Caliphate

by Hugh Kennedy

  The tax revenues of Iraq were what enabled the Abbasids to pay the armies which enforced their authority and the bureaucrats who collected the revenues. As revenues declined inexorably, there were repeated army mutinies until the armies of the caliphs spent most of their energies fighting rival military groups and trying to extort money from the caliphs themselves.

  There was another factor which was, in a way, more positive, and that was the conversion of an increasingly large proportion of the population of the caliphate to Islam. It can be argued that the break-up of the caliphate was the inevitable result of the success of Islam as a popular religion. This is a very difficult process to measure. We can be certain that there were no Muslims in these areas before the Arab conquests. Conversion was slow in the seventh and early eighth centuries but after that gathered pace, especially in the tenth century. By the year 1100, and before in some places, it is likely that 50 per cent of the population were Muslims of one group or another.

  These new Muslims were not, in the main, Arabs. They probably never went to Baghdad (except if they passed through on the road from Iran to the Holy Cities) and they had no contact with the caliphs. As has already been mentioned, groups like the Saffarid rulers of much of Iran in the late ninth century were Muslims but not Arabs. Their loyalties lay with fellow Muslims in the provinces where they originated and the caliphate was for them at best an irrelevance and at worst a source of vexatious tax demands. New Muslims had no reason to support an institution which had little or nothing to offer them.

  This did not mean that the Muslim world divided into separate political units with no contact between them. Arabic was widely used as the language of religious and philosophical discussion. Merchants traded across borders with little or no interference from government; administrators wandered from one court to another looking for lucrative employment. In many ways the umma was a united commonwealth: it was just that the caliphs had no significant role in this.

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  THE CULTURE OF THE ABBASID CALIPHATE

  IN THE YEAR 932 the new caliph, Qāhir, asked one of his courtiers, Muhammad b. Alī al-Abdī, to chronicle the achievements of his Abbasid predecessors. It was a difficult time for the caliphate. Muqtadir had just been killed fighting his own army and enemies pressed in on every side. It was a far cry from the glory days of Hārūn al-Rashīd. The courtier, who was a specialist in history, responded with a short but fascinating series of portraits of the caliphs of the dynasty, and gives some guidance as to what the people remembered about them. This was then recorded by the leading historian of the day, Masūdī, in his ‘Meadows of Gold’ (Murūj al-dhahab), which is why it comes down to us.1

  Caliph Qāhir was a genuinely frightening man, given to violent and unpredictable outbursts, which, combined with his heavy drinking, soon led to him being deposed and blinded. With a spear in his hand, he had the historian stand before him, and demanded the truth on pain of death.

  Abdī began with the first Abbasid caliph Saffāh (749–54), who was ‘quick to spill blood . . . but atoned for this defect by considerable nobility of spirit and great generosity. He gave constantly and scattered gold with an open hand.’ His successor Mansūr (754–75) was

  the first to sow discord between the family of Abbās and the family of Alī who until then had made common cause. He was the first of the caliphs to bring astrologers to his court and make decisions according to the stars. . . . He was also the first caliph to have foreign works of literature translated into Arabic, for example, Kalīla wa Dimna [celebrated animal fables translated from the Persian], the Sindhind [presumably a book about India], Aristotle’s treatises on logic and other subjects, Ptolemy’s Almagest, the book of Euclid, the ‘treatise on arithmetic’, and all the other ancient works, Greek, Byzantine, Pahlavi [Middle Persian] and Syriac. Once in possession of these books, the public read and studied them avidly.

  According to Abdī, Mansūr was also the first ruler to distribute public offices among his freedmen and pages. He employed them in matters of importance and advanced them over the Arabs. This practice was followed after his time by the caliphs who were his heirs and it was thus that the Arabs lost the high command, the supremacy and the honours they had enjoyed until then.

  From the time of his accession to the throne, Mansūr devoted himself to learning. He applied himself to the study of religious and philosophical ideas and acquired a profound knowledge of the different Muslim sects as well as of the Muslim Tradition. During his reign, the schools of the Traditionists (that is, those who studied the hadīth of Muhammad) increased in number and widened the scope of their studies.

  Abdī’s account continued:

  Mahdī [775–85] was good and generous and his character was noble and liberal. . . . This caliph had the habit, when appearing in public, of having purses filled with gold and silver carried before him. No one solicited his charity in vain and the steward who walked ahead had orders to give alms to those who did not dare to ask, anticipating their need. . . . He was merciless in exterminating heretics.

  Here Abdī lists the dualists and other sects that appeared during Mahdī’s reign, adding that Mahdī

  was the first to order the polemicists of the theological schools to refute them. They produced convincing proofs against their wrong-headed adversaries and overthrew the weak arguments of the heretics and made the truth shine forth to all who doubted. He rebuilt the mosque in Mecca and that of the Prophet in Medina in the form they stand today and he rebuilt Jerusalem, which had been damaged by earthquakes.

  Of Hārūn al-Rashīd (786–809), Abdī said that he was

  scrupulous in fulfilling his role as a pilgrim and in waging holy war. He undertook public works, wells, cisterns, and forts on the road to Mecca, and also in that city at Mina and Arafat [both important sites in the hajj rituals], and in Medina. He scattered both wealth and the treasure of his justice on all his subjects. He strengthened the frontiers against the Byzantine Empire, built cities, fortified several towns such as Tarsus and Adana, revived the prosperity of Massissa and Marash [all now in southern Turkey but then part of the network of Muslim settlements along the frontier] and carried out innumerable works of military architecture, as well as building caravanserais. His officials followed his example. The people imitated his behaviour and followed the direction he pointed out. Error was repressed, the truth reappeared and Islam, shining with new splendour, eclipsed all other nations.

  The very type of generosity and charity in this reign was manifested in the person of Umm Jafar Zubayda, the daughter of Jafar and the granddaughter of [the caliph] Mansūr. This princess had numerous caravanserais built at Mecca and she filled this city, and the pilgrim road which bears her name, with cisterns, wells and buildings which survive to this day. She also built several hospices for travellers along the Syrian frontier and at Tarsus and endowed them.

  The Barmakids then get a mention for their generosity before the author returns to Hārūn as the first caliph to popularize the game of polo, shooting arrows at the birjās (quintain, a movable target on a pole) and playing with balls and rackets. He rewarded those who distinguished themselves in these various exercises and these games spread among the people. He was also the first among the Abbasid caliphs to play chess and backgammon. He favoured players who distinguished themselves and paid them salaries. Such was the splendour, wealth and prosperity of his reign that they called this period the Days of Marriage and Feast.

  The narrator was then interrupted by the caliph, who demanded that he say more about Zubayda. ‘I obey,’ he said. ‘The nobility and magnificence of this princess, in serious matters as well as frivolous, have led her to be placed in the very first rank.’ As regards the more serious matters, he gives more details of her pious building works and especially the water supply of Mecca. He then moves on to the more frivolous expenses:

  those of which kings are most vain. . . . She was the first to be served on dishes of gold and silver enriched with precious stones. For her the fi
nest clothes were made of the multicoloured silk known as washī, a single length of which, designed for her, cost 50,000 dinars. She was the first to organize an escort of eunuchs (who, of course, could serve her in a personal capacity) and slave girls who rode by her side, fulfilled her orders and delivered her messages. She was the first to make use of tents of silver, ebony and sandalwood, decorated with clasps of gold and silver and hung with embroidered silk, sable, brocade and red, yellow, green and blue silk. She was the first to introduce the fashion for slippers embroidered with precious stones and for candles made of ambergris, fashions which spread to the public. Then, O Commander of the Faithful, when the caliphate passed to her son [Amīn 809–13], he favoured his eunuchs and showed his preference by bestowing on them the highest honours. Zubayda, noticing her son’s marked taste for these eunuchs and the influence they were having over him, chose young girls remarkable for the elegance of their figures and the charm of their faces. She had them wear turbans, and gave them clothes woven and embroidered in the royal factories, and had them fix their hair with fringes and lovelocks and draw it back to the nape of the neck after the fashion of young men. She dressed them in the close-fitting, wide-sleeved robes called qaba and wide belts which showed off their waists and their curves. Then she sent them to her son Amīn and as they filed into his presence he was enchanted. He was captivated by their looks and appeared with them in public. It was then that the fashion for having young slave girls with short hair, wearing qaba and belts, became established at all levels of society. They were called ‘page girls’.

  Here the caliph interrupted again. ‘Page,’ he cried out, ‘a cup of wine in honour of the slave girls!’ Immediately a swarm of young girls appeared, all the same height and all looking like young men. They were all wearing tight-fitting jackets, qaba and all had fringes. They wore their hair in lovelocks and had belts of gold and silver. While the caliph was raising his cup, I admired the purity of its jewels, the sparkle of the wine which gilded it with its rays, and I went into raptures about the beauty of these young girls.

  But Qāhir was still holding his frightening lance. He drank the cup straight off and said to me, ‘Go on!’

  The historian went on, diplomatically avoiding discussion of the deposed and murdered Amīn, and moving on to his brother, Ma’mūn (813–33):

  At the beginning of his reign this caliph was under the influence of Fadl b. Sahl [his Persian vizier] and other courtiers. He devoted himself to the study of astrology and its rulings. He modelled his conduct on the Sasanian kings like Ardashir son of Babak [224–41] and others. He had a passion for old books and studied them constantly, pursuing his researches until he succeeded in understanding them and getting to their very heart. . . . On his arrival in Iraq, Ma’mūn gave up his favourite studies and professed the doctrine of Unity and the Promise and the Threat,2 that is, the doctrines of the Mutazilites. He presided over conferences of theologians and attracted to his court polemicists famous in debate. His meetings were always attended by learned jurists and literary men whom he brought from many different cities and to whom he gave salaries. The populace acquired a taste for philosophical speculation, the study of dialectic became fashionable and each school wrote works in support of their arguments and the doctrines they professed.

  As for Ma’mūn himself:

  He was the most clement and patient of men. No one has made better use of their power, been more open-handed, more general in their gifts or less inclined to regret them. Ministers and courtiers all imitated him carefully; all followed his example and walked in his footsteps.

  The historian finishes with brief accounts of Mutasim (833–42), ‘fond of horses and wishing to imitate Persian kings in his table service’; Wāthiq (842–7), strict in his religious beliefs and a great gourmet; and Mutawakkil (847–61), ‘who forbade the study of different religious opinions and re-established belief in authority and the teaching of the Traditions. His reign was happy and his government stable and well founded’. None of the later caliphs is mentioned.

  Masūdī’s account is interesting for all sorts of reasons. Perhaps the most striking is that the leading role is played by a woman, Zubayda, who is admired for her pious works but also as the epitome of court style. He also makes some political judgements, for example about Mansūr’s promotion of freedmen and the consequent loss of status for the Arabs. It is surprising to see Mansūr, who comes across in other sources as the ultimate hard-headed politician, depicted as a patron of astrology and the translation of philosophical literature. We know of Ma’mūn’s interest in ancient literature and old books from other sources but he, like Mansūr, is also credited here with the encouragement of the religious sciences like the study of the Qur’ān and the Traditions of the Prophet. Mahdī’s active protection of the faith against heresy and Mutawakkil’s return to strict orthodoxy after the more speculative intellectual atmosphere of the court of his predecessors both demonstrate the important influence individual caliphs could exert as leaders of the Muslim community.

  THE KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY UNDER THE ABBASIDS

  The period of the greatness of the Abbasid caliphate, from 750 to 945, saw an extraordinary explosion of cultural activity. It was a time of intellectual openness and diversity which has few parallels in human history. What caused this tremendous cultural efflorescence?

  Let us begin by looking at the infrastructure of knowledge. It has already been pointed out that the administrative systems developed by Umar I after the great Arab conquests, and subsequently elaborated by both Umayyad and Abbasid government led to the emergence of very large towns, first in Iraq in Kufa and Basra, later in Egypt at Fustat, in Tunisia at Qayrawan and in Khurasan at Merv. To these centres were added, from the middle of the eighth century, the two greatest Muslim cities of the early Middle Ages, Baghdad and Córdoba. In all these cities, there were bureaucrats and soldiers who were paid salaries on a regular basis. These salaries meant that they could spend money on the necessities of everyday life, food and clothing and so on, but many of them also had money to spend on discretionary purchases, which might include fine textiles, ceramics and exotic foods but also books and intangible but very important cultural productions like poetry, song and the Traditions of the Prophet. All these items bore cultural capital and social prestige.

  The administrative arrangements led to the development of an infrastructure of skilled people who could manage it. It is well known that the Umayyad caliph Abd al-Malik made Arabic the language of administration throughout the caliphate. The effect of this was to produce a class of secular bureaucrats who could read and write. It also generated a demand for education in mathematics, not only accounting skills to deal with tax receipts but also the geometrical skills required for assessing areas of land for taxation purposes. If these skills had not been essential for the needs of government, it is unlikely that either Arabic literacy or mathematical knowledge would have developed in the way they did.

  The rise of the importance of the bureaucracy coincided with the emergence of a wide reading public. Levels of literacy are impossible to assess in the absence of any statistical data, but it appears from accounts of literary activity in, say, Baghdad in the ninth century, that the ability to read and write was regarded as normal and taken for granted, not just among an intellectual elite but in a wide cross-section of society. Of course, this was encouraged by the need to read and understand the text of the Qur’ān for the proper practice of the Muslim faith. All the Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs were literate, although the warrior caliph Mutasim is said to have had difficulty with his letters, whereas it is worth remembering that the first English king who is known to have been able to read and write, with the exception perhaps of Alfred, was Edward I in the late thirteenth century.

  A substantial reading population was of course essential to the growth of what literary historian Shawkat Toorawa has called a ‘writerly culture’ in ninth-century Baghdad,3 but other developments were important for the infrastructure of culture as
well. One of these was the introduction of paper. Paper had been invented and used in China for many centuries, but the arrival of this technology in the Islamic Middle East can be dated fairly precisely. There was a story current in the eleventh century that the art of paper-making was brought by Chinese prisoners of war captured by the Abbasid armies at the Battle of Talas (now in Kazakhstan) in 751, the only occasion on which Muslim and Chinese imperial armies came into direct conflict. Of course, historians have treated such simple explanatory narratives with some scepticism, but this may be unjustified. We know that Chinese prisoners of war were active in Iraq in the decades after the battle because one of them wrote an account of Iraq, in Chinese, after his return to his homeland. He does not mention paper, but the story provides a plausible context for this important transfer of technological know-how.

  Just as important is the fact that there was a ready demand for new and more efficient writing materials in the society of the early Abbasid period: without this demand the introduction of paper would have been no more than a diverting curiosity. This paper, like almost all paper before the nineteenth century, was rag-paper, that is to say it was made of old textiles: wood-pulp paper was effectively unknown at this time. This was fortunate: there was probably not much timber to harvest in Abbasid Iraq in lands that had been intensively cultivated for millennia, but there were plenty of old clothes.

  Jonathan Bloom, the historian of Islamic art, has shown how important the advent of paper was in cultural development, for, in a very fundamental way, paper democratized writing. It was both cheaper than parchment (animal skins) and more efficient than papyrus, the most widely used writing surfaces before this time. Paper meant that books could be produced cheaply and economically. Bloom points out that the invention transformed book production in a way which is perhaps comparable with the coming of printing in early modern Europe.4