by Peter Watson
Despite this, the faithful Muslim believes that every letter of the Qur’an was dictated to Muhammad by Jibril, and is therefore the inspired word of God. It contains one hundred and fourteen surahs, or chapters, divided into ninety Meccan and twenty-four Madinese. The Meccan chapters, the early ones, are in general short, fiery, impassioned and prophetic. The main themes are the ethical duties of man and the coming retribution for the unfaithful. (Islam in fact has two judgements: one at death, the other at resurrection.19) In contrast, the Madinese chapters, ‘sent down’ after the initial struggle was over, are much more verbose, and mainly concerned with legal matters. Details about religious ceremonies are sketched in, about what is and is not sacred, and laws are set out regarding theft, murder, retaliation, usury, marriage, divorce, and so on. There are also many references to both the Old and New Testaments. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, Solomon, Jonah–all figure alongside the Fall, the Flood and Sodom. Scholars have noted that the forms of many Old Testament names in the Qur’an show that they are derived from Greek or Syriac sources, rather than Hebrew, and that certain miracles attributed to Jesus, such as speaking in the cradle, are found only in the Apocrypha. This throws a glimmer of light on the books available to Muhammad in the seventh century.20
The fact that the Qur’an is written in Arabic is all-important for pious Muslims, who believe that Arabic is the language of God and is the tongue spoken in Paradise. They believe that Adam originally spoke Arabic but forgot it and was punished by being made to learn other–inferior–languages. In fact, Arabic is a fairly modern form of the Semitic languages, which include Akkadian (Babylonian and Assyrian), Hebrew, Phoenician, Aramaic (the language of Jesus), Syriac and Ethiopic. Chronologically, this group is divided into three. The languages of Mesopotamia date back to the third millennium BC, those from Syria-Palestine to the second millennium BC, whereas the languages of Arabia and Ethiopia date from only the eighth century BC.21 That is the modern scholarly view, but early Muslim authorities had little idea of where their language came from. One idea was that it was produced by imitating the sounds of nature, another that it was the product of a convention among early peoples, who decided it was the best language. In fact, Arabic as we understand it is derived from Aramaic, via the cursive script of the Nabateans who, as we have seen, had their capital at Petra, in what is now Jordan. Even in early Islamic times, the language was still being formed. There was, for example, no system for writing vowels and the diacritical marks that now help distinguish similar letters (a from ?) hadn’t been invented. As an aid to reading, it became the practice to insert dots where vowels should go in red ink, with the rest of the script in black.22
So, far from being the first language, spoken by Adam, Arabic began as a relatively late dialect in the north-western region of the Arabian peninsula, where it happened to be spoken by the Quraysh aristocracy, into which Muhammad was born. Its status as the language of the Qur’an has led to anomalies. Muslims, even modern grammarians, philologists and literary critics, often insist that Arabic is superior to other tongues, and that the Arabic of the Qur’an is of surpassing beauty that cannot be improved. This is why Muslims the world over must read the Qur’an in the original Arabic and why only one translation (into Turkish) has ever been authorised. This has remained the view of modern Islamic scholars, even after the origins of the language were unearthed beginning in the eighteenth century, and the presence of foreign loan words was detected.23
At Muhammad’s death, Islam was confined to the Arabian peninsula. But, as the Prophet insisted, his conception of the new faith was intended to go beyond that. ‘Islam was not a religion of the blood, but of the faith.’ This was a new idea for Arabs but it was enormously successful. Within barely a hundred years, Islam had grown to the point where its borders touched India in the east, the Atlantic ocean in the west, the heart of Africa in the south, and Byzantium in the north. Its attraction lay partly in the certainties it offered, in the fact that, in its early years, it was a tolerant religion, certainly so far as earlier forms of revelation were concerned (Judaism and Christianity), and partly for entirely practical reasons–for example, it taxed people less than the Byzantine empire.
But there was another reason: the caliphate. At the Prophet’s death, a new leader was needed. His close circle of followers chose Abu Bakr, who had been one of his earliest converts. When he was asked how he was to be addressed, he said he would take the title Khalifa, which in Arabic means both a successor and a deputy. This allowed for some ambiguity–did it mean that Abu Bakr was the deputy/successor of Muhammad or of God? Nevertheless, the institution of the caliphate was installed. It would have profound effects.24
To begin with, the institution was not hereditary (strangely, the Qur’an gave no guidance on the succession). The first four caliphs, not related, are labelled by modern Muslims as the Rashidun, ‘the rightly guided ones’, and, despite the fact that all but the first were assassinated, their period in office is usually regarded as a golden age. However, the fourth caliph, Ali, was Muhammad’s son-in-law and cousin and, in offering himself for election as caliph, he was reverting to a pre-Islamic tradition. Given the history of assassinations, many of the faithful believed that a relative of the Prophet might offer leadership closer to the original. Ali’s followers became a party known as Ali, shi’atu, Ali, which in time was collapsed into Shi’a.25 Later, the Shi’a would become extremely influential–but not just yet, for Ali too was assassinated. In the Islamic civil war that ensued, the victor was Mu’awiya, the governor of a province in Syria and a member of the Meccan clan of Umayya. This brought about the next phase in Islamic development, because for nearly a century the succession of the caliphate was in the hands of the Umayyad dynasty. In subsequent orthodox history this period is relegated in importance. Before the Umayyads came the ‘rightly guided ones’ and after them, as we shall see, Islamic leadership was in the hands of the ‘divinely approved’ caliphs.26 This reflects a major division that had opened up in Islam. The Shi’a took the view that the caliphate belonged by divine right to the blood descendants of the Prophet and in 680 this led to revolt when Husayn, the son of Ali and grandson of the Prophet, faced the Umayyads in battle. Husayn’s forces were completely routed and according to tradition there was only one survivor. From here on there emerged two significant differences between Shi’a and so-called Sunni Muslims: the former believed (a) that the caliphate should consist of the blood descendants of Muhammad; and (b) that the Qur’an was literally true.
The Umayyad victory over Husayn was no surprise. They were extremely astute political leaders (extending their empire in India, Africa and the Iberian peninsula). They also developed a wonderful architecture and promoted learning. This was the work mainly of Abd al-Malik (685–705) and his successor, Hisham (724–743), under whose rule Arabic replaced Greek and Persian as the official language of administration, Roman and Byzantine coins were replaced by Arabic ones, and the Dome of the Rock and its adjoining Aqsa mosque, ‘the first great religious building complex in the history of Islam’, were erected in Jerusalem.27 This marked Islam’s emergence as a major civilisation in its own right.
It was also under the Umayyads that the first Arabic centres of learning were created. These were at al-Basrah and al-Kufah. It was here that the first grammars and dictionaries were compiled, as the Arabic language came under systematic study. It was here too that the tradition of hadith grew up. Hadith means ‘tradition’, but it also has a more specific meaning. It was an act or saying attributed either to Muhammad himself or to one of his immediate circle. Regarded as second in importance only to the Qur’an, hadith provided the basis for much Islamic theology and fiqh, non-canon law.28 In the Qur’an Allah speaks, in the hadith Muhammad speaks. In hadith only the meaning is inspired; in the Qur’an both meaning and the word are inspired.29
As mentioned above, it was also under the Umayyads that the earliest examples of Islamic architecture were created–the Dome of the Rock, in Jerusale
m (691) and the Great Mosque of Damascus (706), where the Umayyads had their court. Many people think that the Dome of the Rock is still the most beautiful Islamic building ever conceived, and many Muslims think it demonstrates the superiority of Islam. This is true despite the fact that Islam never spawned any grand ideas of aesthetic theory–buildings were judged by their function as much as, if not more than, their appearance. This is not so surprising given that the Bedouin, as nomads, lived in tents and had no real need of architecture. The first mosque (from masjid, a place to prostrate oneself) at al-Madina, was a simple open courtyard that in time was covered over with palm leaves supported by palm trunks. A cut-down trunk served as the minbar, or pulpit, on which Muhammad would address the faithful. All early sources agree that the Prophet’s own mosque, and those built by his companions, were very humble. Moreover, Muhammad is reported to have been hostile to the decoration of mosques and said that ‘the most unprofitable thing that eats up the wealth of a believer is building’.30
If there were no formal aesthetics in Islam, however, there were some general ideas that became established as tradition. One was the idea of ornament, or embellishment. Islam concedes that God created the world and ornamented it and gave man the ability to produce ‘devices of embellishment’. The Arabic word zayyana means both to embellish and to produce a beautiful thing, ‘as God embellished the heavens with stars’, though another word, malih, derives from the root m-l-h, which also forms the word milh, meaning salt. Thus in Arabic beauty implies ‘delectation’ rather than the Platonic idea of moral good.31 A beautiful woman in Arabic poetry is inevitably adorned with jewellery and perfume. There is more to this idea of ornament than the word means in the West, however. Islam understands that God created the world and that it is perfect. There is, as a result, little scope for man to truly create–all he can do is adorn what God has produced. It follows that adornment, embellishment, ornament are to be understood not as truly creative activities, or improvements on what God has given us, but as ways of venerating and glorifying God. Linked to this is the fact that pre-modern Muslims had no religious emblem to compare with the Christian cross (the crescent is a modern innovation). Only the word of God is sacred, all other forms and patterns are neutral and interchangeable.32 The whole idea of mosque architecture and decoration therefore was to emphasise humility and the interiority of faith. The main decorative device was the arch but the central aspect of the mosque was the mihrab, the prayer niche, which faced Mecca. The area around the niche was usually the most heavily decorated, the two main forms of which were the arabesque and calligraphy.
The arabesque is not rooted necessarily in any prohibition on the representation of the human figure. The Qur’an does not prohibit such representation and paintings and sculptures in early Islamic societies were by no means unknown, even portraiture, even portraits of Umayyad caliphs. Figural depictions, in fact, did not begin to disappear until the fourteenth century. Rather, the idea underlying arabesques arose from geometry. The Arabs took from the Greeks the idea that proportion was the basis of beauty, and they also considered it was the basis of all science, since it encouraged man to think in abstract terms, ‘an activity that led to purity’.33 There is no Arabic word for arabesque and, again, there is no elaborate theory about its use. When all is said and done, line plays the main part in the effect. It is humble, egalitarian (no one design is more important than another), the visual equivalent of the word-plays so treasured in Islamic poetry. Its aim is to dazzle the beholder, leaving his or her mind clear for contemplation of God. No less important, these clean, coherent shapes cannot err.34
Calligraphy draws its force from the central fact that the Qur’an represents ‘direct, divine speech’, that Mohammad thought that handwriting ‘was one of the keys of man’s daily bread’, and therefore it becomes something akin to the icon in Christian art. The Qur’an is to Muslims what Jesus (and not the Bible) is to Christians: it is the way God manifests himself to believers. Just as numerology has always been popular among mystics, some Sufis (see below) regarded the Arabic alphabet as occult. But a better and more typical way of looking at calligraphy is as a ‘rhetoric of the pen’, adornment of the word produced in ways that reflect a geometrical harmony.35
This approach to ornamentation brings us back to the Dome of the Rock. The building of the Dome was not simply the creation of a religious site. At another level it was a complex political act. Jerusalem was in fact not Jerusalem at that time. It is never mentioned directly in the Qur’an and where it is, in early Muslim writings, it is referred to as Aelia, the name chosen by the Romans, which was intended to de-sanctify the city and remove any Jewish or Christian associations. The Dome of the Rock was specifically built to outshine both the church of the Holy Sepulchre and the most sacred spot in Judaism, the place where, according to rabbinic tradition, Abraham had been willing to sacrifice his son, and where the Ark of the Temple had rested. As the historian Bernard Lewis has put it: ‘This, ‘Abd al-Malik seemed to be saying, was the shrine of the final dispensation–the new temple, dedicated to the religion of Abraham, replacing the Temple of Solomon, continuing the revelations vouchsafed to the Jews and Christians and correcting the errors into which they had fallen.’ For example, the Qur’anic inscription on the shrine explicitly denies Christian ideas about the Trinity: ‘God is one, without partner, without companion.’ Elsewhere: ‘Praise be to God, who begets no son…’ As the Dome of the Rock shows, Islam was more than a successor faith to Judaism and Christianity: it superseded them.36
Despite these political, military and cultural successes, there was an inherent instability in early Islam. In its ideals it was a far simpler faith than, say, Christianity. It was egalitarian and there was in theory no clergy, no Church, no rank in which some were more privileged, or closer to God, than others. But this did not sit well with the very existence of a dynasty, who exercised worldly as well as spiritual power. When the opponents of such a regime were also descendants of the Prophet himself, that instability was multiplied. This forms the background for the uprisings against the Umayyads, first in 747, then two years later, in favour of the Abbasids, descendants of the Prophet’s uncle, al-Abbas.37 After the second uprising, Abu’l-‘Abbas, the leader of the Shi’a sect, was voted caliph by his troops and a new dynasty came into force. The Abbasid caliphate was to endure for half a millennium, and Abu’l-‘Abbas’ successor, al-Mansur, marked this sea-change by moving the capital, replacing Damascus with a brand-new city situated on the west bank of the Tigris river in what is now Iraq, near the site of the old Persian capital of Ctesiphon. The official name that al-Mansur gave to his new city was Madinat al-Salam, the City of Peace. But that never caught on and it was always known by the small city that had been there for generations–Baghdad.38
The name Baghdad means ‘Given by God’ but the city was also known as the ‘Round City’ because of its circular form. The new metropolis was built in four years, al-Mansur employing, allegedly, a hundred thousand labourers, craftsmen and architects. He chose the site partly because it was easy to defend, and partly because the Tigris gave access as far afield as China and, going upriver, Armenia. The ruins of the city of Ctesiphon served as the main source of stone.
The great Baghdad caliphs were al-Mansur himself, who was the second Abbasid, al-Mahdi, the third, and Harun al-Rashid, (786–809), and his son al-Ma‘mun. ‘Though less than half a century old, Baghdad had by that time grown from nothingness to a world centre of prodigious wealth and international significance, standing alone as a rival to Byzantium.’39 The royal palace occupied a third of the round city and the luxury contained within it was legendary. The caliph’s cousin-wife ‘would tolerate at her table no vessels not made of gold and silver’, and once, when welcoming foreign dignitaries, the procession is said to have boasted one hundred lions. In the Hall of the Tree the silver birds were built so as to ‘chirp automatically’.40 The harbours of the city were occupied by ships from China, Africa and the Indies.
> From all over the known world, people flocked to Baghdad.41 The city’s position meant that it was within easy reach of India, Syria and, most important of all, Greece, and the Hellenistic world. In particular, it was close to an impressive centre of learning that already existed not far away at Gondeshapur in south-west Persia. Here there flourished a large community of Nestorians, a heretical Christian sect which, as we saw in the previous chapter, had been forced to flee from territory further west in the fifth century. (Nestorians believed that Jesus was both divine and human.) Alongside them, other political and religious refugees arrived in Gondeshapur, including some who had been expelled from the pagan Academy in Athens (the one founded by Plato) when that institution was closed down by Christians in 529. For many years, therefore, Gondeshapur had been home to scholars of every belief and none and, in particular, to physicians. They, above all others, had a vested interest in learning about medicinal herbs, surgical methods and other treatments from across the known world. And so for them the translation of foreign texts became a common procedure. Many of the Nestorian families in Gondeshapur developed into medical dynasties, passing down the (translated) medical manuscripts from father to son. Gondeshapur also had the first hospital, the Bismaristan. Inside the city there was a great variety of languages spoken: Greek, Syriac, Aramaic, Sanskrit, reflecting many traditions, and texts were chiefly translated out of Greek and Sanskrit into Syriac and Aramaic. After Gondeshapur was conquered by the Arabs in AD 638, these scholars quickly learned the tongue of their conquerors and an intensive programme of translation into Arabic from Greek and Indian medical, geometrical and other scientific manuscripts was begun.42
