Caliphate

by Hugh Kennedy

  Meanwhile the Byzantines, taking advantage of the chaos, were beginning to capture Muslim-held towns on the frontier and, perhaps even worse, the pilgrimage caravans were attacked by a Bedouin group following a Shiite ideology known as the Qarāmita or Carmathians. Male pilgrims were massacred, their women and children sold into captivity. Even Mecca itself, under nominal Abbasid rule, was not safe: the city was sacked, the corpses of massacred inhabitants were thrown into the sacred well Zamzam and the Black Stone was wrenched from the fabric of the Kaba and stolen by the rebels. The Abbasid could do nothing to fulfil the most central obligation of the caliph: to protect the frontiers of Islam and ensure the safety of the hajj. The end came when Muqtadir, still a comparatively young man, was killed in battle fighting the chief of the army who was supposed to be protecting him. In the confused period which followed, power was assumed by a series of military adventurers who took the title of Emir of Emirs, a title which implied complete control over all aspects of the secular administration but which carried no religious implications. Not only did they take over the remains of the army, they took over all the civil bureaucracy as well, abolishing the vizierate and leaving the caliph a powerless figurehead in his vast palace beside the Tigris. The failure of the Abbasid caliphate was clear for every Muslim to see.

  Despite, or perhaps because of, this political weakness, there seems to have been an attempt by the Abbasid administration to develop the role of the caliph as leader of the Muslims in relation with the non-Muslim world. After the initial Arab conquests of the seventh and early eighth centuries which established the great caliphate, the caliphs conducted little foreign policy. Those who lived beyond the borders of the Dār al-Islam (House of Islam), in the unchartered and barbarous wastes of the Dār al-Harb (House of War), were too insignificant and too poor to be of much interest. The Byzantine Empire was the only power with which the caliphs could deal on anything like equal terms, but their sporadic negotiations over truces and exchanges of prisoners hardly amounted to diplomacy.

  In the tenth century there were signs that this was changing. Whether this was a deliberate policy on the part of Caliph Muqtadir and his advisers to expand and publicize the caliph’s role as a spokesman for the umma, or whether it was chance, is difficult to know. But sources preserve two narratives which show the ruler in this role and the very fact that these narratives were elaborated points to a measure of official interest if nothing more.

  The first of these narratives gives the fullest description of Abbasid ceremonial during the reception of two ambassadors from the Byzantine Empire in June 917. They had come to ask for a truce on the frontier and an exchange of prisoners, fairly routine business, but the vizier Ibn al-Furāt decided to make a great show of it. The envoys were given lodgings and provided with all they required. When the day for audience came

  the vizier gave orders that the soldiers should line the streets the whole way from the palace of Said [where they were staying] to his own palace and that his own retainers and troops with the vice-chamberlains posted in the palace should form a line from the doorway of the palace to the reception room. A vast saloon with a gilt roof in a wing of the palace called the Garden Wing was splendidly furnished and hung with curtains resembling carpets. 30,000 dinars was spent on new furniture, carpets and curtains. No mode of beautifying the palace or increasing the magnificence of the occasion was neglected. The vizier himself sat on a splendid prayer carpet with a lofty throne behind him and serving men in front and behind and left and right while the saloon was filled with military and civil officials. The two envoys were then introduced, having seen on their way such troops and crowds as might fill them with awe.

  When they entered the public apartments, they were told to sit down in the veranda, the apartment being filled with troops. They were then taken down a long passage which took them to the quadrangle of the Garden which led them to the room in which the vizier was seated. The magnificence of the room and of its furniture and the crowd of attendants formed an impressive spectacle. They were accompanied by an interpreter and the prefect of police and his whole force. They were made to stand before the vizier whom they saluted, their words being translated by the interpreter, and the vizier made a reply which was also interpreted. They made a request for the redemption of the captives and asked for the vizier’s help in obtaining the agreement of Muqtadir. He informed them that he would have to interview the caliph on the subject, and would have to act according to the instructions he received. . . . They were dismissed and led out by the same route they had come in, soldiers still lining the road in full dress and perfect equipment. The uniform consisted of royal satin tunics, with close-fitting caps over which were satin hoods pointed at the top.5

  The interview with the caliph himself followed the same pattern. The envoys were led to the palace through streets lined with uniformed soldiers.

  When they reached the palace they were taken into a corridor which led into one of the quadrangles, thence they turned into another corridor which led to a quadrangle wider than the first and the chamberlains kept leading them through corridors and quadrangles until they were weary with walking and quite bewildered. These corridors and quadrangles were all crowded with retainers and servants. Finally they approached the saloon in which Muqtadir was to be found, where all the officers of state were standing according to their different ranks, while Muqtadir was seated on his imperial throne, with the vizier Ibn al-Furāt standing near him and Mu’nis the eunuch [commander of the army] with his officers next to him stationed on his right and left. When they entered the saloon they kissed the ground and stationed themselves where they were told to stand by Nasr the Chamberlain. They then delivered their master’s letter, proposing a ransoming of prisoners and asking for a favourable response. The vizier replied for the caliph that he accepted the proposal out of compassion for the Muslim prisoners and the desire to set them free and his zeal to obey God and deliver them. . . . When the envoys left the imperial presence they were presented with precious cloaks adorned with gold and turbans of the same material and similar honours were bestowed on the interpreter, who rode home with them.

  Each of the envoys was given a private present of 20,000 silver dirhams. The account then goes on to relate how Mu’nis was given the enormous sum of 170,000 gold dinars from the Baghdad treasury to effect the ransoming.

  The account is interesting for the insight it gives into the role of the caliph and the manipulation of the caliphal image. A broadly similar one is repeated in several Arabic sources but not in any Byzantine ones. The great display of troops in Baghdad, the elaborate ceremonial in the palace and the publicity which followed were designed to impress the Muslim population with the splendour and power of the caliph and his concern for the welfare of Muslims. It was also the last hurrah of Abbasid power. Within only a few years Ibn al-Furāt and the caliph were dead and the huge palace had become the scene of murder and mayhem as different factions fought for control over the increasingly powerless caliphate.

  The second narrative preserves the record of caliphal diplomacy outside the lands of Islam. It is also the earliest first-person travel narrative in Arabic literature.6 It describes the travels of one Ibn Fadlān, an agent of the Baghdad government, who travelled to Central Asia and in the Volga region of what is now Russia on a diplomatic mission. Ibn Fadlān’s account, discovered in a manuscript in Mashad, Iran, only in 1923, is now mostly read for his exceptional, even lurid, description of the customs of a people who he refers to as the Rus, which seems to be the earliest eyewitness description of the ancestors of the Russians. However, the account is also revealing as a record of the travels and reactions of a caliphal official at a time when his master’s power was visibly waning. We know almost nothing about the author except what he tells us incidentally in his narrative. He was clearly a bureaucrat of some standing and education but not important enough to appear in any of the general narrative sources of the period.

  The mission set out in respons
e to a letter which had been sent to the caliph by the king of the Volga Bulgars, who had converted to Islam. He professed his loyalty to the caliph and said that his name would be proclaimed in the Friday sermons in the Bulgar lands. He asked that the caliph send him men who could teach him and his followers about Islamic law and the correct performance of prayer and other rituals. He also asked for money to build a castle (hisn) to defend him against his enemies in this land of felt yurts and wooden huts. The connection between monotheism and masonry is one that we find in many places in Celtic, Slavic and Scandinavian Europe at the time. The king wanted proper religion and new technology, both important aspects of being modern in the early tenth century, and for him, at least, the caliph was the proper person to ask. In western Christendom it would probably have been the pope.

  The court in Baghdad decided to send a mission and the expedition set out on 21 June 921. It was to be a long journey. The men eventually arrived at the court of the Bulgar king on the Volga river eleven months later, on 12 May 922, having travelled about 3,000 miles, meaning that they must have averaged about ten miles a day. Given the political uncertainties and the terrible winter weather they encountered, this was a pretty impressive record. Their route lay through the Zagros Mountains and along the northern edge of the central Iranian desert to Bukhara, where the Samanid emir held court in the name of the caliph but in reality as an independent ruler. From there they headed for the fertile province of Khwarazm (modern Khorezm) on the delta of the river Oxus at the south end of the Aral Sea. These were the last outposts of Muslim settlement and civilization and from here they had to strike out into the unknown.

  The first stages of the journey were easy enough, through the cultivated lands of central Iraq and along the old Khurasan road, which led through the mountains to the Iranian plateau. As they approached the ancient city of Rayy (just south of modern Tehran), in the narrow gap between the great desert to the south and the mountains to the north, they became aware, if they were not already, of the limitations of the power of the caliph. Rayy and the other towns on the route were under the control of the Zaydi Shiite imams, based in Daylam at the southwest corner of the Caspian Sea. These Shiite rulers were not simply usurpers of caliphal power but men who rejected the legitimacy of the Abbasids and their right to be considered leaders of the umma. The members of the mission were obliged to hide their identity and mingle with the rest of the caravan.

  It must have been with considerable relief that they reached Nishapur and the protection of the Samanid army. They pushed on east to Merv, where they changed camels for the journey across the waterless desert to the Oxus. After crossing the river they passed through the trading town of Paykant and the well-watered villages of the Bukhara oasis until they reached the capital. Here they were on friendly territory. The Samanid vizier, a man called Jayhānī, was a cultivated bureaucrat and a man with a keen interest in geography. He made arrangements for a residence for the party and ‘appointed someone to attend to our needs and concerns and made sure that we experienced no difficulty in getting what we wanted’. He also arranged for them to have an audience with the Samanid emir Nasr b. Ahmad in person. They discovered, apparently to Ibn Fadlān’s surprise, that he was a beardless boy. Young though he may have been, he was well trained in diplomatic niceties. He greeted them and invited them to sit down. ‘How was my master (mawlā) the Commander of the Faithful when you left him? May God give him long life and cherish him and his retinue and his spiritual companions.’ ‘He was well,’ they replied. He said, ‘May God increase his well-being!’ That was the easy part: now they had to get down to business and it was here that the limitations of the authority of the caliph in this distant but important province became apparent.

  The next stop was Khwarazm where the emir was a vassal of the Samanids. The welcome they received was mixed. They were greeted warmly and given a place to stay, but the governor was suspicious about their desire to meet the king of the Bulgars: if anyone should represent the Muslims to these infidels, it should be the Samanid emir in Bukhara, not the distant and virtually powerless caliph in Baghdad. He argued that the mission was too dangerous and that he should write to the emir, who would in turn write to the caliph to consult him. It was clearly a delaying tactic which would almost certainly have prevented the mission from continuing, but Ibn Fadlān and his companions persisted: ‘We have the letter of the Commander of the Faithful,’ they said. ‘Why do you need to consult?’ In the end they were allowed to proceed into the bitter cold of the steppe: our author paints a vivid picture of the cold and suffering they endured, so different from the heat of Baghdad.

  When they finally approached the camp of the king of the Bulgars in May 922, they were met first by a guard of honour of the king’s sons and then by the monarch himself, who dismounted and prostrated himself, giving thanks to God. They were led to the camp and assigned their own yurts while the king prepared to give them a ceremonial welcome. After four days they were granted an audience. They presented the king with two standards symbolizing the conferment of office, a saddle and a black turban. Ibn Fadlān then read out the caliph’s letter, insisting that all stood to hear it. ‘Peace be upon you,’ he read. ‘On your behalf I praise God—there is no other god but Him.’ And he then ordered them to return the greeting of the Commander of the Faithful, which they duly did. Next began the present-giving—perfumes, garments and pearls and a robe of honour for the queen who, in complete contrast to Muslim court protocol, was sitting by the king’s side.

  An hour later there was another audience in the royal yurt. On the king’s right were seated vassal kings while the envoys were placed on his left. His sons sat before him while he himself sat at the centre on a throne covered with Byzantine silk. A ceremonial meal followed with the king cutting choice bits of meat, first for himself and then for his guests. Then the king drank a toast in mead speaking of his joy in his master (mawlā) the Commander of the Faithful, ‘may God prolong his life’.

  Ibn Fadlān also gave instruction in the performance of prayers. Before he came, blessings were called on the kings from the minbar at Friday prayers, but Ibn Fadlān advised that ‘God is the king and he alone should be accorded that title from the minbar. Your master, the Commander of the Faithful, for example, is satisfied with the phrase, “Lord God, keep in piety your slave and caliph the imam Jafar al-Muqtadir bi-llah, Commander of the Faithful,” as this is proclaimed from all the minbars in east and west.’ He also drew attention to the hadīth in which the Prophet says that Muslims should not exaggerate his importance in the way in which the Christians exaggerated the importance of Jesus son of Mary, and that He was simply the slave of God and his messenger.

  Naturally the king then asked what should be proclaimed from the pulpit on Friday. ‘Your name and the name of your father,’ was the reply. ‘But my father was an unbeliever,’ he said, ‘and I do not wish to have his name proclaimed from the minbar. Indeed I do not wish to have my own name mentioned, because it was given to me by an unbeliever. What is the name of my master (mawlā), the Commander of the Faithful?’

  ‘Jafar,’ Ibn Fadlān replied.

  ‘Am I permitted to take his name?’

  ‘Yes.

  ‘Then I take Jafar as my name and Abd Allah as the name of my father. Tell this to the preacher.’

  Ibn Fadlān did as instructed and the proclamation during the sermon on Friday became, ‘Lord God, keep in piety your slave Jafar b. Abd Allah, the amīr of the Bulghars, whose master is the Commander of the Faithful.’

  Many in the Muslim world held Muqtadir in contempt. Youthful and inexperienced, his failure to live up to the achievements of his Abbasid ancestors was coming close to making a mockery of the office of caliph. Yet for the king of the Bulgars the caliph represented the Muslim world in a very personal way. His master was not the umma, not the religious scholars, not Muslims in general, but the caliph in person.

  THE BREAK-UP OF THE ABBASID CALIPHATE

  The break-up of the c
aliphate was a long and complex business, but the reasons for it need to be explored. Any discussion of a future or revived caliphate at the present day must address why the Abbasid dynasty, despite its political power and its connections with the Family of the Prophet, disintegrated when it did. The problems of holding together a multicultural Muslim world becoming ever more diverse under a single leadership were never fully resolved and will form a major and intractable challenge to anyone wishing to revive the office in the future.

  One reason has been touched on above: the growing alienation of the caliphs from the mass of the Muslim population. This was partly physical, as the caliphs increasingly isolated themselves within the walls of their palaces, but also ideological, as the governing elite initially tried to enforce belief in the createdness of the Qur’ān. Even though this policy had been abandoned, it had left a deep and lasting rift between the caliphs and the religious leaders who were respected and consulted by the mass of Muslims. This alienation was compounded by the failure of the Abbasid caliphs in the first half of the tenth century to perform the most obvious public duties of the office, to defend the frontiers of the Muslim world, especially against the Byzantines, and to protect and lead the hajj.

  But there were other more long-term problems. The first was the economic collapse of Iraq and especially of Iraqi agriculture. At the time of the Muslim conquests Iraq had been the richest province of the caliphate in terms of tax revenue (the only figures we have). It yielded four times as much as Egypt, the next richest area, and five times as much as Syria and Palestine together. During the early Islamic period this situation changed, partly due to environmental factors like the increasing salinization and exhaustion of the soil, and partly because repeated civil wars and disturbances damaged the complex irrigation systems which carried water to the fields. This culminated in 935, when the greatest of the canals, the Nahrawan, which dated to pre-Islamic times, was breached by a military adventurer for short-term tactical gains and never subsequently repaired.