Chapter4 3 A Dangerous Liaison The Monarchy and Their Military

Maintaining the Dynastic Status Quo: The Revolution That Never Was In 750, the ruler of the was Abu l-‘Abbas. 1 He was the first in a long line of caliphs who became known as the ‘Abba- sids thanks to their descent from the Prophet’s uncle ‘Abbas. The ‘Abbasids lost their temporal power in 945 but continued as spiritual leaders of the Muslim world until the invaded and destroyed their capital, , in 1258. Even after that calamity, a surviving line of the dynasty retained influence as symbolic figureheads to the worldwide Muslim community, providing a link back to the days of the Prophet, until the last of them was swept off to Istanbul by the Ottomans in 1517. It was this connection with the Prophet that Abu l- ‘Abbas and his supporters exploited to gain power in 750. So well did their strategy work that his successors later claimed it as the moral legitimacy under- pinning their right to rule.2 The new caliph was a great-great- grandson of the Prophet’s uncle— a line of descent he claimed trumped that of his rivals in the Prophet’s family: the ‘. (The fourth caliph ‘ was the Prophet’s cousin and son- in- law. Not a direct descendant of the Prophet himself, ‘Ali’s sons and grandsons were direct descen- dants thanks to their mother Fatima, ’s daughter.)3 These competing bloodlines were of such significance that Abu l- ‘Abbas and his inner circle did not declare their hand openly during their rebellion against the Umayyads. Instead they kept the identity of the movement’s leader a secret, citing security reasons, and called for

M. E. McMillan, Fathers and Sons © M. E. McMillan 2013 44 Fathers and Sons the Islamic community to be led by Al-Rida min Al Muhammad, the Approved One from the Family of Muhammad. This rallying cry was vague enough to attract a broad base of support, and many supporters of ‘Ali’s family pledged allegiance to the movement in the mistaken belief they were backing an as- yet- unnamed descendant of the fourth caliph.4 The ‘ succeeded where the ‘Alids had previously failed for two main reasons. First, the ‘Abbasids launched their bid for power when the Umayyads were dangerously divided. And second, the ‘Abbasids could count on armies from the province of Khurasan to provide the military support needed to translate their political aspira- tions into reality.5 The ‘Alids, for all the heroism and personal courage they showed in their many efforts to oust the Umayyads, were never able to count on such a loyal fighting force. Supporters of the new ‘Abbasid caliph believed they were part of a genuine revolutionary movement, one that would fundamentally alter the way power in the Muslim community was exercised. In some cases, expectations verged on the messianic. With the Umayyads con- signed to history, a new era of divinely inspired justice would surely prevail.6 Yet once the new caliph was safely installed in power, it soon became clear that even though the Umayyads had gone, the pillars of the dynastic state they created remained securely in place.7 From the outset, Abu l- ‘Abbas adopted many of their policies and showed that he, too, saw power as a family affair. In the first year of his , 750, he set the pattern for the rest of his time in office by awarding the most strategically significant governorships to his broth- ers, uncles, and nephews.8 This enabled senior members of the ruling family to become closely associated with particular areas, thus replicat- ing the Umayyad system of “personal fiefdoms,” which saw relatives of the ruler develop long-standing military, financial, and political ties with the areas they governed. The new caliph based himself in (first , then Hira, then Anbar) and sent his brother (and eventual heir) Abu Ja‘far to govern nearby al- Jazira, the area that was once the domain of the Umayyad family.9 Another brother, Yahya, was sent to the city of in north- ern Iraq.10 The southern cities of Iraq were also given to members of the new ruling family: Kufa was assigned to the caliph’s nephew (and second heir) ‘Isa ibn Musa and to the caliph’s paternal uncle Sulayman.11 The caliph gave another paternal uncle, Dawud, the privilege of governing ’s Holy Cities and of leading the first of the new era.12 Dawud’s aim in the Hijaz turned out to be less than holy: he A Dangerous Liaison 45 moved against any members of the Umayyad family still resident in or . Many were killed; some were fettered in irons, while others were exiled or sent to prison where a number of them died.13 Another of the caliph’s paternal uncles, Salih, was made gover- nor of , and yet another paternal uncle, Abdullah, was sent to run the former fortress of Umayyad power: .14 This was no random appointment. It was Abdullah’s army who tracked the last Umayyad caliph all the way to and killed him in 750.15 By mak- ing Abdullah governor of the Umayyad heartland of Syria, the caliph sent a message to anyone harboring nostalgia for the old regime that resistance would not be tolerated. As proof of this, the new gover- nor arranged for a “last supper” for any Umayyads living locally. He invited around eighty of them for a meal where, unknown to them, executioners lay in wait. The massacre was justified as revenge for the murder of the Prophet’s grandson in 680 by troops loyal to the Umayyads.16 With the old elite so thoroughly extinguished, the new one was able to consolidate its position. Abu l- ‘Abbas kept the privileges of power largely in the hands of his family and the ‘Abbasids became a monarchy in all but name. The caliph did not, however, forget that in the eyes of the believ- ers his authority came from God and his primary responsibility was to ensure Muslims were free to practice the rituals of their faith. It became a key plank of ‘Abbasid policy for caliphs to build , lead the pilgrimage, and send their closest relatives to lead the against the Byzantines. Nor did the caliph forget to make space in the power structure for the military that helped elevate him from revo- lutionary to ruler. The most high-profile example was , leader of the armies from Khurasan, who was made governor of the province.17 With this appointment, the caliph created his own version of the monarchy-military pact, which had so successfully underwritten Umayyad power for almost a century. Military influence, however, had its limits, as was shown at the pil- grimage in 754. That year, Abu Muslim sought permission to lead the ritual, but Abu l-‘Abbas was reluctant to grant it. So far in his caliph- ate, he had followed the Umayyad example of keeping leadership of the hajj a privilege of the ruling family.18 But the caliph was equally reluctant to decline Abu Muslim’s request and risk a confrontation with the head of the military. So he resorted to subterfuge and sent his brother, the heir apparent Abu Ja‘far, to Mecca. Abu Muslim knew he could not take precedence over the second most important man in the 46 Fathers and Sons caliphate and was heard complaining to friends as to why Abu Ja‘far had to choose that year of all years to make his hajj.19 It was during the pilgrimage season that Abu l- ‘Abbas fell ill and died from smallpox. His caliphate had been a great success for his family. He had succeeded in securing their position as the supreme force in Islamic politics. To do so, he adopted many of the policies of his Umayyad predecessors. But in one key area, he differed: unlike many of the Umayyad caliphs, Abu l- ‘Abbas did not pass power to a son. And for a very simple reason: the first ‘Abbasid caliph was in his early thirties when he died and had no sons old enough to succeed him.20 It was left to his brother, Abu Ja‘far, to reintroduce the system of fathers and sons— and all the problems that went with it— into the highest office in Islam.

The Politics of Paternity: ‘Abbasid Fathers and Their Sons Abu Ja‘far (r. 754–75) gave himself the name al- Mansur, the victori- ous. Rarely was a name so well chosen. This was the caliph who built Islam’s first imperial city, Baghdad, the setting where so many ‘Abba- sid sons would succeed their fathers. But before the new caliph could place his own son into the succession, he had to deal with a series of challenges to his authority. The first came from within the ruling family itself: from the caliph’s uncle Abdullah ibn ‘Ali, the man who played a key role in defeating the Umayyads in 750. Having contributed so much to the revolution, Abdullah believed he should be caliph. But when he rebelled in 754, he found little support from within the ruling family. The caliph sent Abu Muslim and the armies of Khurasan against him, and the defeated prince was left with no choice but to backtrack and pledge allegiance to al- Mansur.21 Abdullah’s rebellion highlighted one of the dilemmas of dynastic power: how to balance the interests of the ruling family against those of the ruler’s own branch of it. Every caliph wished to see his family remain in power, but no caliph wished to see any part of it become more powerful than his own line. This particular caliph used the car- rot and the stick to achieve his aims. In a move that showed there was still no separation between the caliph’s personal finances and those of the state, al-Mansur took four million from the treasury and gave a million each to his paternal uncles (Salih, Sulayman, ‘Isa, and Isma‘il) who had stayed loyal during their brother Abdullah’s revolt.22 A Dangerous Liaison 47

One of the longer-term consequences of Abdullah’s rebellion was the caliph’s decision to appoint more “clients”—men entirely dependent on him and whose loyalty was beyond question—as provincial governors. From now on, privilege would come with strings attached.23 The second threat to al-Mansur came from Abu Muslim; the caliph had long been wary of his influence within the military and his grow- ing independence as governor of Khurasan. When Abu l- ‘Abbas was caliph, al-Mansur warned him in vivid terms that he was not secure as long as Abu Muslim’s power went unchecked, telling him Abu Mus- lim would eat him for dinner if he did not eat him for breakfast.24 Abu l- ‘Abbas was cautious about taking action against the leader of the military. Al-Mansur had no such reticence. He summoned Abu Muslim to a private meeting where four guards were placed out of view but within earshot. At a signal from the caliph, the guards killed the leader of the army that helped bring the ‘Abbasids to power.25 Al- Mansur had no qualms about his actions. He believed a caliph was nothing if he did not control his military, and the removal of Abu Muslim was a necessary step to ensure the monarchy-military bal- ance remained weighted in his favor. But he left nothing to chance. No sooner was Abu Muslim dead than the caliph sent expensive gifts to senior officers in the army. The rank and file also received cash payments. Such generosity was partly a cynical act of buying loyalty— and many officers saw right through it— but it was also intended as an assurance that soldiers’ salaries would continue to be paid even though the leader of the army had changed. The armies’ loyalty was to the caliph and the community, not to their commanders, and it was the caliph who would provide for them.26 The third challenge to al-Mansur struck at the very heart of his legitimacy because it challenged the politics of his descent. In 762, two members of the Prophet’s family launched rebellions in Medina and Basra. Muhammad (called “The Pure Soul”) and his brother Ibrahim were great-grandsons of al-Hasan, making them direct descendants of the Prophet through al- Hasan’s mother, Fatima, the Prophet’s daughter. The issue was problematic for al-Mansur, as he could claim no such direct line of descent himself.27 His solution was characteristi- cally inventive: he simply dismissed descent through the female line in favor of the politics of paternity.28 This shift benefited the ‘Abbasids who came from the Prophet’s paternal family. In the end, the rebellions of Muhammad and Ibrahim went the way of past ‘Alid rebellions. The personal courage of the Prophet’s 48 Fathers and Sons family proved no match for the military might opposing them. By February 763, it was all over, and the ‘Abbasid caliph could claim that his family’s rule was vindicated by victory and sanctified by success. That year was a watershed for al- Mansur. Not only had he elimi- nated the most serious threat to his political legitimacy, but he moved the caliphate to a new capital: the . Built at al- Mansur’s command, this royal city was the physical expression of the enormous power and at his disposal. The economic opportunities it offered as the commercial center of a transcontinental were almost limitless. It was the New York of its day, and the possibility that a man could rise from nothing to make something of himself in the caliph’s city helped consolidate al-Mansur’s standing in the wider community.29 With his position as caliph more secure than at any time since he took power, al- Mansur now had the authority to do what he most wanted: secure the succession for his son Muhammad.30 Placing Muhammad in the succession was not, however, a straight- forward process. Al- Mansur came to power with an heir already in place: his nephew ‘Isa ibn Musa. And regardless of al-Mansur’s deter- mination to concentrate power in his own line, he could not risk compromising the unity of the ruling family to achieve it. He had to proceed cautiously. One of his first actions was to make Muhammad governor of Khurasan.31 No province was more important strategically to the ‘Abba- sids: its armies were so closely tied to the family’s political fortunes, and they were known as the “Sons of the State” (abna’ al-dawla ). By appointing Muhammad governor, the caliph hoped to build support for his son in a key constituency and to project the monarchy-military alliance between the ‘Abbasid family and the army of Khurasan into the next generation.32 The following year, 764, three events took place that removed any remaining opposition within the ‘Abbasid family to Muhammad’s suc- cession. First, the caliph’s uncle, the erstwhile rebel Abdullah ibn ‘Ali, was released from house arrest and sent to live in a palace where the foundations had been seeped in salt. Water was deliberately poured in, the house collapsed, and Abdullah duly died.33 After this incident, al-Mansur encouraged ‘Isa ibn Musa to step aside from the succession in favor of Muhammad. ‘Isa was unwilling to give up his claim but realized he had little choice. Perhaps mindful of Abdullah ibn ‘Ali’s fate, he accepted the massive financial compen- sation offered and agreed to be Muhammad’s heir, knowing it was A Dangerous Liaison 49 unlikely he would ever be caliph. He was also required to give up his post as governor of Kufa, a position he had held for nearly 15 years.34 Finally, the only adult son of the first ‘Abbasid caliph died in unexplained circumstances in Baghdad.35 His death, accidental or oth- erwise, was particularly convenient for the caliph given that al-Mansur believed his son had the right to be caliph; the son of his predecessor could easily have argued the same applied to him. Four years later, 768, Muhammad returned to Baghdad from Khurasan. Now known as al- (the Guided One), the heir was welcomed home by an impressive show of solidarity from the ruling family, many of whom had traveled from provincial outposts to be in Baghdad.36 The future caliph’s presence in the capital was written into the city’s architectural landscape with the construction of a massive palace complex on the east bank of the Tigris for him.37 His presence in the succession was confirmed when al- Mansur ordered the ‘Abba- sid family to renew their oath of allegiance to him as caliph, then to al- Mahdi as his successor, and finally to ‘Isa ibn Musa as Muhammad’s successor. This was done in a simple ceremony: everyone present kissed al- Mansur’s hand, then al- Mahdi’s, but not ‘Isa’s. This presentation of father and son as an indivisible political unit, one naturally following the other, was replicated at the pilgrimage over the next two years. In 769, al- Mansur led the ritual. In 770, al- Mahdi did.38 By contrast, ‘Isa ibn Musa was not asked to lead the pilgrimage during the remainder of al- Mansur’s caliphate.39 Al- Mansur died in 775 after a reign of 21 years and was succeeded, as he had wished, by his son. Al- Mahdi, in turn, ruled until 785. His caliphate was a decade of peace and prosperity for the Muslim world, and his patronage was evident across the empire. From mosques in Iraq and to the Mecca and Medina pilgrimage routes, this caliph was liberal with his generosity and did all he could to ensure the faithful were able to perform their religious duties.40 Politically, he retained the status quo. The primacy of the ruling family was left unchallenged, and the growing class of bureaucrats and state functionaries were absorbed into the political arena at a secondary level.41 Most importantly, al- Mahdi maintained the monarchy- military balance between his fam- ily and the armies of Khurasan, many of whom were now quartered in the northern part of the imperial capital. Al- Mahdi followed in his father’s footsteps in another way. He, too, wanted to keep power in his family. Barely a year into his reign, he broke with tradition and married his favorite slave girl, Khayzuran, 50 Fathers and Sons mother of the son he wanted to be his successor. At the same time, and perhaps as a gesture to the ‘Abbasid family, he also married a daughter of his great- uncle Salih ibn ‘Ali, the former governor of Syria, whose family had turned the province into a personal fief.42 Pressure was then applied to ‘Isa ibn Musa to encourage him to step aside from the suc- cession (again) in favor of the caliph’s son Musa.43 According to one report, the opening moves in this process did not come from the caliph himself but from the two main power blocs in the political arena: the ruling family and the armies of Khurasan.44 Clearly, both blocs saw their interests best reflected by maintaining the status quo. Their wishes prevailed. ‘Isa ibn Musa met with the caliph, agreed to step aside, and the caliph’s son Musa (known as al- Hadi) became the new heir apparent.45 The new arrangements were demonstrated over the next two years at the pilgrimage. Al- Mahdi presented himself and his immediate heir as an inseparable political unit when he led the hajj of 777 and appointed al- Hadi to lead it the following year.46 Al-Hadi later led a large army against a provincial rebellion in the Caspian.47 In 782, the caliph had the oath of allegiance given to a second son, Harun (known as al- Rashid). He, like al- Hadi, was the son of Khayzuran and was to be his brother’s heir. The caliph put him in charge of the west- ern provinces of the empire and again asked him to lead the summer campaign against the Byzantines in 782.48 The system of double designation—the “heir and the spare”—was designed to ensure stability in the succession. But as the history of the Umayyads showed, it came with a built- in design flaw: sibling rivalry. And the ‘Abbasids proved no more immune to it than the Umayy- ads ever were. The difficulties in the system were exacerbated by the fact that the two heirs usually became the rallying point for different political interest groups. In the Umayyad era, it was the tribes of Qays or Yaman. Now it was the competing interests of the army (who sided with al- Hadi) or the administrators (who sided with al-Rashid). The fault lines were already in place, and it was not long before stresses began to show. Rumors were rife that al- Mahdi was planning to alter the succession in favor of al- Rashid (said to be his mother’s favorite) but nothing came of it. When al- Mahdi died in a hunting accident in 785, it was al- Hadi who succeeded him.49 The new caliph was not destined to rule for long. His caliphate lasted little over a year, 785– 86, but even in so brief a reign, the major political issue was the succession, as al-Hadi was no differ- ent from his father or grandfather in wanting to pass power to his son. The army backed him, believing it was the best way to project A Dangerous Liaison 51 their power into the next generation.50 But when the caliph’s mother heard he was planning to depose his brother, she is said to have ordered one of al- Hadi’s slave girls to smother him in his sleep. Whatever the accuracy of these reports, the caliph did indeed die in his sleep—in unexplained circumstances— leaving the way clear for al-Rashid to become caliph.51

Brother against Brother: The Road to Regicide Revisited Al- Rashid’s era, 786– 809, was the Golden Age of the ‘, the time of conspicuous consumption and luxurious living immortalized in the Arabian Nights. Under al- Rashid, the struc- ture of the state remained essentially the same. Power and patronage were the caliph’s to disperse, and the primary recipients were mem- bers of the ruling family. Key governorships, such as the strategic cities of Kufa and Basra and the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina, were almost always allocated to princes. Leadership of the pilgrim- age remained the prerogative of the royal house (the caliph led it no fewer than nine occasions), and members of the ruling family were also sent to lead the summer campaigns against the Byzantines.52 Where the new caliph differed from his predecessors was his deci- sion to hand over the day- to- day administration of the empire to a Persian family that was part of the ruling elite, the . They were longtime intimates of the caliph and had conspired with his mother to bring him to power. During al- Rashid’s caliphate, Yahya al- Barmaki and his sons, al-Fadl and Ja‘far, along with his brother Muhammad, became the second most important family in the caliph- ate. The links were personal as well as professional: Ja‘far was the caliph’s closest friend. The influence of the Barmakids was not lost on the military, which saw the family as a threat to their privileged position as the power behind the throne.53 And, as happened so often in the past, the ten- sions between these rival blocs fed into the succession with each group aligning with a different successor son. The sons in question were Muhammad (al- Amin) and Abdullah (al- Ma’mun). Al- Amin was the favored candidate of the military. He was the son of a royal mother: the caliph’s cousin and wife Zubayda. It was to her that al- Amin owed his preeminent position in the suc- cession, as members of her family interceded with the caliph on his behalf. As a result, the caliph made al-Amin heir apparent in 791. The prince was only five years old.54 52 Fathers and Sons

By contrast, the second successor, al- Ma’mun, was the son of a slave girl. Although he had no maternal family to lobby for him, al- Ma’mun did have other useful connections. He was tutored by the caliph’s friend and confidant, the influential Ja‘far al-Barmaki, and like his father, the young prince had close ties with the rest of the Bar- makid family.55 The caliph made his plans for the succession official during the pil- grimage in 802. That year, he removed the entire royal court—princes and preachers, soldiers and scribes—from Baghdad to Mecca where, in the sacred precincts of Islam’s holiest city, he had the oath of alle- giance given to al-Amin then to al-Ma’mun. Perhaps the caliph’s own experiences with coups and countercoups led him to choose Mecca for this ceremony in the hope that oaths given there would prove more binding than those given anywhere else. Under the Mecca Agreement, the thoroughly royal al-Amin was to rule first.56 But he would not rule everywhere. Al-Ma’mun was given control of Khurasan during his brother’s caliphate. Al-Ma’mun was also given control over the succession: he, rather than his brother, had the right to appoint a successor.57 If either prince reneged on his commitments, then the caliphate automatically went to the other.58 The Mecca Agreement was the first time a caliph made plans to pass a divided realm to his heirs. Almost simultaneously, the same idea was considered by another in another part of the world. The Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne, grandson of Charles Martel— the man who, legend has it, stopped the Muslim advance from Spain into Europe in 73259— was also planning to divide his empire between his sons. All but one predeceased him, and the plan came to nothing.60 Al- Rashid’s resolve to make his plan work was demonstrated by what happened on the way home from Mecca. With a political ruth- lessness reminiscent of al- Mansur, the caliph ordered the arrest and execution of his friend Ja‘far the Barmakid. Ja‘far’s brother, al-Fadl, and their father, Yahya, were also detained, their goods and wealth confiscated by the state. Both later died in prison.61 What made the caliph turn so brutally against his friends? Al-Rashid knew what the Barmakids were capable of— his own accession was in no small measure due to them—and he had no wish to see them inter- fere with his plans for the succession. So he removed them from the political equation.62 In doing so, he succeeded in balancing the com- peting interests of the two major blocs in the political arena. The men of the sword had their future caliph in al- Amin. The men of the pen had theirs in al-Ma’mun. And with the Barmakids gone, no group was close enough to the day-to- day administration of power to threaten A Dangerous Liaison 53 this finely balanced state of affairs. Al- Rashid’s Mecca Arrangement went unchallenged for the rest of his caliphate, and when he died in 809, al- Amin succeeded him. Almost immediately, the arrangement began to unravel. Al-Amin, encouraged by advisors with links to Khurasan, demanded control over the province and its revenues. His brother refused to give it. Al- Amin made matters worse when he ordered his young son Musa’s name to be mentioned in the communal prayers.63 The mention of a caliph’s name in the Friday prayer was a sign of sovereignty, a privilege of power. For a caliph to include the name of his son in these prayers was to indicate where the future of power lies. Al- Ma’mun responded by cutting off the post from Khurasan, effec- tively making the province independent.64 A phony war was waged between the brothers for almost two years before all- out war divided the ruling family against itself. Al-Amin represented the establishment of Baghdad, the monarchy-military alli- ance of the ‘Abbasid family and the armies who came originally from Khurasan. Al-Ma’mun could call on no such support. He was isolated within the royal family and had to levy troops from leading figures in Khurasan such as Tahir ibn al- Husayn and local noblemen who saw the war as the chance to become independent of the imperial state. In theory, it was the caliph who had the resources at his disposal to win the war. Yet it was his brother who won battle after battle. The conflict reached its dramatic conclusion with the . In 812, al- Ma’mun’s forces blockaded the city, and in 813, al-Amin, while attempting to surrender, was murdered by troops loyal to his brother.65 Al-Ma’mun received the oath of allegiance from a war- weary Baghdad and went on to rule for two decades (813–33). His caliphate became synonymous with technical innovation and progress, and some of the great scientific and intellectual discoveries of the age were made under his patronage.66 But he would find that regicide cast a long shadow. The civil war bankrupted the credibility of the ‘Abbasids as a political unit. They, like the Umayyads before them, had shown they were incapable of finding an enduring political solution to the succession. The desire of a father to pass power to a son had derailed the on more than one occasion, and the ‘Abbasids, after only six decades in power, had allowed it to do the same to them. Worse still was the effect the civil war had on the political model adopted by the ‘Abba- sids. The once unshakeable alliance of the monarchy and the military collapsed under the weight of successive defeats. Some of the caliph’s soldiers even switched sides. 54 Fathers and Sons

As caliph, al- Ma’mun needed to recreate the divinely sanctioned legitimacy that underpinned the caliphate’s political power. To do it, he turned his back on the ‘Abbasids because they sided against him and based his caliphate in Khurasan rather than Baghdad.67 (He even, briefly, appointed an ‘Alid heir and adopted the ‘Alid color green instead of ‘Abbasid black.)68 He only returned to the city in 819 to put down a rebellion launched against him by two ‘Abbasid princes.69 Once back in Baghdad, the caliph did not reinstitute the old order. Aspects of it endured— ‘Abbasid princes, for example, were still appointed to lead the pilgrimage and govern cities such as Basra or Mecca— but the dynamics of politics changed dramatically.70 This change was apparent in the downgrading of royal marriages. No longer was marriage a tool used to link a particular branch of the family with the caliph. Quite the reverse, the most celebrated wed- ding during al-Ma’mun’s caliphate was not between the caliph and a royal princess but between al- Ma’mun and Buran, the daughter of his trusted administrator al- Hasan ibn Sahl.71 The caliph’s marriage to the daughter of one of his staff showed how the political status of royal women was changing during this period. Since the defeat of al-Amin (who was royal through both parents) by al- Ma’mun (who was royal only through his father), the politics of paternity promoted by al- Mansur more than half a century earlier had become the order of the day. The mother of a future caliph was no longer relevant; only the father mattered. There was another advantage for the caliph in marrying outside the family. By being free of such ties with his ‘Abbasid relatives, the caliph was less obliged to take their views into consideration thus removing another check on his power. During al- Ma’mun’s caliphate, the one-party state endured, but the power and privileges that went with it became ever more concen- trated in the hands of the caliph. And he, in turn, relied on an ever smaller core of people whose loyalty to him was beyond question: his sons and his brother, Abu Ishaq, who placed his private militia at the caliph’s disposal to put down an ‘Alid rebellion in the Hijaz in 816.72 This need to find a reliable base of military support was a recurring theme during al-Ma’mun’s caliphate. He doubted the loyalty of the Baghdad- based forces, and to replace them, he looked beyond the traditional sources of manpower and recruited men like al-Afshin to lead his forces. Of Iranian origin, al-Afshin became one of the caliph’s leading generals, winning many battles on his behalf.73 A Dangerous Liaison 55

The caliph also brought military men into the administration of the caliphate. To serve as governor of the East, the caliph relied on the man who secured the decisive victories in the civil war for him: Tahir ibn al- Husayn. The office was made hereditary, and when Tahir died in 822, his son Abdullah took over, making the Tahirids one of the most important families in the caliphate.74 Under al-Ma’mun, a new balance of power was emerging. The multilateralism of the past, where caliphs negotiated for power with other players in the political arena, was giving way to a unilateralism, where the caliph was obliged to negotiate with no one. No longer was the caliphate a broad coalition of the monarchy and the military; it was a narrow convergence of interests between the caliph and a corps of men loyal to him, not the dynasty to which he belonged. One area of public life did, however, start to slip beyond the caliph’s control. In an attempt to assert his religious authority, al- Ma’mun sponsored a doctrine known as Mu‘tazilism, which claimed the Qur’an was created rather than coeternal with God. The issue might sound overly obscure, but it went to the heart of the caliph’s religious authority. Legislative power in Islam belongs to God. The Qur’an, as God’s word, is the law by which all Muslims— including the caliph—must live. The caliph has no legislative power of his own; his job is simply to oversee enforcement of God’s word. If, however, the Qur’an was not coeternal with God, then the caliph was free to interpret it as he saw fit. When al- Ma’mun instituted a trial, a , of leading religious figures to test their loyalty to the new doctrine, it became obvious the process was a thinly veiled attempt to bring the religious elite under the caliph’s political control. The Mu‘tazili doctrine was not accepted by the community and turned the religious scholar ibn Hanbal, who opposed it, into a living legend. Torture could not break him. At great personal cost, he stood his ground and won widespread respect within the Muslim community for his courage. His enduring popularity showed how much the mihna had backfired. The process lasted until the late 840s when al-Mutawakkil abandoned it. From then on, the caliph remained responsible for maintaining the Islamic character of the caliphate: he appointed leaders for the pilgrimage, built mosques, and proclaimed jihad. But it was religious scholars like Ibn Hanbal who wielded real religious power. They, rather than the caliph, inter- preted God’s word into the religious laws that shaped how ordinary Muslims lived their lives.75 56 Fathers and Sons

When al-Ma’mun died in 833, he was succeeded by his brother Abu Ishaq. The new caliph continued many of the policies of his pre- decessor, especially where the military was concerned. He took the process of a private army a stage further when he created Islam’s first soldier state.

Samarra: The First Soldier State As caliph, Abu Ishaq (r. 833– 42) took the title al-Mu‘tasim bi-llah . From the very beginning, the military was destined to play a leading role in al-Mu‘tasim’s caliphate. The new Commander of the Faithful was chosen to be caliph, preferred over al- Ma’mun’s son al-‘Abbas, because of his experience defending the borders of Islam against the Byzantines.76 The new caliph had an additional asset: he came to power with a private army of around four thousand men.77 The war between his brothers had shown the political necessity of having a reliable military. Since then, the ambitious al- Mu‘tasim had put together a fighting force that was loyal only to him. This army was made up of men from the fringes of the empire: an ethnic and social mix of Turkish slaves and Iranian noblemen. What bonded them was their outsider status. All came from outside the traditional circles of power, and all owed their new position to one man: the leader of their army, al-Mu‘tasim. 78 The political consequences of the caliph’s private army were noth- ing short of revolutionary. Al- Mu‘tasim was the first ruler in Islam whose political power rested on a military of mercenaries. The armies of previous caliphs were a reflection of their support in the wider com- munity: the Rightly Guided Caliphs had a citizen army; the Umayyad caliphs had a tribal one; and the ‘Abbasids had a revolutionary one drawn from the people of Khurasan. In all these cases, a sense of shared ideology bound the caliph to his community, and this legiti- macy enabled large parts of the population to enlist in the caliph’s armies and fight in his name. With al-Mu‘tasim, this was no longer the case. His new elite sat above society. Few, if any, had any roots in it. Many were first genera- tion converts, Muslim in name only; some could barely speak . The new powerbrokers were men like al-Afshin— an Iranian prince- ling whose military career started in al- Ma’mun’s caliphate— and slaves- turned- soldiers like Ashnas, Wasif, and Aytakh (who was work- ing as a cook in domestic service in Baghdad when he was bought for al- Mu‘tasim’s army in 815).79 A Dangerous Liaison 57

The general population, especially the residents of Baghdad, resented this army of foreigners as an alien clique-elite who enjoyed special privileges, and with good reason: since the army was now an exclusive group of handpicked professionals, the rest of the commu- nity lost access to the economic opportunities associated with the military. Few other state organizations offered the social mobility that could transform a cook into a commander. To the people of Baghdad, the new army no longer reflected the interests of their community or acted on their behalf. It existed first and foremost to preserve the power of the caliph. The military was now the caliph’s core constituency, and the broad- based monarchy- military alliance, in which the balance of power was weighted in favor of the monarch, gave way to a contract of convenience between the caliph and his commanders. This realignment of the military, in turn, realigned the balance of power. Never before had the military enjoyed such unfettered access to the center of power. Never before had a ruler been so reliant on them, and only them, to maintain his position. Never before had the community felt so sidelined. This period marks the entry of the mili- tary into politics as a player with disproportionate influence on the system. In Baghdad, the ongoing tension between the army and local peo- ple prompted the caliph to leave the imperial capital and build one of his own.80 In 836, became the new capital of the Muslim world. Situated eighty miles upstream from Baghdad, the new city was an exercise in speculation on a grand scale, creating vast wealth for the caliph’s key supporters, all of whom were assigned tracts of land.81 But Samarra also embodied the disconnect between the caliph and the Muslim community. Lacking the geographical genius of Baghdad and its rich agricultural hinterland, Samarra failed to evolve beyond its political function of being a glorified garrison town. Isolated on a barren site with poor communication links, the city symbolized the caliph’s distance from the wider community and the narrowness of support base.82 Yet it was one of the paradoxes of al-Mu‘tasim’s rule that instead of making him weaker, the very narrowness of his support base made him stronger. With a corps of loyal supporters at his command, this caliph was freed of the need to rely on the royal family for any kind of support. And with a standing army awaiting his orders, he was like- wise freed of the need to levy troops from tribal leaders— with all the associated concessions such levies implied. 58 Fathers and Sons

In theory, as long as al- Mu‘tasim continued to pay his military, he could be confident of their ongoing support. In return, their loyalty placed him beyond the traditional checks and balances on a caliph’s authority. Even a caliph as powerful as al-Mansur had to resort to Machiavellian maneuvers when he wanted to place his son in the suc- cession. If he had acted otherwise, he would have risked damaging the unity— and thus the political power and prestige—of the ruling family. Al- Mu‘tasim had no such concerns. The unity of the ‘Abbasids was ruined long before he came to power; the family was further weak- ened as a political unit during al- Ma’mun’s caliphate, and they all but disappeared from the political arena during al- Mu‘tasim’s. The botched rebellion in 838 by al- ‘Abbas, son of al-Ma’mun, showed the extent of the family’s decline: when al- Mu‘tasim discovered the plot, he granted his nephew safe conduct then had him killed. On the caliph’s orders, the would-be rebel’s four full brothers were impris- oned in a cellar and left to die. No one in the ‘Abbasid family was in a position to call the caliph to account for his actions.83 During al- Mu‘tasim’s nine years in power, the political role pre- viously played by the ruling family was taken over by the military. Princes of the royal house no longer led armies into battle against reb- els or infidels. Nor did they govern provinces on the caliph’s behalf. Instead, it was al-Afshin who defeated the long- running rebellion by Babak in Azerbaijan in 837, and it was Ashnas and Aytakh who fought alongside the caliph in his famous victory in 838 against the Byzan- tines at Amorion in west- central Anatolia.84 The following year, there was further evidence of the changing times and the new social order it was producing. In the spring of 839, the society wedding of the year took place. Not a union of two branches of the royal house, this was a merger of the military as the son of one of the caliph’s commanders wed the daughter of another. At a palace in Samarra, the caliph looked on as al-Afshin’s son married the daughter of Ashnas. The caliph’s generosity to those attending demonstrated the enormous powers of patronage at his disposal.85 It was these powers of patronage that kept his military loyal when he fired al-Afshin a year later on trumped- up charges of sedition and apostasy. In a show trial worthy of Stalin, the former hero was humili- ated, convicted, and sent to prison where he was starved to death in 841. The caliph’s real motivation for acting against his former ally had more to do with al-Afshin’s position within the military than his supposed lapse from Islam. An Iranian and an aristocrat, al-Afshin was an outsider even in this world of outsiders. As al- Mu‘tasim came to rely increasingly on his Turkish recruits (he made Ashnas governor of A Dangerous Liaison 59

Egypt, Syria, and the Jazira the same year), it suited the caliph to be rid of the one man in the elite not wholly dependent on him for his position.86 Just as the royal family remained silent after the death of al- ‘Abbas, the military was equally silent after al- Afshin’s death. The caliph’s political power was now absolute.

Murder and Mayhem: The Perils of Private Armies Al- Mu‘tasim’s soldier state worked well for a caliph as astute and ambitious as he was. It also worked during the five- year caliphate, 842– 47, of his son and successor Harun al- Wathiq bi-llah who main- tained the system he inherited.87 The problems began with al-Wathiq’s death in 847. He died with- out appointing a successor, and this gap at the center of power revealed the flaws in the system created by al- Ma’mun and al-Mu‘tasim. In the same way that sibling rivalry over the succession caused turmoil among the Umayyads, the uneven division of power in the Samarra soldier state now threatened to destabilize the ‘Abbasids. Without a caliph to support them, the Turks were isolated. They understood the dangers of this dependence all too well. Afraid of los- ing their position and their pay, they decided to intervene directly in the political process. High-ranking military men met members of the bureaucracy to choose a caliph who would safeguard their influence. That it fell to soldiers and scribes to appoint the ruler of the Muslim world showed just how much power the ‘Abbasid family had lost. The kingmakers could not agree. Their first preference was al- Wathiq’s young son, Muhammad. But he was too small for the ceremonial dress and too young to lead the prayers and so, was soon discounted. They settled on one of al- Mu‘tasim’s sons, Ja‘far, and gave him the name al- Mutawakkil ‘ala- llah.88 During al- Mutawakkil’s 14- year caliphate (847– 61), the Turks dis- covered they had underestimated him. This caliph was determined to rule on his own terms and restore the power of the ruling fam- ily. Barely a year into his rule, he turned against the men who put him in power: firing a number of them, killing others, and confiscat- ing their assets.89 And to prevent any future power vacuum, he took steps to secure the succession. Like so many of his predecessors, he wanted to keep power in his family. In 850, only three years into his reign, he nominated three of his sons to succeed him: Muhammad (al- Muntasir), al- Zubayr (al- Mu‘tazz), and Ibrahim (al- Mu’ayyad). The caliphate was divided into three vast governorships: the largest 60 Fathers and Sons going to the heir apparent, Muhammad, who received North , Iraq, and parts of Syria and Arabia including the Holy Cities. The next in line received much of the East including Khurasan, while the youngest son received central Syria and Palestine.90 These appointments were part of the caliph’s strategy to sideline the Turkish military and restore the ruling family to power. In a fur- ther attempt to consolidate his authority, the caliph dropped many of the policies of al- Ma’mun and al- Mu‘tasim (most notably support- ing the Mu‘tazili doctrine that the Qur’an was created), and, as if to underline the fresh start, he moved the seat of power from Samarra to .91 The caliph’s ongoing attempts to curb the power of the military proved to be his undoing. In the autumn of 861, al-Mutawakkil gave orders for the confiscation of the estates of one of the most senior Turkish officers, Wasif, and their transfer to a rival.92 The dynamic of dependence that prompted the Turks to intervene in the succes- sion process and make al- Mutawakkil caliph in the first place now led them to do the opposite. They found a willing ally in the heir appar- ent al- Muntasir. He, like them, believed his position was under threat when the caliph publicly snubbed him at Friday prayers at the end of .93 In December 861, a group of senior army officers broke in upon the caliph and killed him as he drank with friends. Almost immediately, they proclaimed al-Muntasir caliph, and all parties did their best to hush up the act of regicide.94 The Samarra soldier state was back in business. The political significance of al- Mutawakkil’s murder cannot be overstated. While caliphs were no strangers to violent deaths— there had been at least six confirmed acts of caliphicide before now95— this was the first time the army had killed its own leader. The murder of al- Mutawakkil was the first military coup in Islam. And the military had acted not in defense of an ideology but in defense of its own interests. The monarchy- military alliance that underwrote the politi- cal power of so many caliphs— whether Umayyad or ‘Abbasid—had well and truly come apart. The two power blocs were now in compe- tition over political power and the ability to distribute the caliphate’s resources. Yet neither group could function without the other. The caliphs needed an army, and the army needed a caliph. A workable balance had to be found between the two. The story of Islamic politics during this period is therefore the story of the repeated attempts to find this balance, with varying degrees of success and failure. The caliphate of al- Muntasir was a case in point. Brief though it was (861– 62), the Turkish officers (again) meddled A Dangerous Liaison 61 in the highest affairs of state. As before, they were motivated by the need to secure their position and the means to pay their rank-and- file. Afraid the caliph’s brothers would hold them responsible for their father’s murder, they encouraged al- Muntasir to oust them from the succession in favor of his (very young) son ‘Abd al- Wahhab.96 But when al-Muntasir died unexpectedly amid rumors of foul play, his son was considered too young to be caliph, and the officers turned instead to Ahmad al- Musta‘in: a grandson of their army’s founding father al- Mu‘tasim.97 The new caliph was the third in a row to be appointed by the army: a fact that showed where power now lay. The pattern of military intervention in politics was set, and the saw the caliphate pass from one grandson of al-Mu‘tasim to another as the Turks made and unmade caliphs at will. To complicate matters further, the Turks began to fight among themselves over control of the caliphate’s finances. In 865, they split into two rival blocs, each one acknowledging a different caliph.98 The official caliph, al-Musta‘in, and his backers went to Baghdad. The Turks who stayed at Samarra rallied round his cousin al-Mu‘tazz, acknowledged him as caliph, and then set off to besiege their rival in Baghdad. When they emerged victorious, they deposed al- Musta‘in and sent him into exile. He died not long afterwards. His caliphate had lasted four years, 862– 66. His replacement fared no better. Al-Mu‘tazz was caliph for three years (866–69) before he, too, became embroiled in the army’s power struggles. His attempts to curb their influence led to his downfall, and he suffered the same fate as his father, al-Mutawakkil, and died at the hands of his own soldiers. His successor’s time in office was even shorter. The new caliph, like his predecessor, was also chosen by the army. And like his predecessor, he was also undone by them. After barely a year on the job, al-Muhtadi was killed in battle against his own troops. After this whirlwind decade during which the caliphate seemed more like a revolving door than the highest political office in Islam, exhaustion set in among the military and the Muslim community alike. To the relief of all, the political pace slowed in 870 when al-Mu‘tamid (another son of al-Mutawakkil) became caliph. He ruled until 892 largely due to the support his brother al-Muwaffaq, a soldier- prince in the mold of al- Mu‘tasim, enjoyed among the military. It was because of this connection that al- Muwaffaq’s son became caliph in 892. Known as al-Mu‘tadid, he ruled for ten years, during which he moved the seat of power back to Baghdad. 62 Fathers and Sons

The ‘Abbasid family staged something of a political comeback dur- ing this period, but given the changing political and economic climate, a complete return to their former glory would be difficult to achieve. The damage wrought by the decade of chaos was already done. The political model adopted by al- Ma’mun in the wake of the war with his brother—that same model his successor al-Mu‘tasim adapted so successfully to suit his own purposes— had shown itself completely incapable of addressing the political realities of the Muslim world. Instead of creating ties of loyalty between the monarch and his mili- tary, it created ties of dependence. The dangers of that dependence were all too apparent when the army felt their position under threat. They simply stepped into the political process and chose the caliph themselves. Aside from the political cost of these successive coups, there was also a social one. The ongoing disruption and instability did little to endear the soldiers to the wider community who continued to see them as outsiders enjoying undeserved privilege and status. The ruling family’s attempts to regain their former glory were also hindered by a number of serious financial challenges. With so many resources used up in internal power struggles, the caliphate had long since ceased to be a conquest state and could not, therefore, rely on the financial rewards of raiding. In addition, the Sawad— the fertile alluvial plain in the heart of Iraq whose tax yields helped support the state— was no longer as productive as it once was. This loss was com- pounded by the fact that the ‘Abbasid court had grown far beyond the capacity of the local region to support it. The financial demands of a large leisure class of royals, combined with the need to pay the salaries of so many (arguably, too many) servants of the state, helped run up a huge deficit. In short, the Baghdad elite were bankrupt. One way to address the debt was to demand more tax revenues from the regions. But a process of political realignment happening in the provinces made this unlikely. In 868, a Turk named Ahmad ibn Tulun was sent to run the resource-rich province of Egypt on behalf of one of the Turkish factions.99 Once Ibn Tulun settled into his role as governor of Egypt, he decided to keep it. And when the caliph asked him to forward rev- enues from the region to help put down a rebellion in Iraq, Ibn Tulun refused to hand the money over. From then on, he regarded Egypt as an independent province and himself as its ruler. In spite of his desire to be free of Baghdad, he adopted the same language of power as his one- time imperial mas- ters. Like the ‘Abbasids, Ibn Tulun wanted to establish a dynasty, pass power to his son, and protect his province with a private slave-soldier A Dangerous Liaison 63 army. He died in 864, but his family retained power until 905. Over a thousand years later, his legacy lives on in the Ibn Tulun in . Ibn Tulun’s minimonarchy in Egypt was not an isolated case. It was part of a wider trend of power shifting to the provinces. As far back as 755, Spain was lost to the ‘Abbasids when the sole surviving Umayyad prince, ‘Abd al-Rahman, found refuge there. A year later, he became the region’s governor and proceeded to rule it as an indepen- dent principality. Other places on the western fringes of the empire, far away from the imperial center of Baghdad, provided a safe haven for deposed princes and defeated rebels. It was in Morocco that a descendant of the Prophet, fleeing an unsuccessful revolt in the Hijaz in 785, found shelter and set up an independent state. His name was Idris and his family, the Idrisids, ruled the region from 788 to 974. Elsewhere in North Africa, modern-day Tunisia had long been independent of Baghdad. The governor sent there in 800, a man named Ibrahim ibn Aghlab, kept power within his family, and they ruled the province until 909. When they lost power, it was not to the ‘Abbasids but to a local dynasty, the Fatimids (so called because they claimed descent from the Prophet’s daughter Fatima). They went on to take Egypt (969) and rule it until 1171. There they built a city to celebrate their triumph and called it the Victorious City, al- Madina al- Qahira, or Cairo.100 This shift of power from the imperial center to the provinces was repeated on the eastern side of the empire. There the process had begun with the Tahirid family when, in 820, the caliph al- Ma’mun rewarded Tahir ibn al-Husayn’s loyalty during the civil war by making him ruler of Khurasan and making the post hereditary. The Tahirids expanded the territories under their control and held them until 873 when a local family, the Saffarids, deposed them. The Saffarids took their name from the Arabic for coppersmith, saffar, the occupation of the head of the family, Ya‘qub ibn Layth. His family ruled Khurasan until 900 and parts of Persia until 908.101 The outsourcing of power was already in motion before the collapse of ‘Abbasid authority in the 860s. The impetus behind it was so strong that when the ‘Abbasids regrouped at the end of the ninth century, they were powerless to stop it. Quite the reverse, the tenth century saw an acceleration of the trend as one region after another became semi-independent, while continuing to pay tribute to Baghdad and to acknowledge the caliph in Friday prayers. These successor states saw the caliph as a unifying symbol for the community of believers, a link between past and present, but 64 Fathers and Sons no longer a political reality. The Fatimids in Tunisia in 909– 10 and the Umayyads in Spain in 929 went further and set themselves up as competitor caliphs. Beginning in 969, the Fatimids ruled from their new city, Cairo. By 945, even Baghdad had effectively fallen out of ‘Abbasid hands: a petty dynasty from the Caspian of Shi‘i persuasion, the Buyids, were in charge of the day-to- day running of affairs. The ‘Abbasids still reigned, but they no longer ruled.102 Their symbolic status reached its height during the Saljuq era (1055– 1258). The Saljuqs were a family of nomadic Turkish origin from the east of the empire. In 1040, they took control of Khurasan, and in 1055, they defeated the Buyids in Baghdad, a victory that brought them right to the center of power. The caliph gave their leader Beg the title (meaning “power”) and left the day-to- day run- ning of the caliphate to him and his family. This division of power between caliph and sultan was instrumental in keeping the idea of the caliphate alive. Saljuq force of arms protected the caliphate from foes, both foreign and domestic, while the caliph continued to embody the collective identity of the Muslim community.103 What the successor states and competitor had in common was how they chose to exercise power. Every one of them replicated the dynastic system of the ‘Abbasids. Every one of them sought to pass power from father to son. And every one of them ruled their regions as family fiefs. No one tried to reestablish the process of con- sultation used during the era of the Rightly Guided Caliphs. And no one did as the Prophet Muhammad had done and left the community free to choose their own leader. It was not until 1250 that a ruling elite tried to take a different approach to power and politics. They were the , and they ruled Egypt, Syria, and the Islamic heartland of Arabia for nearly three hundred years (1250– 1517).

The Mamluks: From Slaves to The word means “owned,” and the Mamluks were exactly that: a corps of Turkish slave soldiers owned by the state. Recruited at a young age and raised in the royal household, they were freed as adults to dedicate their lives to the service of the sultan and his state.104 They came to the fore in Egypt during the Ayyubid era (1171– 1250) but owed their elite status to the military system created back in Baghdad in the days of al- Ma’mun and al-Mu‘tasim. 105 Like the slave- soldiers of the ‘Abbasid era, the Mamluks were foreign fighters who did not belong to the society they served. A Dangerous Liaison 65

However, they differed from their predecessors in a critical way. In the 860s, the soldiers of Samarra could make and unmake caliphs at will, but they could not wield power themselves. As outsiders, they lacked the legitimacy to compete with a caliph who belonged to a family sanctified by association with the Prophet. The Mamluks faced no such difficulties. The caliph was now a figurehead. Real power belonged to local dynasties whose leaders were known as amirs (com- manders) or, more commonly, sultans (rulers). When the Ayyubid sultan al-Salih Ayyub died unexpectedly in 1249, his household of Mamluks seized power. Believing their loyalty to each other and to their dead sultan, they trumped the genetics of dynastic politics; a group of them killed the sultan’s heir, his son Turan- , and set about ruling Egypt as a military oligarchy.106 In doing so, the Mamluks established a wholly new pattern of power. Dynasty was dead and power was in the hands of a military caste of self- made men where ability, not blood, dictated who would wield power.107 Sons could not succeed their fathers because sons, unlike their fathers, were born free and were not true Mamluks. Nevertheless, Mamluk Egypt was no egalitarian state of its citizens. The new ruling class was no less possessive of their privileged status than any ruling family had ever been. One elite monopolizing power (the monarchy) had simply been switched for another (the military). In theory, the leader of the Mamluks was a first among equals elected in a premodern version of an electoral college. In practice, the process was rife with factionalism, and the winner was usually the man able to command the most belligerent support. This desire to protect privilege and the readiness to use military muscle to do it became clear after the death of the first Mamluk sul- tan (r. 1250– 57). Rather surprising given the Mamluk code of conduct, Aybak was succeeded by his teenage son al- Mansur ‘Ali. But his elevation to the sultanate owed nothing to family loyalties and everything to the machinations of his father’s Mamluks. They saw him as the best way to protect their position and installed him as a puppet ruler. He lasted two years before a bona fide member of the Mamluk caste, , removed him.108 In spite of the potential instability of this system, the Mamluks were well matched to their times. Rarely had Egypt been in such need of an effective army. When al-Salih Ayyub died in 1249, Louis IX and his crusading armies had landed at Damietta on the Mediterranean coast and were on their way to the capital. It was the fourth time in fifty years Egypt had faced crusader attack.109 The Mamluks success- fully eliminated that threat but soon faced a new one in the Mongols. 66 Fathers and Sons

These formidable warriors destroyed Baghdad in 1258 and slaugh- tered every member of the ‘Abbasid family they could find. They continued their march into Syria, killing tens of thousands along the way, and in 1260, they took on a Mamluk force at ‘Ayn Jalut (Goli- ath’s Spring) near Nazareth in modern- day Israel. Led by a general named Baybars, the Mamluk army triumphed, and Syria fell under their control.110 Baybars was a man with an interesting past, and he was about to have an even more interesting future. Raised in the household of the last Ayyubid sultan, Baybars was in charge of the sultan’s bodyguard. When his master died, Baybars did not transfer his loyalty to the next generation. Instead, he was part of the group who killed the sultan’s son, and in the aftermath of his glory at Goliath’s Spring, Baybars repeated this act of regicide, killed the new sultan Qutuz, and took power himself. His credentials as a military leader were never in doubt, but as a for- mer slave who belonged to a caste of outsiders, Baybars had to build up his religious legitimacy among his fellow Muslims. He achieved this in a number of ways. One of his first actions as defender of the faith came in 1261 when he gave sanctuary to an ‘Abbasid prince who survived the sack of Baghdad. Baybars installed him as caliph, gave him the name al- Mustansir, and pledged allegiance to him. The new caliph, in return, confirmed Baybars as , Syria, Arabia, and any other place he might one day conquer.111 Baybars styled himself al- al-Zahir (the Victorious King) and Rukn al-Din (Pillar of the Faith) then set about proclaiming his piety in the Cairo landscape. Like most Mamluk rulers, he was a pro- lific builder of religious architecture. His mosque in Cairo and his mausoleum in Damascus still stand today. He also sponsored the con- struction of socially useful buildings like hospitals, schools, and canals, which would improve the lives of ordinary people. In addition, he was a generous patron of the arts.112 In 1266, he capitalized on his authority over the Holy Cit- ies of Mecca and Medina to enhance his religious credentials. He added the Ayyubid title, Guardian of the Two Holy Places (Khadim al- Haramayn al- Sharifayn) to his name to remind Muslims every- where he was responsible for their pilgrimage.113 The same title would surface as one of the accolades of the King of Saudi Arabia in the 1980s and for the very same reason: to shore up his religious legitimacy among a skeptical public. In many ways, Baybars personified the Mamluk outlook to politics and power. He started with nothing—not even his freedom—and rose A Dangerous Liaison 67 through the ranks to achieve everything. Yet the Mamluk system was not one he wanted to perpetuate. Barely two years into his reign, Baybars, like so many Muslim rulers before him, succumbed to the dynamic of dynasty and made his son Baraka his heir.114 In 1264, he went a step further and made him his coruler. Baraka was only four years old.115 The move was intended to consolidate his son’s position in the political hierarchy— and it worked. When Bay- bars died in 1277 after 17 years in power, the teenaged Baraka became sultan, albeit briefly (1277– 79). He was succeeded by another of Bay- bars’s sons, Salamish, who, at only seven years old, was not destined to rule for long. Salamish was deposed that same year by a Mamluk named Qalawun. Qalawun was an old style Mamluk cast in the mold of Baybars. Like his predecessor, he was a Turkish slave who had been raised in the household of the last Ayyubid sultan. He, too, embarked on a mag- nificent program of mosque building during his sultanate (1279–90). And he, too, succumbed to the lure of dynastic power. For the next century, Qalawun’s family exercised a virtual monopoly on power as a succession of his sons, grandsons, great- grandsons, and great- great grandsons became sultans.116 On the very rare occasions when they did not rule, power stayed within the “extended” family when one of his Mamluks ruled as a stopgap: Kitbugha (r. 1294– 96), (r. 1296– 98), and Baybars II (r. 1308–1309). 117 The Mamluk era is usually divided into two periods. The first, 1250– 1382, is known as the Bahri from the Arabic bahr (sea). These Mamluks, mostly Turks with ties to the last Ayyubid sultan, were based at a barracks on the Nile. The second period, 1382–1517, is known as the Burji from the Arabic burj (tower or citadel). These Mamluks, mostly Circassians from the Black Sea with ties to the sultan Qalawun, were based in the citadel. In the 1380s, as the descendants of Qalawun began to dwindle, they intervened in the political process and did what many slave soldiers before them had done: they seized power to protect their privilege. Their first sultan, (r. 1382–89 and 1390–98), was so deter- mined to hold on to that privilege that he, like Baybars and Qalawun before him, tried to establish a dynasty. On his deathbed, he made arrangements for his ten-year- old son, Faraj, to succeed him.118 He duly did, but the Burji era belonged more to the members of rival Mamluk households than to the members of a particular family. Because of this, it was marked by strikingly uneven periods in power. Strong men ruled for long stretches of time then were followed by a string of puppet sultans until the next strong man came along, and 68 Fathers and Sons the merry-go- round began again. Qa’itbay, for example, held power for nearly three decades, 1468– 95, then had three successors within four years. These strong men used their position to enrich themselves and their supporters. The Mamluks did not merely monopolize political and military power, but they also manipulated the market. The sultan (r. 1422– 38) controlled sugar production and placed restric- tions on other commodities for his own commercial advantage.119 This kind of political intervention by the military in the economy was a medieval forerunner of what would become the norm in a number of Arab states in the twentieth century. Ultimately, it corrupted not only the economy but also those in political power. Competing for the prizes of power weakened the Mamluks internally. Ironically, it was on the battlefield that these military men eventu- ally lost power. In August 1516, in a field outside , the armies of the Mamluk sultan Qansawh were routed by a vastly superior Turk- ish force. Early in January 1517, Egypt fell too. The Mamluk era was over. The domains they had once ruled were now in the hands of the greatest Muslim dynasty of all: the Ottomans. * * * When the ‘Abbasid family came to power in 750, they controlled a vast empire stretching from the Atlantic to . They were able to rule this vast territory thanks to the unity of their family and the loyalty of their military. In this, they followed a political model similar to that of the Umayyads before them. This model of power changed beyond all recognition in the wake of the ‘Abbasid civil war. Not only was the unity of the ruling family shattered, so too was the balance of power between the monarchy and their military. The introduction of a private army, loyal to the caliph who paid their wages, changed the nature of politics. The command- ers became the kingmakers, and the caliphs were often little more than puppets in their hands. Power shifted from the imperial center to the provinces as ambitious local men seized control of the regions and paid lip service to the caliph as Commander of their Faith. The power of the military hit a new high in Mamluk Cairo and Damascus when men once owned by the state turned the tables and ended up owning the state. Long before there was a Supreme Coun- cil of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in Cairo or a general named al-Asad in Damascus who wanted to pass power to his son, Egypt and Syria were ruled by a military cabal who believed power belonged to them alone. A Dangerous Liaison 69

The common denominator linking these successor states was their desire to rule dynastically. Even the Mamluks, whose group identity was designed to override family loyalty, could not resist the lure of dynastic power. Dynasty was, after all, the language of power in the medieval world. Compare Egypt with England, for example. In 1250, when the Mamluks took power in Egypt, England was in the hands of the Plan- tagenet family. Henry III had been on the throne since 1216 and stayed there until 1272. By 1517, when the Mamluks lost power, England was still a kingdom ruled by one of its most famous kings: the Tudor, Henry VIII. He had been on the throne since 1509 and would stay there until 1547. Elsewhere in Europe, the story was the same. This was the era of the “new monarchies”: France and Rus- sia were both ruled by royalty, and in 1519, the Habsburg Charles V inherited an empire that included Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, Burgundy, parts of Italy, and large swathes of the Americas. There was, however, a fundamental difference between the kings of Europe and their Arab counterparts. The Europeans were Christians, followers of a faith that sanctified the relationship between the Father and Son. Muslim have no such tradition. Their religion decrees that God has no partner. And their political model is their Prophet who did not monopolize power for his family. Yet even so, dynasty remained the order of the day in the medieval Arab world. The rul- ers who claimed the right to follow Muhammad did not follow his example in this regard. It was therefore a ruling family, the Ottomans, who would take the Arab lands from the medieval era into the modern world.