Pathfinders

by Jim Al-Khalili

  Al-Ma’mūn dreamed that he saw a man of reddish-white complexion and high forehead, bushy eyebrows, bald head, dark blue eyes and handsome features, sitting on a chair. Al-Ma’mūn said, ‘I saw in my dream that I was standing before him, filled with awe. I asked, “Who are you?” He replied: “I am Aristotle”. I was delighted to be with him and asked, “O philosopher, may I ask you some questions?” He replied, “Ask”. I said: “What is the good?” He replied: “Whatever is good according to intellect.” I asked: “Then what?” He replied: “Whatever is good in the opinion of the masses”. I asked: “Then what?” And he replied: “Then there is no more ‘then’.” ’11

  Whether or not this story is true, there is no doubting that al-Ma’mūn devoted the rest of his life to following the advice granted him by this vision, and sought everywhere to satisfy his craving for knowledge – whatever he deemed ‘good according to intellect’. Although we shall see that the Abbāsids’ thirst for ancient texts from Greece, Persia and India, and for having them translated into Arabic, began before al-Ma’mūn, it was he who turned this into a personal obsession. And it was during his reign that we see the first true geniuses of Arabic science.

  Yet in order to understand this sudden flourishing of scholarship, we must look back in time to see how Islam rose out of the Arabian desert two hundred years earlier. Why did this golden age of science take place during the reign of the Abbāsids of Baghdad, when nothing of any real intellectual consequence had taken place in that part of the world since the decline of the Library of Alexandria hundreds of years before the arrival of Islam?

  2

  The Rise of Islam

  The ink of the scholar is more sacred than the blood of the martyr.

  The Prophet Muhammad

  With the weakening of the Roman Empire at the beginning of the fifth century, Western Europe slipped rapidly into what is now known as the Dark Ages, from which it would not emerge for a thousand years. By the time of the fall of Rome itself, the centre of imperial power in Europe had long since moved eastwards to Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. Its rule covered Anatolia, Greece, southern Italy, Sicily, Syria, Egypt and the North African coast, with an eastern border that ran roughly north–south between modern-day Iraq and Syria. The official language of the Byzantines was Greek, but they did not reach anywhere near the great intellectual heights of scholarship and learning achieved by the Greeks of Athens and Alexandria. And although there were Jewish settlements scattered throughout the empire, as well as many pagans, the official and dominant religion of the Byzantines was Christianity.

  To its east, four centuries of Persian Sasanid rule produced an empire stretching from Iraq and Iran through to Central Asia. The Sasanids had come to power in the year 224 CE, under the leadership of Ardashīr I, when they defeated the Parthians. Their capital, Ctesiphon, lay on the banks of the Tigris river just a few miles south-east of present-day Baghdad. All that remains of this great city is the ruins of the imperial palace. With its famously huge archway, it is still a favourite tourist destination for Iraqis.

  The middle of the sixth century marked the start of nearly a hundred years of long and costly wars between the Sasanians and Byzantines over the lands of Iraq and Syria, with their mutual border in constant flux as they each advanced and retreated in a continuous and bloody dance. By the early seventh century these two once powerful empires were exhausted and had only themselves to blame for their humiliating defeats at the hands of the powerful and highly organized Muslim armies that rode north out of Arabia after the Prophet Muhammad’s death in 632. First, the Byzantines were pushed out of Syria and Asia Minor, then the Sasanians were defeated and crushed.

  Before the arrival of Islam, the only other sovereign power in the region lay in the far south-western corner of the Arabian peninsula, in Yemen, where several small kingdoms had ruled for more than two millennia before Islam, and whose power and wealth had come from their geographical location and exclusive trade access to both southern Asia and eastern Africa.

  The rest of Arabia was inhabited mostly by nomadic Arab tribes. Long before the birth of Muhammad, however, these peoples were already beginning to develop a sense of cultural identity. Despite their wide range of different dialects, a common Arabic language had begun to develop, mainly through the reciting of poetry. The qasīda, or ode, was an important feature of the cultural life of Arabia, often telling of lost love or a tribal victory. These poems, which would be recited at festivals, feasts, in market towns or palace courts, came to be known collectively as diwan al-Arab, or ‘the register of the Arabs’, and became a way of preserving a maturing sense of Arab identity and communal history.1 Most of them were not written down but memorized. However, some were preserved in the ancient Aramaic script. The Arabic script that was to be later used in the Qur’an still had some way to go before it would reach the level of maturity it has today, and its rules and grammatical nuances would take centuries to be established by scholars keen to remove any ambiguities of meaning from the Qur’an.

  But not all Arabs belonged to nomadic tribes. Two great cities in western Arabia had been trading centres for hundreds of years before the arrival of Islam. Their names were Macoraba and Yathrib and they were destined to become the two holiest cities in Islam: Mecca and Medina.2

  The city of Mecca lies in an arid and barren valley surrounded by imposing mountains. Its life force was the well of Zamzam, which provided the city’s water. For a century or so before Islam there had been a massive migration of population from southern to western Arabia (the region known as the Hijaz) and further north to Syria and Palestine. With its prime location along this trade route between Yemen in the south and the Mediterranean in the north, Mecca had grown rich and powerful, not only as a trade centre but as a financial one too.

  More importantly, its role as a holy centre for the many pagan religions of the Arabians dating back to antiquity made it a safe haven for those wishing to escape the widespread violence that regularly broke out among the tribes in the region. Mecca housed many shrines and sanctuaries for the worship of several hundred different gods. A century before the birth of Islam one of the most powerful tribes in Arabia, the Quraysh, began to spread its influence in Mecca, both politically and commercially. And it was from one of the less influential clans within this tribe that a 40-year-old illiterate merchant named Muhammad announced in the year 610 that the angel Gabriel had appeared before him to reveal the word of God while he was meditating alone in a cave in Mount Hirā overlooking the city.

  According to Islamic history, Muhammad was initially distressed at seeing the vision of an angel. When he came down from the mountain he was consoled by his wife Khadija and taken to speak to her Christian cousin, Waraqah ibn Nawfal, who immediately informed Muhammad that he had been chosen as a new prophet, for God had also sent the angel Gabriel down to Moses two thousand years earlier, and it was Gabriel who had told Mary that she would give birth to Jesus. Muhammad declared his mission, and his very first convert was Khadija herself, followed by members of his family and his close companions. Within a few years, during which he continued to receive revelations, Muhammad began preaching publicly, but he was soon met with open hostility from many of the inhabitants of Mecca. Despite this opposition and the slow start, his teachings marked the beginnings of the new religion of Islam that would soon grow rapidly and spread into one of the world’s greatest spiritual, political and cultural forces.

  The Arabic word for God, Allāh, comes etymologically from a contraction of the word al-Ilāh, meaning ‘The God’ and can be traced back to early Semitic writing. The definite article is included here to make the point that in Islam, in common with the other monotheistic religions of Christianity and Judaism, there is but one divine Creator. The message being spread by the Prophet Muhammad did not therefore go down too well with the pagan Arabs of Arabia, who worshipped a multitude of gods. For instance, of the three most powerful goddesses, al-Lāt, Manāt and al-’Uzzā, the first
of these was supposedly the daughter of another god, al-Lāh, the Lord God of Mecca. All these gods had sanctuaries in or near Mecca, including within the Ka’ba itself, which is of course now the most powerful and holy symbol of Islam and the destination of millions of Muslims for the Hajj. Indeed, pre-Islamic pagans would make pious visits to Mecca from all over Arabia, and even walk around the Ka’ba, giving offerings to their gods. Once his mission became clear, Muhammad would order all such shrines and sanctuaries destroyed, but the Ka’ba itself remains to this day, situated within the largest mosque in the world, al-Masjid al-Harām.

  Arabic-speaking Christians and Jews also use the same word Allāh to mean God in their religions. Islam is of course a much younger religion, but at its heart it has much in common with Judaism and Christianity. This is not surprising given that all three originated in the same part of the world, and among the same race of people, who all claim to be the descendants of Abraham. Muhammad himself had of course interacted with many Christians and Jews while accompanying his uncle on regular trade trips to Syria.

  In the early years, as support for Muhammad and his message grew – particularly within his close family, but also among many of the young men of Mecca, as well as traders, craftsmen and slaves – the leaders of the Quraysh turned against him. His call to them to abandon their polytheism and rituals was seen as an intolerable attack on their whole way of life. Circumstances changed when, in 619, Muhammad was devastated by the death of his wife and confidante, Khadija, followed shortly afterwards by the death of his uncle and lifelong guardian, Abū Tālib. Now he no longer had the support of these two powerful figures in his life, the Quraysh leaders stepped up their harassment of Muhammad and even took the decision to have him killed. And so, after twelve years of persecution, he decided to leave Mecca with his followers for the city of Yathrib, 200 miles north, from which he had received an invitation to act as an arbiter in another bitter tribal conflict.

  The journey he took in 622 CE is called the Hijra (‘Migration’) and marks the beginning of the Islamic, or Hijri, calendar. Yathrib gradually became known as Medinat al-Nabi (‘The City of the Prophet’) or just Medina for short. There had been a number of conflicts between the two Arab tribes in Yathrib, Banū Aus and Banū Khazraj. The large Jewish community in the city was also split in its allegiance to one or other of the two sides. Unlike the Meccans, the exposure to monotheistic Judaism, with its prophets and holy book, had made the Arabs of Yathrib far more receptive to Muhammad’s message and teaching and they welcomed him, with relief, as someone people would listen to and who could bring peace and stability to their city.

  Eventually, armed conflict broke out between the two cities of Mecca and Medina. Fighting continued for several years, culminating with the Meccans’ failed siege of Medina and the famous battle of the Ditch (ma’rakat al-Khandaq). A ten-thousand-strong Arab and Jewish army (the latter an exiled tribe from Medina) had advanced on Medina in 627, but instead of the traditional military tactic of marching out to meet them in open combat, the much smaller Muslim army within Medina chose a different solution. One of the Prophet’s closest generals, Salmān the Persian, proposed the digging of a deep trench around the weaker northern side of the city, a feat achieved in just six days. It proved successful and, combined with the strong fortifications around the other sides of Medina, it halted the advance of the Meccan army, who, after a two-week-long ineffective siege, eventually gave up and dispersed.

  The Meccans finally realized that they would not be able to break the resolve of the growing Muslim army or halt the continuing spread of the message of the Prophet. In any case, the years of conflict were having a devastating effect on trade. Finally, the peace treaty of Hudaybiyya between the Quraysh of Mecca and the followers of Muhammad was signed in 628. Two years later Mecca itself surrendered to the army of the Prophet, who entered the city unopposed.

  Throughout this time, Muhammad had continued to receive revelations, which he passed on to his followers. They, in turn, memorized them or wrote them down. After his death, they were collected in a series of 114 chapters, or sūras, in a book known universally as the Qur’an (meaning ‘recitation’). Most scholars agree that the final version of the Qur’an was not agreed upon until the time of the third caliph, Uthmān, who ruled between 644 and 656. The word ‘caliph’ (khalīfa in Arabic) literally means ‘successor’ to the Prophet.

  By the time of the Prophet’s death in 632, Islam, which translates as ‘submission [to the will of God]’, had spread throughout the Arabian peninsula. But all was not well in this embryonic nation, for strong divisions surfaced within the Prophet’s own family over the issue of succession. Uncertainties were quickly dismissed, however, when Abū Bakr, the Prophet’s father-in-law, took on the mantle of the first of four caliphs known as al-Rashidūn (‘The Rightly Guided Ones’). He quickly crushed several revolts that had broken out across Arabia and was successful in stabilizing the rapidly expanding Islamic Empire. In doing this he was fortunate to be served by one of the greatest military commanders the world has ever seen: Khālid ibn al-Walīd, who had already masterminded many of the victories of the new Muslim army. Under his command, one city after another, deep into Byzantine territory to the north of Arabia, fell to the Muslims, with Damascus itself coming under their control in 634. Abū Bakr died after just two years and was succeeded by the second of the Rashidūn caliphs, Umar ibn al-Khattāb (634–44), under whom the empire expanded its frontiers through ever more ambitious military campaigns into Syria, Egypt, Iraq and Persia.

  In 637 Khālid’s army inflicted a famous and devastating defeat on the much larger Byzantine forces in the battle of Yarmūk east of the Sea of Galilee on the frontier between the modern Syria, Israel and Jordan. The Emperor Heraclius had assembled an army comprising Christian Arabs from the Levant along with Armenians, Slavs, Franks and Georgians. But they were no match for Khālid’s tactical genius. Heraclius himself was forced to flee from northern Syria back to his capital Constantinople as the Islamic armies overran the cities of Jerusalem, Aleppo and Antioch. At the same time that the Byzantines were in retreat, the conquering Muslim armies were turning their attention to the east and the Persian Empire. It would take them almost two decades, but they finally brought Sasanian rule to an end in 651, although it would be many generations before the majority of Persians converted to Islam.

  The third caliph, Uthmān (644–56), was a softer touch than Umar. While more compassionate and generous, he was also weak as a leader and easily influenced by a corrupt and power-hungry clan called the Umayyads. This weakness would lead to unrest across the empire culminating in his assassination at the hands of rebels from Egypt. He was succeeded by the fourth and last of the Rashidūn caliphs, Ali ibn abi Tālib (656–61). Ali was the Prophet’s son-in-law and is to this day revered by millions of Muslims worldwide as the first of the imams of Shi’ism. He moved his capital from Medina to the Muslim garrison city of Kūfa in Iraq, which now had a far more important strategic location at the heart of the new empire. But a separate powerbase was already beginning to build up in Jerusalem, where Uthmān’s governor of Syria, Mu’awiya, from the Umayyad clan, was gaining in power and influence.

  A fanatical group called the Khowārij blamed Ali for not dealing once and for all with Mu’awiya. They even accused him of being an enemy of Islam, and assassinated him in 661, bringing to an end the reign of the Rashidūn caliphs. In the ensuing unrest, Mu’awiya won control of the caliphate and shifted the capital of the empire to Damascus. So began the dynastic period of the Umayyads.

  The Umayyads secured control of the Islamic Empire that now stretched over a vast area of land from India in the east to the Atlantic Ocean in the west. With the death of Mu’awiya, the struggle continued between his son Yazid and the Caliph Ali’s son (and the Prophet’s grandson), Hussein. Finally, in a bloody massacre on the banks of the Euphrates near the town of Kerbala in 680, Hussein was beheaded by a soldier of the Umayyad army. The date of his martyrdom, the 10th
of the Muslim lunar month of Muharram, is known as ’Āshūra (from the Arabic word for ‘ten’: ’ashra) and is an important day of mourning for all Shi’a Muslims.

  The Umayyads were nothing if not pragmatic. Through the rapid initial conquests of the Caliph Umar, they had inherited the sophisticated administrative and financial infrastructure of the Persians and Byzantines. Most of this they kept unchanged, apart of course from replacing the Pahlavi (Persian) and Greek languages of these two empires with Arabic, a process that took some time to complete. Taxes and expanding trade strengthened the caliphs, who grew wealthy and powerful.

  The most influential of the Umayyads was Abd al-Malik, who ruled for twenty years between 685 and 705. During his reign he reorganized and strengthened governmental administration and oversaw a further expansion of the empire with the continued Islamization of Asia and North Africa. He was a master politician and a powerful and autocratic ruler. Abandoning the traditional policy of consulting with a council of advisers, he reserved all major decisions for himself. He was also capable of great cruelty against his enemies when necessary, which seems to have been fairly often.

  Abd al-Malik had to deal with internal resistance from a range of different groups opposed to Umayyad rule and it took him many years to quell all rebellions and revolts across northern Syria, Iraq, Persia and Arabia. He carried out campaigns against the Byzantines in Anatolia in 692, and continued with the conquest of North Africa, where he had to defeat both the native Berbers and the Byzantines. A major victory came in 697 when his army captured Carthage, one of the most important cities along the North African coast.

  In contrast to this warmongering, Abd al-Malik was also more pious than any of his Umayyad predecessors and is probably best known today for the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, the oldest extant Islamic monument, which he built during the first years of his reign. The rock on which this holy shrine sits is still sacred to both Muslims and Jews today.