by Hugh Kennedy
It was outside Egypt that the Fatimids made real attempts to spread their religious views. The Fatimids had arrived with the intention and expectation of conquering the whole Muslim world and bringing it under the government of the Family of the Prophet. In the event, these aims were thwarted by the intractable problems of Syria and later by the coming of the Seljuqs, but the dawa, the Isma’ili missionary organization, remained active in areas like Iraq and Iran and many of the leading Isma’ili writers of the period were drawn from the ranks of these missionaries.
The most famous, or infamous, of the Fatimid caliphs was Hākim. He came to the throne at the age of eleven on the death of his father Azīz in 996. At the age of fifteen he first showed his taste for absolute power by ordering the execution of his tutor and mentor Barjuwān. Having found at this early age that he could, literally, get away with murder, he allowed his autocratic impulses to go unchecked. He terrorized the leading members of the Isma’ili hierarchy, ordering the execution of many, like the family of Qādī Numān, who had served the dynasty well, and groups of the population began to ask him for guarantees for their safety, hoping, sometimes mistakenly, that it would spare them from his unpredictable violence.
The caliphate of Hākim is interesting because he took the idea of the God-guided caliph to its furthest conclusion. He made decrees and new laws entirely on his own initiative, neither taking advice nor supporting them with Traditions and precedents. No other caliph in the Sunni or Shiite traditions created law in this way. He seems, in fact, to have made law on a whim and some of his decrees were very strange indeed. Both contemporaries and modern historians have searched for some element of consistency and purpose in his actions. Paul Walker divides them into four categories: ‘the prohibition of food and drink, the imposition of a strict moral code, the restriction and alteration of religious practice and various modifications in the way he presented himself to his public and what he expected in return’.
In the first category we find the strict prohibition of alcoholic drinks, even for Christians to use in the sacraments. This is in accordance with generally accepted Islamic norms, but he also banned the sale and consumption of certain sorts of green vegetables and fish without scales, measures which have no support in Islamic law, or common sense.
The most important in the second group were laws strictly limiting the public movements of women.
The third category concerned relations with the non-Muslim elements in the population of the caliphate. Here again unpredictability was the most noticeable feature of his policy. He ordered that Christians and Jews should wear distinctive clothing and ride inferior animals. He embarked on a campaign of destroying churches and synagogues, including, most famously, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. By the end of his reign he had rescinded these policies and even allowed those who had converted to Islam under duress to return to their old faiths without being considered apostates.
His public appearances became rarer and in his final years he abandoned much of the pomp and display which had characterized Fatimid rule and took to riding a donkey and wearing shabby clothes. His end was as mysterious as the rest of his life. One day in 1021 he set off into the Muqattam Hills to the east of Cairo on his donkey and was never seen again. Inevitably the mystery of his disappearance gave rise to speculation that he was not really dead but was simply hidden like the Twelfth Imam; there were even those who claimed that he really was the embodiment of God on earth and would never die. (It was from these groups that the Druze faith emerged, first in Cairo and later in Lebanon and southern Syria, where it still flourishes today. But the Druze did not found a caliphate and thus their history lies beyond the scope of this book.)
The bizarre behaviour of Hākim caused something of a crisis in the Isma’ili community in Egypt and a dāī from Iraq who came to Cairo at this time, Kirmānī, had to set about convincing them that the vision was still alive and that the Fatimid caliphs would still be able to unite the Muslim world under their rule. In the mid-eleventh century it seemed for a moment as if this might really happen. Important leaders of Arab tribes in Syria and Iraq had the Fatimid caliph proclaimed in the khutbas in their territory instead of the feeble Abbasid and in 1058–9 an adventurer called Basasīrī even took Baghdad in the name of the Fatimids. But these gains were based not on conquest or real power but on shifting temporary alliances. They soon broke up with the arrival of Seljuq Turkish power, firmly committed to the Sunni cause, from the late 1050s onwards. For the last century of its existence, from around 1070 to 1171, the Fatimid caliphate was competing with the claims of the Seljuqs and their Abbasid protégés. Increasingly the peculiarly Shiite nature of the caliphate declined and the struggle was one of great-power politics rather than fundamental differences about the nature of the caliphate. When the Crusader armies reached the east in 1097, the first Fatimid response was to see them as potential allies against the Seljuqs.
In the end, when Saladin abolished the Fatimid caliphate in 1171 and had the names of the Abbasids proclaimed in the pulpit of Cairo, the Shiite caliphate disappeared. It had been a bold experiment aiming to bring the whole of the Muslim world under the leadership of a caliph from the Family of the Prophet. Ultimately it succumbed because of the contradictions inevitable when a human being tries to take on the role of the infallible representative of God on earth whose every action is divinely inspired. The messy, often brutal, exigencies of government meant that many people became disillusioned with the idea. The Fatimid power became a regional power. Firmly established in Egypt, it became essentially an Egyptian empire representing Egyptian interests and as such it had little to offer the Muslims of Iraq and Iran.
Even in Egypt, though, the Isma’ili Shiite community disappeared with the abolition of the caliphate, though Isma’ili communities survived with the Assassins in northern Syria and northern Iran. But they were not caliphs. With the end of the Fatimids, the dream of a caliphate led by a divinely inspired leader from the Family of the Prophet was effectively dead.
8
THE UMAYYADS OF CÓRDOBA
WHILE THE STRUGGLE for leadership of the Islamic community continued between the Abbasids and Fatimids, a third caliphate was being proclaimed and established in Andalus. This was the far west of the Islamic world: those areas of Spain and Portugal under Muslim rule. Most of the Iberian Peninsula had been conquered by Muslim forces in the years 711–16, which left only a few impoverished, isolated areas of Cantabria and the Pyrenees under Christian rule. Muslim raiding parties then pressed deep into France, up the Rhône valley in the east and in the west through Aquitaine almost as far as the Loire valley. In 732 a raiding party led by the governor of Andalus, Abd al-Rahmān al-Ghāfiqi, was defeated by Charles Martel and a Frankish army. The defeat, though probably not disastrous in military terms, marked the end of Arab-Muslim expansion into France and the beginning of a period of consolidation when there was no more easy booty to finance the Muslim elite and systems of taxation and settled government had to be developed.
Initially Andalus formed part of the Umayyad caliphate, and rule from Damascus was surprisingly effective. Governors were appointed and dismissed with great frequency, only enjoying a few years’ tenure at most, but the province was far from peaceful. The conquerors were a mixture of Berbers and of men of Arab descent and language whose families had originally come from Arabia, mostly from the settled areas of Yemen in the south, but who had stayed in Egypt for a couple of generations before joining expeditions to the Maghreb. They were Arabic-speaking but not, by and large, nomad Bedouin, and were used to urban and agricultural environments. The Berbers, however, outnumbered the Arabs. The indigenous people of north-west Africa, Berbers spoke their own language and, in contrast to the Arabs, were largely rural pastoral people living outside the few small towns of the Maghreb. In Andalus they tended to gravitate to the upland, rural areas of the peninsula.
The Arabs had settled as well, but they were divided by fierce tribal loyalties. As in moder
n Yemen, living in small towns and villages did not mean that tribal links lost their importance, far from it. Tribal rivalries dominated the politics of Andalus, all the more so when the revenue from booty dried up. In 741 the demographics of the Muslim population there were changed fundamentally. In 740 the Berber tribes of North Africa had rebelled against the Umayyad-appointed governors in Qayrawan. The grievances were against the imposition of kharāj by the authorities and the taking of slaves, especially girls, for the households of the caliphs and their supporters in the Middle East. Both the great Abbasid caliph al Mansūr and Abd al-Rahmān b. Muāwiya, the first of the Umayyad rulers of Andalus, had Berber mothers.
To combat the rebellion, a large army was recruited in Syria and sent to the west. Many of the troops came from the Arab tribes there, the backbone of the Umayyad army, but a considerable number seem to have been mawālī of the Umayyad family, that is to say that they were not Arabs by descent but people who had converted to Islam and taken service with the Umayyads as soldiers or civil servants. They owed their loyalties not to their tribes, or even to the wider umma, but to their patrons, the Umayyad family. The campaign was not a success and many of the Syrian troops were cut off by the rebels in Ceuta, just across the Straits of Gibraltar. In Spain too there was unrest among the Berbers and the governor reluctantly allowed the Syrians in Ceuta to cross the Straits and help suppress the rebellion. Their task completed, many of the Syrians settled in the south of Andalus in different junds, military divisions named after the areas of Syria they had come from. Needless to say, there was conflict between the various elements of the Syrian army and between them and the long-established Arabs of the first conquest.
THE UMAYYAD EMIRATE OF CÓRDOBA
Such was the position when the Umayyad caliphate in Syria was overwhelmed by the advances of the Abbasid forces from the east between 747 and 750. The Abbasids set about exterminating the Umayyad family with single-minded ruthlessness and many of them were massacred on the spot or hunted down and killed. Among the few who escaped was Abd al-Rahmān b. Muāwiya, a grandson of the last great Umayyad caliph, Hishām. After some desperate adventures, including swimming across the Euphrates to get away from his pursuers, Abd al-Rahmān made his way to North Africa, presumably to take refuge with his mother’s kin. Here he could feel safe from the Abbasids.
The Abbasids made no serious attempt to conquer Andalus. It was too remote and they had other more pressing concerns. But that did not mean the province was peaceful and fierce infighting continued. Meanwhile, Abd al-Rahmān’s attempt to establish his power in North Africa had been thwarted by tribal rivalries and he sent his mawlā and right-hand man Badr to Andalus to make contact with the Umayyad mawālī there. After some negotiation, Abd al-Rahmān crossed the Mediterranean to the little port of Almunecar in 755 and, supported by the mawālī of his family, said to have been 2,000 in number, and elements of the Syrian Arab population, who retained their loyalty to the Umayyads, he entered Córdoba in May 757 and was proclaimed emir. Umayyad rule was to continue for over two and half centuries, until the abolition of the caliphate in 1031.
The long struggles by which the Umayyad emirs established and maintained their control over the unruly Muslims of Andalus are beyond the scope of this book, but some points must be noted. Until 929 the Umayyads ruled as emirs and did not claim the title of caliph. Everyone knew that they were descended from the tribe of Quraysh and were therefore eligible for the title. Everyone knew too that they were descended from the great Umayyad caliphs of Damascus; they called themselves ‘sons of the caliphs’, and this attracted the loyalty of many Syrians, whose ancestral homeland had been subdued and impoverished by Abbasid governments.
The Umayyads were probably restrained from taking the title of caliph partly because it would have been an open challenge to the Abbasids, who at least until the end of the eighth century maintained powerful forces in Ifriqiya. In fact, the Abbasids never mounted an expedition against Andalus, their hostile actions never amounted to more than abusive letters, and by the ninth century they had ceased to be a real threat. The Umayyads of Andalus may also have been dissuaded by the generally accepted idea that there could be only one caliph in the Muslim world and, clearly, they were in no position to march on Baghdad and overthrow the Abbasids. So they kept to the modest title of emir, but this in itself posed problems. At least in theory an emir was a commander or governor appointed by the caliph. To be legitimate he would require a deed of appointment and a banner of office sent from the capital. As we have already seen, long after the political and military power of the Abbasids had waned, these formalities remained very important. Obviously the Abbasids were not going to recognize an Umayyad ruler, even over their remote part of the caliphate. So the title remained in a sort of constitutional vacuum.
Such considerations did not deter the Umayyads of Andalus from developing a strong and effective state, probably richer and certainly more long-lasting than any of the emirates which had formed following the break-up of the Abbasid caliphate in the east. This was not due just to their standing army but to their increasingly elaborate administration and their minting of coins. The peninsula was ruled by local governors, usually but not always chosen and dismissed by the emir in Córdoba. Umayyad power was also reflected in the architecture. The Great Mosque of Córdoba, begun by Abd al-Rahmān and expanded by his namesake Abd al-Rahmān II in the ninth century, was of a scale and richness which rivalled anything in contemporary Baghdad or Samarra. Its design and masonry were a clear testament to the Syrian heritage of the Umayyads. Beside the mosque there was a lavish Amiral palace, of which almost no traces remain, and an extramural retreat at Rusafa (named after the Umayyad caliph Hishām’s Syrian palace).
Despite the ideological differences and bitter hatred between the Abbasids and the Umayyads, the court at Córdoba in the ninth century looked to and emulated the court at Baghdad when it came to royal style. By the mid-ninth century the emir lived a secluded lifestyle in his luxurious palace, surrounded by a household of slave girls and eunuchs. The connections with Baghdad were intensified by the catastrophe which overwhelmed the eastern capital in the civil war between Amīn and Ma’mūn from 811 to 814 and the ensuing anarchy. A number of intellectuals and poets abandoned the city and sought opportunities in Andalus. Among these was Alī b. Nāfi, known as Ziryāb. He was from Iraq and had been a pupil of Ishāq al-Mawsili, one of the most prominent poets and cultural leaders of the Abbasid court. After a spell in North Africa, he arrived in Andalus in 822 and rapidly established himself as an arbiter of style and taste in such matters as dress and the way in which meals should be served. Abd al-Rahmān II maintained a lively interest in both the arts and sciences and was the patron of poets and scholars, among them the eccentric scientist Abbās b. Firnās, who made himself wings and attempted to fly.
The Umayyads were the proud rulers of one of the most powerful states in the Muslim world. Their capital had a population which may have rivalled Fustat, and they presided over a court as lavish as that of Baghdad, but, until the reign of Abd al-Rahmān III, they never aspired to the caliphal title.
Abd al-Rahmān III, who succeeded as emir in 912, came to the throne after a long period when the power of the ruler in Andalus was challenged by local Muslim lords and when it seemed as if the rule of the Umayyads was about to come to an end. Slowly and methodically the new young emir set about establishing his authority over his unruly subjects in a series of annual military campaigns. By 929 he had regained control over almost all Andalus.
THE CALIPHATES OF ABD AL-RAHMāN III AND HAKAM II: THE GLORY DAYS OF CÓRDOBA
It was at this point that Abd al-Rahmān III proclaimed himself caliph and Commander of the Faithful in the Friday sermon given by the chief judge Ahmad b. Bāqī in the Great Mosque of Córdoba. Letters were sent to all the provinces telling them of his new status. He asked no one’s permission to claim the title, he was not designated by anyone and there was no question of election. He was very much a self
-made monarch. What prompted this new departure and what difference did it make?
To understand this change we have to see it in the context of politics and developments in the wider Muslim world. Perhaps most obviously there was the enfeeblement of the Abbasid caliphate under the rule of Muqtadir (908–32), which made the Abbasids’ claims that they were the only caliphs and leaders of the umma seem increasingly unrealistic, even absurd. Despite the huge distance between Córdoba and Baghdad, people in Andalus were very well informed about what was going on in the east (though no eastern writer seems to have attached any importance to events in distant Andalus). Indeed, one of our main sources for the complex history of the reign of Muqtadir was written by an Andalusi, Arib b. Sad al-Qurtubi (the Córdoban). As far as we know, he never visited the Middle East, but he was astonishingly well informed about events there. He took it upon himself to write a continuation of the great Arabic chronicle of Tabarī, which took the history of the Abbasids down to 910 and which must have been available in the libraries of Córdoba. He records events in Baghdad and the debacle of the caliphate with almost diary-like precision. The troubles of the Abbasids were public knowledge and provided an opportunity for Abd al-Rahmān to assert his claims to the title of caliph.
