by Hugh Kennedy
The Christians returned to their lodging, and when after a time, John was again called to see the Caliph, he conversed with him on a number of subjects of mutual interest: the power and wisdom of ‘our Emperor’, the strength and numbers of his army, his glory and wealth, events of war and many things of that kind. The Caliph for his part boasted that his army exceeded that of any other of the rulers of the world in strength. John made little answer to this in order not to annoy the Caliph, but eventually he added, ‘I speak the truth when I say that I know of no monarch in the world who can equal our Emperor in lands or arms or horses.’
Here this fascinating account breaks off and we have no idea what, if any, results were achieved. It may be that the report of this friendly man-to-man conversation between monk and caliph should be treated with some scepticism, but much of the rest of the description rings true, for instance the rugs and tiles in the palace and the way in which the caliph sits cross-legged on a couch (which would be called sarīr in Arabic). It shows a degree of mutual respect between the two most powerful rulers in western Europe, the emperor in Aachen and the caliph in Córdoba.
At the same time, the caliph also began diplomatic relations with the Byzantine Empire. Constantinople and Córdoba were the two biggest and most sophisticated cities in Europe at that point; both states had highly developed and literate administrations, regular systems of taxation and the the use of coined money was widespread. They were in a different world from the peoples of northern and western Europe, with their war-bands, primitive castles and Viking invasions. It was natural that they should be aware of each other and make contact. The vast distance between the two meant that military conflict, even naval conflict, was out of the question so there were no obstacles to alliances based on mutual esteem. As we have seen, the Abbasids had tried to use Byzantine embassies as a way of demonstrating their leadership of the Muslim community and the caliph in Córdoba was now attempting to do the same. In the summer of 949 an embassy from Constantinople was received in Córdoba and in October of the same year an embassy led by Recemundo was in Constantinople. Although both parties came to share a common enemy in the Fatimids, this diplomacy seems to have been more about display and prestige than about making a military alliance.
There was an important cultural aspect to this exchange. Under the reign of the caliph’s son Hakam, Byzantine mosaicists came to work in Córdoba and the brilliant results of their labours can still be seen around the mihrab of the Great Mosque and in the domes in front of it. Of course, the mosaics in Córdoba were very different in their iconography and images from the mosaics being created in Constantinople to decorate the churches of the city. The images of Christ and his apostles and saints were replaced by scrolls of vegetation and golden calligraphy but all showed consummate, and expensive, craftsmanship. Mosaic work was a luxury product and only Byzantine craftsmen could deliver the best. Just as fine and exotic textiles, including Byzantine silks, were signs of royal status in the Muslim world, so were these mosaics very public affirmations of the caliph’s place among the monarchs of the world. The difference is that, except for a few rare fragments, the textiles survive only in descriptions in literary sources whereas we can still see the mosaics today, very much as the subjects of the caliphs did in the tenth century, and we can draw the same conclusions about their position in the world.
The cultural exchanges were not confined to public displays. In 951, presumably at the request of the caliphal court, a Greek monk called Nicholas was sent there to work on and interpret a manuscript of Dioscorides’ ancient book on herbal and medicinal plants, apparently because no one in Andalus had sufficient Greek to do it. Here again the caliph was following the example set by the Abbasid court in the eighth and ninth centuries when the collection and interpretation of ancient Greek scholarship was an important aspect of the performance of caliphate.
Abd al-Rahmān al-Nāsir was succeeded by his son Hakam, who had long been groomed for the inheritance and had been given the title of Mustansir. He was an able and intelligent ruler (961–76) and followed his father’s example in most of his policies. It was in the fifteen years of his stable administration that the civilization of Córdoba reached its zenith. He collected a vast library of books and it was he who created the mihrab and the domes, already mentioned, in the mosque of Córdoba. He also held court at Madinat al-Zahra, the scene of many glittering gatherings.
We know a great deal about these events because they are recorded in meticulous detail by a writer called Īsā al-Rāzī. Īsā came from a family of Persian origin (his name shows that they were originally from Rayy, in northern Iran). Like many other inhabitants of the eastern Islamic world, his family was attracted to the rich and cultured court of Andalus where their expertise in Arabic literature and history would be valued and well rewarded. Īsā’s record is more a court diary than a universal chronicle: he describes who the main courtiers were, who came to the palace, where they stood in the formal majlis. Hakam continued his father’s policies and ruled over a glittering and cultured court; the lords of the frontiers of Andalus and the Berber tribal leaders of Morocco came to pledge allegiance and were rewarded with gifts and a public acknowledgement of their status.
Hakam’s reign saw important changes in the politics of North Africa. In 969, after the Fatimid conquest of Egypt, we saw that the caliph and his court established themselves in their newly founded capital of Cairo—Madinat al-Zahra on the Nile, so to speak. From now on the Fatimids were inextricably linked to Egypt. No Fatimid ruler visited the original power base of the dynasty in Ifriqiya ever again. They entrusted the province to a Berber family known to history as the Zirids, but while they recognized the Fatimids as their overlords, as mere emirs they were not in any sense a threat to the Umayyad caliphs. Morocco was never an easy country to control, however, and Hakam and his government spent a lot of money and resources to very little effect trying to do so.
The Umayyad caliphs main rivals were the various branches of the Idrisids. The Idrisids were Alids, direct descendants of Alī and Fātima and hence of the Prophet himself. They traced their origin to Idrīs b. Abd Allah who had fled from Arabia in 785 when a Shiite rebellion, of which he had been one of the leaders, was crushed by the Abbasids. Idrīs went to the Maghreb to seek both refuge and support. While the family never managed to establish a stable state in this pastoral and tribal environment, some of its members attempted to exploit their status to attract followers. They did not claim the title of caliph—their poverty and marginal position in the Islamic world would have made that untenable—but their Alid antecedents were not contested. Unlike other Berber chiefs, they could use this status to appeal to followers beyond their own tribal networks. In the end, the Idrisid challenge could not undermine Umayyad rule in Andalus, but it did pose both an ideological and political threat which prevented the caliphs from establishing real control in the Maghreb.
THE AMIRIDS AND THE END OF THE CALIPHATE OF CÓRDOBA
Although the Umayyads of Córdoba were in many ways rivals of the Abbasids of Baghdad, as we have seen, they did emulate their politics and political structures, and this wasn’t always beneficial to the long-term political health of their caliphate. Hakam seems to have been devoted to his young son Hishām, who was invested as heir apparent when only seven years old. He was just fourteen when his father died in 976. His accession to the caliphate was by no means a done deal. Many in Córdoba were very reluctant to accept this inexperienced youth as ruler and a group among the Siqlabi (Slav) officials who formed the elite of the Córdoban army3 attempted to secure the appointment of the dead caliph’s brother Mughīra, son of the first caliph, Nāsir. However, they were soon outmanoeuvred by an ambitious courtier called Mu hammad b. Abī Āmir and the unfortunate Mughīra, though he seems to have been innocent of any political ambition, was strangled in his own house in front of his family. The events were uncannily reminiscent of the circumstances surrounding the accession of Muqtadir as Abbasid caliph in Baghdad seventy
years before in 908. In both cases ambitious politicians, the vizier Ibn al-Furāt in the case of Muqtadir, Ibn Abī Āmir in the case of Hishām, sought the appointment of a young and inexperienced caliph whom they could control. In both cases too a rival, both adult and respected, Ibn al-Mutazz in Baghdad, Mughīra in Córdoba, was put forward by another group, but the supporters of the youthful candidates were quicker and more ruthless and both Ibn al Mutazz and Mughīra lost their lives.
In a sense, both accessions represented the triumph of the hereditary principle over any idea of election or shūra. In Baghdad and Córdoba, powerful women played an important role. In the Abbasid court it was the queen mother who dominated her son right up to his death. In Córdoba it was the Basque princess Subh, mother of the young Hishām, who worked with Ibn Abī Āmir closely, too closely for propriety, some rumours said, to secure her son’s succession, though once this had occurred she seems to have found herself increasingly sidelined. Finally, in both cases, the accession of the young boy had a catastrophic effect on the power and prestige of the caliphate, an effect from which the institution never recovered. Ironically, as we have seen, people in Córdoba must have been fully aware of what had happened in Baghdad and the disastrous consequences that had ensued, but they were powerless to prevent it happening to them.
The reasons for this debacle lay in the changing political system. The caliph had absolute power, at least in theory, and winning the caliph’s favour or, even better, controlling the person of the caliph was the most effective route to power. The increasing isolation of the caliph within the walls of massive palaces was an important part of this. It meant that those courtiers with immediate access could prevent the caliph exercising his own judgement and prevent anyone with whom they disagreed having access to him.
In Córdoba, it was announced that the new caliph Hishām wanted to devote himself to prayer and pious exercises. So that he would have the solitude to permit him to do this, he was installed, not in the great expansive palace of Madinat al-Zahra, but behind the high walls of the old Alcázar in the centre of town by the Great Mosque. Nobody came and nobody went and even when he did visit the mosque, just across the narrow road, the caliph was so secluded that none of his subjects could glimpse him, still less communicate with him.
Meanwhile Ibn Abī Āmir set about making himself caliph in all but name. He recruited new elements into the army, notably Berber tribesmen from North Africa who were brought in not as individuals, like the Slavs from eastern Europe who formed the other main contingent in the army, but in tribal groups operating under their own leaders. His aim was to create an army of many different factions, none of which would be powerful enough to challenge him on their own. He also completed the demilitarization of most of the indigenous Muslim population of Andalus. The military might of the caliphate was now almost entirely composed of foreigners, Slavs, brought in from eastern Europe, and Berbers, brought in from Morocco, just as in the Abbasid east it was largely composed of Turks brought in from Central Asia. It was a system which boosted the power of the rulers in the short term but had very deleterious consequences in the long run. This was especially true in Andalus where, in the thirteenth century, Slavs and Berbers were no longer available and the local people had neither the resources nor the skills to defend their towns and villages against the advancing Christians.
To begin with, however, the new army was powerful and effective. Ibn Abī Āmir claimed he belonged to a family descended from the first generation of Muslim conquerors, but he could not claim Qurashi antecedents. As he himself realized, this meant that he could never aspire to the caliphate, but he did arrogate to himself a caliphal honorific title: Mansūr, the Victorious. Not only did this have caliphal pretensions, but it was also the title of one of the greatest of the Abbasids: the symbolism could not have been more explicit. He also made a point of demonstrating his traditional piety. Hakam al-Mustansir had been a great book collector and it is clear that at least some of the tomes in his library were not acceptable to the rigorists among the religious classes and their followers among the ordinary people of Córdoba. What these books were we cannot know, but we can imagine that at least some of them were translations of Greek philosophy and science, deeply suspect material. Ibn Abī Āmir made a point of clearing out the library and destroying any work which might seem to threaten a strictly orthodox view. Nor were there any more embassies or craftsmen coming from western Europe or Constantinople. The Dār al-Harb (the lands beyond the Dār al-Islam) was a field for jihād and unrelenting hostility not cultural interchanges. Ibn Abī Āmir claimed to model himself on the Buyid sovereigns of Iraq who had ‘protected’ the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad just as he ‘protected’ the Umayyad Hishām.
To justify his own position and his new title, and assert the legitimacy of his new army, he began a series of campaigns against the Christians of the north. He launched raids almost every year and no one could doubt his commitment to the jihād. The campaigns were largely successful on their own terms, as many prisoners and a certain amount of booty were taken. Mansūr also made sure that his subjects were aware of his achievements and letters describing his victories were read out in the mosque in Córdoba at Friday prayers. His greatest public relations coup was when he sacked the shrine at Santiago de Compostela, then just emerging as a major pilgrimage centre, and had the bells of the cathedral carried back to Córdoba on the backs of Christian prisoners. But in a larger strategic sense, the campaigns were less effective. Little or no new territory was occupied and the Christian kingdoms of León and Navarre, and the emerging county of Castile, were still strong, as events after his death showed.
When Mansūr died, he was succeeded by his son and designated heir also who was given a quasi-caliphal title, in this case Muzaffar, yet another word meaning ‘Victorious’. For the six years of his reign (1002– 8), Muzaffar continued in his father’s tradition, leading frequent campaigns against the Christians and keeping the nominal caliph carefully hidden. When he died, power passed to his brother Abd al-Rahmān, known as Sanchuelo, or Little Sancho, after his Christian Basque grandfather, the king of Navarre. He abandoned the delicate balancing act which had kept his father and brother in power. One of his first acts was to oblige the captive caliph Hishām to appoint him as heir apparent, meaning that there would soon be a non-Umayyad, non-Qurashi caliph.
It was not a wise move. It aroused the deep hostility of the religious classes and the people of Córdoba who supported Umayyad claims and, of course, the numerous members of the Umayyad family themselves, who feared that they were going to be deprived of wealth and status. The reaction was swift. The new ruler decided to establish his position in the traditional way, by leading his army against the Christians. He chose to disregard his advisers and launched an expedition in the winter. No sooner had he passed into enemy territory than conspirators struck in Córdoba. The leader of the rebels was one Muhammad b. Hishām, an Umayyad and a great-grandson of the first caliph, Nāsir. He had a clear plan to restore the Umayyad caliphate as a reality. The useless Hishām was obliged to abdicate in his favour, and he took the title of Mahdī, following the third Abbasid caliph, a title which stressed that he was God-guided rather than militarily victorious. He recruited other members of his family and appealed to the loyalty of the people of Córdoba to join a militia to protect the new regime. At first all went well—the capital was secure and the new caliphate proclaimed— but the regime immediately faced the hostility of established military groups, notably the Berbers. The events which followed were complicated and very destructive. The Berbers themselves adopted another member of the Umayyad family as ‘their’ caliph. Córdoba endured a three-year siege by the Berber troops and when it was forced to surrender the city suffered a terrible sack.
The end days of the caliphate dragged on as a number of different members of the Umayyad family and others attempted to establish their power, but the divisions were too deep and different military leaders concentrated on securing their positi
ons in their own areas rather than rebuilding the central government. To make matters worse, Christians began to intervene on a large scale in the affairs of Andalus, demanding payments and territory in exchange for their support. It was the shape of things to come.
In 1031 a group of Córdoban notables came together and abolished the caliphate, preferring one of their own, unrelated to the ruling family, as local governor. The abolition of the caliphate was an unusual move in a society which valued traditions and titles, particularly a title with such a history and resonance. What is even more surprising is that no one seriously attempted to revive it. The Umayyad family just disappeared from the political scene. One important reason was the destruction of Córdoba and its Campiña, the rural area which surrounded it. The fate of the city and that of the Umayyad caliphs were closely bound up. After the siege of 1010–3, many of Córdoba’s people were dead and many others had emigrated, while the luxurious villas and estates which had provided the settings for so much of the social and cultural life of the caliphate were ruined and abandoned. The surviving inhabitants seem simply to have concluded that the caliphate was more trouble than it was worth. And they were probably right.
