ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE IN AND

Takeshi KATSUFUJI*

Preface

In this paper, the author analyses Arnold J. Toynbee (1889-1975)'s following travels in Iran and Afghanistan in terms of the history of these countries. 1-Journey around the world, February 1956 to August 1957. East to West, Oxford Univ. Press, 1958. (abbreviated as East) He stayed in Iran (Persia), May to June 1957. Following two chapters are recommended: 56. The Goddess Anahita 57. Iran's Hidden Valleys 2-Travel around Afghanistan, April to May 1960. Between Oxus and Jumna, the same Press, 1961. (abbr. Oxus) Chapters refered to are as follows: 1. The 's Eastern Roundabout 18. A Human Watershed 20. Maiwand 22. Herat 26. 31. Feet versus Wheels This paper consists of three sections: I Toynbee's Contribution to the Interpretation of the Mongol Invasion to the Western in the 13th century II Geography in Toynbee's History III A Few Notes on Toynbee's Travels Transcriptions are modified from the original, according to usages. [] is the author's comments.

* Professor, Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

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Toynbee explored 'Iran's hidden valleys' at two places in the Mountains, two at Mount Gonahbad, which is the source of water for the cities of Mashhad and Nishapur, and half-a-dozen around Mount Shir-kuh ('Lion Mountain') to the south-west of . In these valleys he discerns a historically important role played by them. He says: Nomadic peoples of have been the arch-enemies of the Iranian farmer from the days of until the eighteen-eighties, when Russia subjugated the last of the Turkmens. (East, p. 170) The salvation of Iran has been her winding green valleys hidden in the folds of her mountains. The destructive floods of barbarian inva- sion have left these valleys unscathed. With cities to plunder and plains to ravage and depopulate, it has not been worth the invaders' while to raid these secluded spots; and, even if their cupidity did carry them so far, the lie of the land gave the highlanders a much better chance of repelling the attack than the city-dwellers had behind their mud-brick walls. (ibid., p. 171) These highland paradises often take the traveller by surprise; for the lower courses of the streams whose valleys the highlanders have turned to account are apt to run through precipitous-sided ravines which are too steep and too rocky to carry irrigation channels. You seem to be heading for a dreary upland desert, when suddenly, over the top of a ridge, tier upon tier of poplar plantations, vineyards, and fields bursts into view, with water-courses, cunningly led at many different levels, bringing life to trees and crops. (ibid., pp. 171-2) But for these highland asylums, how could Iran have survived? She has repeatedly been the prey of nomadic invaders from Central Asia and Arabia. In these age-long trials, her hidden upland villages have per- petually kept her alive. (ibid., p. 172) In short, not only in Iran but also in Afghanistan and other West- Asian countries, winding valleys have been out of sight from foreign travel- lers, whether riding on horse-back or in modern vehicles. Mounted foreign warriors could not see those highland asylums, whose inhabitants enjoyed relatively peaceful life during periods of great calamity.

134 ORIENT ARNOLD J. TOYNBEE IN IRAN AND AFGHANISTAN

In contrast to these happy valleys were open plains, where cities, vil- lages and farms were exposed to the destruction and plunder of invading armies. In the 13th century, Ata-Malik Juvaini writes in his History of the World-Conqueror: One man had escaped from Bokhara after its capture and had come to Khorasan. He was questioned about the fate of that city and replied: "They [the Mongols] came, they sapped, they burnt, they slew, they plundered, and they departed." (J. A. Boyle's translation, vol. I-p. 107) On May 10, 1960, Toynbee saw the site of Balkh, which had been captured by a Mongol army under Chingis-Khan himself in 1220. Toynbee suggests three keys to the history of Balkh. The first of them is a geogra- phical one. Balkh can be described as being a gift of the Balkh River, just as Egypt is a gift of the Nile. The river, full of snow-melt waters of the central part of Afghanistan, runs through the Hindukush Mountains and goes out into the plain, where it pours into a number of canals to irrigate the fields there. To quote Toynbee's description: The soil is potentially as fertile as any in the World. Lead water to it, and it will bring forth, in abundance, every kind of crop and fruit. (Oxus, p. 93) The lie of the land guides these life-giving waters westwards, parallel with the northward face of the mountain-wall. They run all the way to Aqcha and beyond, some fifty-two miles and more from the Imam Bukri's bridge [built at the point where the river bursts out of the mountains into the plain]. This is one of the largest oases in the World, and Balkh stands in a commanding position. (ibid., p. 94) It had not yet occurred to anyone that the oasis watered by the Balkh River could have any other capital city than Balkh itself. (ibid., p. 95) In arid such as Iran and Afghanistan, population depends on agriculture, which in turn depends on water that comes from mountain-snow. The volume of waters is annually constant, so that both the agricultural production and the population it supports are also constant. This logic may be applied to the Balkh plain. As the second key, Toynbee gives us a quiz of history. He says: It is only within the last 750 years that Balkh has fallen on evil days. In this recent age she has been dealt successive blows by three deadly enemies: the Mongol war-lord Chingis; the Turkish war-lord Tamerlane

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 135 [Timur-i lang]; and the Arab caliph Ali; and it is Ali who has struck the last and deadliest blow of all. (ibid., p. 95) Here, careful readers will wonder what Toynbee actually means. The exact chronological order of these three figures are, Ali, Chingis and Timur. Ali died and was buried in early in 661, and has nothing to do with Afghanistan. Toynbee goes on to say: The two war-lords could wreck Balkh's irrigation-system and massacre the city's inhabitants. Yet, after each of these first two catastrophes, the survivors would repair the canals, patch up the breaches in the walls, and set Balkh going again, at however greatly reduced a level of vitality. (ibid., p. 95) After geographical and historical problems, Toynbee presents the third and last key which takes a religious point of view. He says: In the 15th century, under the Tamerlane's successors, the 4th caliph's tomb was discovered, on a spot a few miles to the east of the Imam Bukri's bridge. The tomb of so exalted a hero of Islam was bound to encase itself within a magnificent mosque and then to conjure up a city round its precincts which has been known as Mazar-i-Sharif: 'the noble mausoleum'. Since there is not room, even in the great Balkh oasis, for more than one first-class city, Balkh necessarily decreased as Mazar increased, until eventually Mazar sucked Balkh almost dry. (ibid., pp. 95-96) Who, then, discovered Ali's tomb near Balkh, so far away from his burial-place in Iraq? Before we see Toynbee's answer, we should be reminded of something about contending sects of Islam. The majority, called the Sunnis, acknowledge four orthodox caliphs and Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs as successors of Prophet Mahomet (Muhammad), while Ali's sect, known as the Shi'ahs, claim that the prophet's successors should be in his lineage: Ali, Mahomet's cousin, Ali's sons after him, and so on. Ali is the first imam (title among the Shi'ahs), as well as the 4th caliph of the Sunnis. He is more, or actually exclusively, venerated among the Shi'ahs. Discovery, or production, of Ali's tomb near Balkh may be said to be a Sunnis' counter-attack against the Shi'ahs' exclusive possession of Ali, in order to have a proper share of him. Since then zealous believers have moved

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to the new religious city in the hope of their salvation. The migration took place within the Balkh oasis, which has made Balkh a small village as seen today and Mazar-i Sharif the biggest city in northern Afghanistan. Toynbee has thus succeeded to make the Mongols appear less guilty of the decline of Balkh.

II

1. Trees in the dry land Chapter 56 of East, entitled 'Goddess Anahita,' reads as follows: Anahita is the goddess of water.... From the air, you can follow with your eye the lines of the qanats, radiating out from the foot of the mountains in all directions. A qanat is a Man-made subterranean water- course. (East, p. 168) When the water is led on to the surface of the soil, a generous amount of it is allocated to maintaining trees. In Persia [or Iran], tress are not a luxury. Apart from the poplar tree for providing a necessary building material, the presence of trees has a softening effect on the climate. And in Persia, trees cannot be left to fend for themselves; for, in Persia, trees have four deadly enemies: charcoal- burners, foragers, goats [and domesticated animals in general], and drought. If the husbandman did not intervene in the battle on the trees' side, by planting saplings, bringing water to them, and fencing his gardens about with mud walls, there would soon not be a tree left in the land. One of the characteristic features of the Persian landscape is the double avenue of poplars with a rivulet running between the two close- set lines of trees. These avenues intersect the cities and run for miles through the open country. They are one of the chief beauties of the Persian scene. (ibid., p. 169) Three years later, in May 1960, Toynbee sits on the northern foothills of Herat, westernmost city of Afghanistan, and spends hours on two evenings in a row. He writes: When one surveys the valley [of the Hari-rud river] from the [garden of] Takht-i-Safar, the particular beauties of the city [of Herat] are enhanced by being woven into a larger pattern. What

Vol. XXX-XXXI 1995 137 catches and holds the eye is... the villages that cluster round the city, and the trees that cluster round the villages. The river is hidden, in this distant view, by the groves and orchards. But, across the valley, the pine-avenue, running, as it does, down an open grassy slope, dis- plays its whole noble length; and its ten miles cast a lengthening shadow eastward as the sun sinks towards Persian Khorasan (Oxus, p. 76) This pine-avenue is also double, and gives comfortable shade to passers- by on donkey-back or in cars, except at noon-time. Inhabitants of Herat have been successfully fighting against the 'four deadly enemies of trees.' 2. Stages of the Toynbee's world history In the first chapter of Oxus, Toynbee presents his theory, which will be shown here in graphs:

□ roundabout [] cul-de-sac

Toynbee's definition: Roundabouts are regions on which routes converge from all quarters of the compass and from which routes radiate out to all quarters of the compass again. Culs-de-sac are regions on the fringe of the Oikoumene that have received successive influences from the centre but have not been able to pass these influences on to regions farther afield. (Oxus, p. 2)

A Land-age, of the Old World

[British Isles] Central Asia……[Japan]

Anatolia…………Iraq……Afghanistan……

(centre)

Africa

B Ocean-age, the included

America……British Isles……Old World

(New World)

C Air-age, present stage (author's idea suggested by Toynbee)

Old World……Japan……America

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Japan's importance has recently increased as a roundabout between developing Asian countries and . Progress in air-transpor- tation has been of a great help in it. 3. Feet versus wheels In the spring of 1960, it rained extraordinarily heavily in Afghanistan, so the flights to Kabul airport were cancelled for a few weeks. Toynbee had to utilize bus-service to enter that country before the appointed date. The bus-tour along the Kabul river gave him valuable lessons on travelling in that mountainous country. He says: While the [Kabul] river was taking bites out of the road on the right-hand side, the mountain, which was made of crumbly stuff, was pouring avalanches of disintegrating conglomerate down upon us from the left. Fortunately, an army of road-menders was busily bulldozing these heaps of rubble into the gaps in the road that had been torn by the rage of the river. (Oxus, p. 49) His party, consisting of himself, the British ambassador to Afghanistan, one Afghan, and four Pakistanis, traveled in two land-rovers. They had diffi- culties in driving everywhere because of rain-falls and temporary floods. The modern road-engineer finds the gorges tempting. They promise him gentler gradients and shorter cuts than the traditional tracks that wind up and over the hills....A human pair of legs will carry its owner almost anywhere. And, where a man can go, he can usually coax a donkey or a camel into following him. But even a mule is brought to a full stop by a four-feet-high perpendicular rock-face, which a man can clamber up or down with ease. And most of the choices of alternative routes that are open to a mule or a man are ruled out for a land-rover. Even with its high clearance, four-wheel drive, and powerful engine, a land-rover cannot pick its way through a dump of boulders or face even a twelve-inch perpendicular drop or rise. (Oxus, pp. 119,120) In the 19th century the Kingdom of Afghanistan was made a buffer-state to defend British India against Russia. The reason for this was that modern armies equippped with wheeled canons would easily be blocked by the natural barrier known as the Hidukush Mountains.

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1. Maiwand Few of the readers of Toynbee's travels, perhaps, are aware of what Maiwand is. On his way from Qandahar to Herat, Toynbee had time to spare for an excursion there. He writes [It is] the battlefield, where an Afghan army had taken a British expeditionary force by surprise, and had gained an unquestionable victory over it, on the 27th July, 1880, [during the Second Anglo-Afghan War]. The Afghan victory memorial stands in a walled garden overlooking the cemetery in which the Afghan dead are buried.... The Afghans had buried the British dead as well as their own. They had not only buried them; they had raised a monument for them too. It is a pillar of sun- dried brick, not a stone column like the monument for the Afghan dead. (Oxus, pp. 64,65) The main street of Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, has been named 'Jaddah-yi Maiwand' (Maiwand Avenue) in commemoration of this national victory. 2. Pashto dialects The Afghans, Afghanistan's ruling nation, are expressed by Toynbee in other three ways: Pashtun, Pakhtun, and Pathan, The 'sh' of Pashtun is a retroflexed sibilant, and the 'kh' of Pakhtun, a medio-palatal spirant. The former characterizes the south-western dialect of their mother language, Pashto-Pakhto, with Qandahar as its centre, and the latter belongs to the north-eastern dialect spoken in Peshawar of . 'Pathan' is a term used from the Indian side, never by themselves. 3. The meaning of 'Shin-dand' Before arriving at Herat, Toynbee: travelled, between Dilaram and Farah, through a series of half-a-dozen green amphitheatres, encircled by the southernmost tentacles of the mountains of Ghor [central highland of Afghanistan]. At the beginning of May, these pasture-bowls were full of browsing camels, sheep, and goats, with human owners-or servants-in attendance.... We soon found ourselves traversing the vaster green amphitheatre of Shin-dand (its Persian name, Sabzawar, means 'Green Water-meadows'). (Oxus, p. 58)

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A little more knowledge of Pashto would have led Toynbee to understand the proper meaning of 'Shin-dand.' 'Shin' means 'green', and 'dand' is 'pond' (both of 'd's are retroflexed d). What is 'green pond'? During the season that he travelled, the ground is everywhere covered with grasses. He describes the lie of the land as an amphitheatre or pasture-bowl, at the bottom of which there gather waters to produce ponds. The town-name of Shin-dand reveals its geographic features. 4. Poetic expressions Readers of his travels will often come across paragraphs of poetic value. Let us cite as an example from the chapter of Balkh: The present vitality of the great [Balkh] oasis impressed itself upon us on the Monday morning on which we were travelling from Shibarghan to Mazar through Aqcha. Monday happens to be market-day in both Aqcha and Shibarghan.... The throng of riders kept on increasing. Not even Rotten Row [riding course in London], as I remember it in my childhood, was so crowded with early-morning riders as this Shi- barghan-Aqcha road was on the morning of this market-day. These Uzbeg centaurs' business was matter-of-fact; they were going to sell a sheep or to buy a tin of kerosine. But they rode with an air, as if they were still at large on their ancestral steppes. It was a festive scene. (Oxus, p. 97) In Central Asia, weekly market-day mostly falls on Mondays, so the capital-city of Tajikistan bears the name of Dushanbe, which means 'Monday' in Persian.

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