Mansur died on the hajj. His successor, Caliph al-Mahdi (775-85), was also away from the caliphal palace and heard the news from his wife that his father had left a key with her to a storeroom below the palace that was only to be opened in the event of his death. He hastened back in happy anticipation of treasure but on entering the great underground chamber was appalled to find lines of Alid corpses of all ages, mummified in the dry air of Mesopotamia, with a label in each ear bearing name and genealogy. He buried them in haste and secrecy, but the episode cast a shadow on his own hopes of reconciliation with the Shiites.
The Rise of Prophetic Shiism and Abbasid Decadence
Husayn’s son Ali Zaynu l’Abidin (died c.713) lived in seclusion at Medina and was known as the Prostrator because of his devotion to prayers and his calloused forehead. He had few followers but quietly and steadily mourned his father’s death and was harassed but not killed. It was his son Muhammad al-Baqr (died c.733), the ‘splitter open’ of knowledge, who took the major step, transforming the Shiite movement by disseminating the doctrine of taqiyya, or quietism, absolving all his followers from the need to declare their Shiite beliefs in a hostile Muslim world. The doctrine preserved, however, the vital line of prophetic teachers, the hidden imams, on whom the spiritual welfare of all believers in the end depended because of their gift of understanding the concealed meanings of the Quran, given to them by God. He was backed by his son and together they changed the attitudes of many Shiites. They gave a special new Shiite meaning to the term ‘imam’, which for the majority of Muslims had meant a prayer leader. These Shiites now became the possessors of esoteric knowledge. The number of hidden imams came to be settled – al-Baqr described himself as the fifth imam in the line of hereditary descent from the first Ali himself, who had been followed as number two by Hasan, who was poisoned, then as number three the martyr of Karbala, Husayn, and as number four al-Baqr’s father, the Prostrator. Al-Baqr’s son Jafar al-Sadiq took his father’s teaching farther and developed the doctrine of nass, or designation, whereby one Shiite imam decides on the rightful succession.
Shiism had a natural appeal to the poor and the outsiders of whom there were many in Baghdad, another boom town in which the extremes of poverty and wealth existed side by side. The consequence was that over time, as Mansur the Victorious made Baghdad his capital and the seat of the authority of the Abbasids with its soldiers and guards, it came to contain within its walls and in the poor districts outside them an unknown number of quietist Shiites opposed to the caliphate. The movement split when al-Baqr’s younger brother Zayd rejected quietism and taught that the only imams who should be followed were those who were ready to fight for their beliefs. His own rebellion was crushed in 740, but miscellaneous groups of fighting Zaydites continued to exist.
The caliphate of Harun al-Rashid (786–809) marked a high point in Abbasid history, yet still had disquieting features. Harun, who corresponded with Charlemagne,† maintained a full treasury. He was an assiduous observer of the hajj and kept the tradition of the jihad by doing something that had become unusual: personally leading a campaign against the old enemy, Byzantium. In Baghdad he presided over a brilliant court which gave a place to historians, Islamic scholars and administrators of high calibre and poets who were showered with golden dirhams. Fed by the fertile territories of Jazira and Sawad, the capital grew to a great size but attracted a multitude of the landless and impoverished Shiites, camping out in mosques and baths and living in shanty towns outside the gracious circle of Mansur’s Round City. An arbitrary autocracy was revealed when Harun turned savagely on the Barmakid dynasty, faithful adherents who had brought him to power, and he failed to solve the perennial problem of Khurasan. He died there, and his death was followed by a damaging civil war between two of his sons in competition for the succession to the caliphate, leading to the execution of one of them, al-Amin, after a military failure. It was an event which although not instigated by the victorious brother al-Mamun (813–33), nevertheless tarnished the repute of the Abbasids and did not put an end to internecine strife: the war marked a stage in the downhill spiral of the caliphate. Disturbances created by the succession dispute had a life of their own. Revenues and caliphal control were lost.
After a failed attempt to bring in a pliable Alid candidate for the caliphate, al-Mamun turned to a doctrinal issue in the hope of defusing Shiism and gave his backing to Mutazilism. Mutazila means ‘withdrawal’ and denotes scholars and their supporters who chose to withdraw from the long-lasting clash between Shiites supporting the martyr Ali’s claim to a prophetic power derived from Muhammad himself and the rival school of thought which believed that a working authority in Islam lay with caliphs, commanders of the faithful with practical and military tasks, ruling on the basis of the Quran and hadith. Mutazilites proposed a middle way, designed to take some of the force away from Shiites and their claim of a prophetic power by giving doctrinal authority to the caliphate. The Quran, they argued, had been created in time and consequently, in the course of time, could be modified by an appropriate authority dealing with problems that could not have been envisaged by the Prophet – and what better authority could there be than the caliph himself? The teaching of the Mutazilites had been in the field for some time, based as it was on the reading of Greek philosophy and a taste for rationalist analysis, but hitherto it had had no official backing. In 827 al-Mamun declared belief in the doctrine of the creation of the Quran to be an article of faith, made it a touchstone of loyalty which should be accepted by all who held office under the caliph and instituted the mihna to inquire into the beliefs of his subjects. Torture and imprisonment could be inflicted on those who denied the doctrine.
Al-Mamun’s action failed, partly because of a widespread hostility to the caliph’s advisers, partly because of the brave stand made by Traditionists against Mutazilism. Ahmed ibn Hanbal (780–855), who became an icon of the Traditionists, was a scholar with all the qualifications for attracting the respect of Muslims because of his austere and simple life, lack of possessions or political connections. He denounced human reason as frail and subject to the depredations of Satan, insisting that only the words and actions of the Prophet in the Quran and hadith could be the true guide for Islam. Imprisoned and tortured, he would not yield and remained forgiving to the caliph under whom he had suffered. He prevailed and, though successive caliphs attempted to follow al-Mamun’s line, under al-Mutawakkil (847–62) Mutazilism was given up, the Quran was declared to be eternal and reconciliation with Shiites emphatically abandoned. Ali was cursed from the minbar, Shiite shrines were destroyed including Husayn’s shrine at Karbala which was demolished and ploughed over.
Meanwhile, the Mutazilism controversy had had an effect on Abbasid attitudes towards Baghdad, the capital they had created. Al-Mamun’s successor, his half-brother al-Mutasim (833–42), was a fighting general who made an impression by capturing Amorium from the Byzantines. Aware that the Khurasanis had ceased to provide a faithful caliphal army, he hit on the expedient of recruiting Turkish soldiers to make an army totally dependent on him and followed up this Turkish expedient by moving the capital from Baghdad. Tensions there had been ratcheted up by the battle between Mutazilites and supporters of Hanbal and the practical-minded al-Mutasim thought he would be better off by giving up Baghdad altogether and getting a new home for himself and his Turks.
It all turned out badly. For his palace and his barracks he chose Samarra, on the banks of the Tigris, 80 miles north of Baghdad. The site was cheap, an immense array of buildings could be erected and the Turks kept under the eye of the caliph and yet it soon proved to be a bad choice, for the soil was poor and there was no secure nor substantial water supply. Determination made the site work for a time but left a dangerous dependence on a small number of military commanders. The Turks themselves had alien traditions and began to get out of hand after al-Mutasim’s day. Al-Mutawakkil moved the capital yet again to a site north of Samarra. Still the situation grew worse and the Turks mu
rdered a caliph in 861. Anarchy followed and, though there was some revival in the tenth century, the traditional Abbasid structure never recovered: central control was lost, volatile successor states appeared and there was a breakdown of the once great empire. The major blow occurred in the reign of al-Muqtadir (908–32), when the irrigation systems, on which the fertility of Mesopotamia depended, broke down. So much war and internecine dispute meant that no one kept up the sophisticated and intricate control of waterways that produced the rich abundance of the region. Petty military manoeuvres between rival generals in 937 led to the use of flooding as a weapon and caused the breaching of the Nahrawan canal, vital for water diffusion in the Baghdad region. The new centres of Muslim power became Egypt and Iran.
The Growth of Sufism
Sufism, just emerging under the Umayyads as a reaction against their worldliness, was another expression of the perennial wish to go back to the values of the desert; it began in a desire for personal poverty and asceticism, purging the soul of its base desires so as to enter into a deeper personal relation to God. The name Sufi derived from the Arabic suf, referring to the coarse woollen garments worn by the poor but voluntarily assumed by enthusiasts wishing to go beyond the observances of Islam to find their way to God.
The caliphate stood for the sunna, the path, the way of interpretation of the Quran backed by the hadith, the tradition of the sayings and doings of the Prophet. Hadith has a multitude of traditions, with contradictions, and requires the wisdom of scholars to debate and find ways forward. They are, above all, juristic discussions. A body of devout Muslims, satisfied with these ways and with the associated religious practices, formed a majority. The external minority, whose dissatisfaction lay at the starting-point of the Abbasid revolution, were still in existence and found an outlet in a developing Sufism, unhappy with the grievous personal disputes among the Abbasids and the raw militarism of the Turkish mercenaries. They found support in the Quran and in some hadith in such phrases as that in sura 2 verse 115, ‘Wherever you turn, there is the face of God’, and the hadith where God is cited as saying ‘My mercy takes precedence over my wrath’. From the asceticism and zeal for poverty in the Sufism of the early Umayyad age there was a progression towards a more organised practice of meditation and mortification designed to eliminate selfish, lower desires, approaching more closely to God in this life. The stress lay on contemplation and cultivation of the soul. A third stage involved the selection of a master to instruct his pupils, who would often impose major acts of humiliation, such as serving for many days in a kitchen. The love of God was the supreme aim. Collective activities involved repeating the names of God; music and poetry and gatherings created a collective experience and, in due time, special training centres.
Sufism ran easily to hagiography and in the tenth century acquired a martyr in al-Hallaj, executed in 922 largely for political reasons after a long career in Baghdad uttering bizarre, paradoxical statements and gathering pupils. His demise showed an extraordinary willingness to forgive his enemies and endure great suffering in a slow, botched execution. At a popular level, Sufi shrines for dead masters acquired a following among the masses. It was a spontaneous movement, sometimes divided, falling victim to charlatans yet acquiring a momentum through the troubles of the Abbasid caliphate. Numbers were few and its greatest days were yet to come; yet it influenced Islamic society, its leaders and its soldiers, and was a continued witness to the frustrated yearning for the just Islamic society.
A Split in Shiism: The Twelvers and the Seveners
A dispute over the succession to the imamate led to a split in the Shiite movement and a subsequent powerful new challenge to the Sunnis and their caliphate. Jafar al-Sadiq, who had done much to buttress the quietist tradition in Shiism, expected to hand on his office, designating his eldest son, Ismail, as his successor. But Ismail died, and doubt arose as to whether a designation could be withdrawn or transferred to another candidate. A majority believed that it could and so al-Sadiq’s younger son, Musa al-Kazim, became for this Shiite tradition the seventh imam. The line continued from father to son until the demise of the twelfth imam, Muhammad al-Mahdi, who either died or disappeared in about 878. It was at first believed that God had hidden the imam for the time being and that agents on earth were able to receive guidance from him, but when the fourth such agent died in 940, it was concluded that this twelfth imam had passed into the Greater Occultation to come back at God’s will to prepare the world for the End of Time and Judgement. These Shiites became known as the Twelvers.
Remembering and still sorrowing for the sufferings of Ali, Husayn and the visible Shiite imams, the Twelvers accepted that they could do nothing to undo injustices and return Islam to the Reform days of Muhammad. They accepted the injustices of the Sunni caliphate and the abuses all around, which they could not alter, and consolidated their movement, bringing together different classes in southern Iraq and Iran and encouraging their scholars to establish laws and codes of conduct for Shiites. The great conquests had left Sassanian influence in the mountain strongholds of Iran. Their tradition of autocracy infiltrated Shiism, leading ultimately through the Safavid dynasty in the sixteenth century to the present-day acceptance of Shiism as the state religion in Iran.
The dissidents, who would not accept the designation of Musa al-Kazim as valid, believed that Ismail as eldest son had been the imam and had rightly designated his son Muhammad ibn Ismail to be the seventh imam. The followers of this Shiite tradition are in consequence known as the Seveners. They believed that a line of imams, who were the true leaders and teachers of the whole Muslim world, had followed on from Muhammad ibn Ismail and that, although it was inconvenient to name them publicly, their time to be openly revealed would come. An underground movement of the Seveners developed, skilfully directed with a core of trained dais, or missionaries, working incognito and gathering groups and hearers who responded to the appeal of secrecy and to the attraction of being introduced to esoteric doctrines hidden from the conventional teachers and secular rulers of Sunnism. Claimant imams took on assumed names to put hostile Abbasid agents off their track. ‘Lieutenants’ of imams, occupying a Trustee role, appeared, and there seems to have been some use of a notion of ‘spiritual parenthood’ to get over problems in establishing a strict father-to-son descent from Ali and Fatima as was required in Shiite belief. Dais appealed to listeners with their notion that the Quran had hidden meanings which they alone could elucidate. The disorder and confusion created by the decay of the Abbasid caliphate encouraged Muslims, distressed at this, to welcome news of an imamate to deliver them and to give them a better understanding of the Quran’s teaching. The spread of their listeners was remarkable as they travelled as far as India and roused circles of hearers in Yemen, North Africa, Iran, southern Iraq, eastern Arabia and Syria.
The Fatimid Caliphate
A breakthrough occurred when a leading personality, Ubaydallah al-Mahdi (873–934), who had made a reputation in Syria, was forced out and transferred his attention to North Africa, where he established an army. Kutuma Berbers from the Kabyle mountains in Tunisia broke cover and announced that he was the long-hoped-for imam and caliph in person – in effect, a caliph with unique powers. A shaky genealogy, derided by Sunnis, did not undermine him and with his Berber supporters he expelled the Aghlabid governors of Tunisia in 909 and beat opposition from the iron radicals, the Kharijites. He successfully established a caliphate and held sway until his death in 934; the movement became known as the Fatimids, after Muhammad’s daughter Fatima.
All was not plain sailing for the new dynasty. Fatimids came up against another intensely Shiite group which had also broken cover, the Qarmatians, who had rebelled against the Abbasids in the 890s. They had created a mini-state in north-eastern Arabia, had success among desert Bedouin and for a time established a presence in northern Syria; they fought Abbasid armies, survived defeat and challenged the Fatimids in North Africa. There were dramatic episodes. In 930 the Qarmatians attacked
the hajj and killed pilgrims. It is not clear why they did this, as they were not opposed to the great pilgrimage: they may only have wished to extract tribute from Abbasids. Further shock was created when they stole the black stone of the Kaba from Mecca and took it to Bahrain; it was only returned in 951. Their militancy in the end died away. There was much confusion in this epoch, in which Bedouin tribes held sway over cities and leaders struggled for power, often damaging settled agricultural land. But they never accepted the claims of Ubaydallah al-Mahdi and for a time competed for Egypt.
Ubaydallah sought no major changes from those who accepted his rule in North Africa, relying on his mountain Berbers, whom he made into a paid militia, and on slaves recruited over a wide area, thus creating a loyal military force. He was well aware that he held sway over a considerable Sunni population and was content to obtain from them a passive acceptance of Fatimid rule. An elite held to Shiism and there were qadis, judges, to establish codes of conduct; a governing elite had to accept Ismaili principles, but there was no pressure to make converts. Ubaydallah was aware of the importance of the sea and established a port at Mahdia. But advances into Egypt failed in his time.
The decisive step was taken in the reign of a later Fatimid caliph, al-Muizz (953–975), under the leadership of Jawhar al-Siqilla, probably a Greek former slave of notable military talent, who took a massive force of Berber horsemen to Egypt in 969, timing an attack when Egypt was suffering from famine and was ready to welcome a stabilising force. The tolerant regime of Ubaydallah’s time prevailed and there were no massive dispossessions. Qadis of the previous regime were left in place. The system enabled the Fatimid caliphs to make use of Jews and Christians in administration. But the khutba, Friday prayer, was now to be in the name of the Fatimid caliph, and here a vital transformation was made.
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