuaded to yield on similar terms, and provided that the Christians were to be excluded from this agreement. 2 Perhaps the pagans of the city merely did what at least some of their Christian neighbors had been contem­ plating. The hostility of Monophysite Christians in Mesopotamia and Syria toward orthodox Constantinople was at least as great as toward the armies of Islam. More generally, it is likely that discon­ tent among both pagans and Christians with Byzantine rule made the Muslim conquest of Mesopotamia so easy. Whatever the Christians may have felt toward l'vfuslim rule, however, it is clear that at least some Muslims felt more comfortable among the pagans of Harran. The city became a center of the Bedouin tribe ofQays, who had lived in Syria before the appearance of the Muslims and who before their conversion to Islam, had been star worshippers; perhaps the old paganism of Harran provided a more familiar setting. Tribal rivalries played a major role in the his­ tory of early Islam, and the old religious antagonisms died hard. The Banu Qays in Harran had supported Mucawiya, the Ummayad caliph, in his struggle against the supporters of cAli, but when the Ummayads won the support of the Banu Kalb, an Arab clan that had

Baladhuri, Futu4 al-Buldan, 174. See also, Yaqut in Chwolsohn II, 550. MUSLIMS AND SABIANS 95 been Christian, the Banu Qays turned against them. As a result, Harran changed hands between local rival Muslim factions several times before the end of the seventh century. The Ummayad rulers had made it a custom to reside elsewhere than in their capital of Damascus, although the administrative bureaus remained there. But, in 744 C.E., Marwan II, the last of the Ummayad caliphs, made Harran not only the site of his court but the administrative center of the caliphate as well, in part, as some have suggested, because of the strong anti-Christian posture of its pagan inhabitants; in part because he had decided that he needed the support of the Banu Qays in his struggle to maintain the power of the Umayyads. It was from Harran in 750 C.E. that Marwan set out to meet the cAbbasid army, and the historian Tabari records that after his defeat, the palace that he had built at Harran was looted and destroyed by the victors. 3 Despite the fact that Harran was so closely identified with the last of the Ummayads, the cAbbasid caliph, Abu JaCfar al-Man~ur (754-775 C.E.), clearly did not hold a grudge. By his order, the walls of all the cities in Northern Mesopotamia were torn down; only Harran and Maipherqat to the east were spared. Soon after, the caliph Harun al-Rashid (786- 809 C .E.) constructed a canal from the J ullab river to Harran in order to insure an adequate water sup­ ply. Despite the generosity of the two caliphs, however, the city con­ tinued to play the unfortunate role as pawn in the factional struggles of the Muslims until the time of its destruction. It was not only the Muslims who made the area their battleground for disputes. Although the Muslim conquest had seemed complete, it was several centuries before the Byzantines gave up their hopes of regaining Syria, Palestine and Mesopotamia. During the reign of Leo VI (886-912 C.E.), they began an offensive drive south and east through Anatolia, a move that only brought Muslim reprisal in the form of raids on Byzantine territory. In 942 C.E., the Byzan­ tines were ready to try again, and this time they were successful. Sweeping through Anatolia, the Byzantine general, John Curcuas, entered Mesopotamia and in short order took Amida and Nisibis; by 944 C. E. he was outside the walls of Edessa. John declared that he and his troops would depart only if the holy mandylion, the cloth

3 Tabari, Annals, III.45.