by Tom Holland
No denying, then, the talent of the Abbasids for clearing decks. Their founding from scratch of a city as incomparable as Baghdad was on a par with their incineration of the exhumed corpses of the Umayyad Caliphs, or their murder in 755 of Abu Muslim, the overmighty subject who had first helped them to the Caliphate: a demonstration that rivals were on no account to be brooked. Yet nowhere as dazzling and sophisticated as the Abbasids’ new capital could possibly have shimmered as hypnotically as it did by merely repudiating the past. “The people of every age and era acquire fresh experiences, and have knowledge renewed for them, in accordance with the decree of the stars.”1 So wrote the court astrologer, in the earliest days of Baghdad’s splendour. What he could see, mirage-like beyond the palaces and spreading suburbs of the freshly minted capital, were the phantoms of other global cities that had also once glittered amid the mudflats: Ctesiphon, and Seleucia, and Babylon. It was certainly no diminution of Baghdad’s own glory to see the new city as the culmination of such a line of descent. The Abbasids, by restoring the capital of the world to Iraq, were consciously laying claim to traditions that would burnish, not diminish, their own prestige. If there was in this more than a hint of how Ardashir, arriving in Mesopotamia from Iran, had established a capital beside the Tigris while still retaining the name of a Persian, then it did not go unnoted by shrewd observers.2 Despite the descent claimed by the Abbasids, the family they most closely resembled was not that of the Prophet but the House of Sasan. Increasingly, the comparison of a Caliph to a Shahanshah was no blasphemy, but a statement of the obvious. When the Commander of the Faithful sat in majestic inaccessibility upon his throne, or staggered in his silken robes beneath the weight of his jewels, or strolled through his gardens past cooling fountains and leopards, he was no less the lord of a Persian empire for claiming descent from an Arab.
It might have seemed, then, when Haroun al-Rashid—the Abbasid immortalised in The Arabian Nights as the cynosure of Caliphs—rode out to war against the Romans, that very little in the world had actually changed. In 806, while heading for the frontier, he and his troops clattered along almost the identical road that Kavad, some three centuries before, had followed when embarking on his own campaign against the Rum. Anyone emulating the seven sleepers of Ephesus, and jolting awake after a three-hundred-year-long snooze, would have experienced a palpable sense of déjà vu. Just as the Shahanshah had ended up bogged down in a protracted siege of Amida, so now, in his own attempt to force the frontier, did the Commander of the Faithful find himself camped out for weeks around a Roman stronghold—and not all the wild scenes of rejoicing when the fortress finally fell could alter the fact that it might just as well have been left well alone. The Romans barely noticed the loss. The Caliph certainly won no long-term advantage. The face-off between the great empires of East and West—those “twin eyes of the world”—continued much the same as it had ever done. It was as though entire centuries had never been.
And yet, in truth, of course, all was changed—changed utterly. If history might sometimes appear to be repeating itself on the banks of the Tigris, it was also—literally—being made. Ibn Ishaq, whose biography of the Prophet would go on to be reworked by Ibn Hisham, was only one of numerous scholars to be attracted, moth-like, to the bright lights of the Abbasids’ infant capital. Over the succeeding decades, the work done by the ulama of Baghdad would set the seal on how pious Muslims, from that time forward, would understand the origins of their religion. Even as Haroun al-Rashid was squandering gold and men in the wilds of the Taurus, so scholars were compiling the first biographies of the Prophet to have survived into the present, the first commentaries on the Qur’an, and the first collections of hadiths. The impact of their labours would prove to be infinitely more enduring than the capture of a few border forts. Over the centuries, they would serve to neutralise the pretensions of the Caliphs themselves. The compilers of the Sunna—who regarded the Abbasids with scarcely more enthusiasm than they had the Umayyads—remained implacable in their determination to geld the Khalifat Allah. What served to complete this protracted operation was the acceptance by everyone, even the Caliph himself, of a version of Islam’s beginnings that gave no scope for anyone to rule as a Deputy of God. The ulama, by tightly controlling what went into the history books, were able to propagate an understanding of their own dazzlingly rich and complex civilisation that attributed almost every single thing of value within it to the Prophet, and the Prophet alone. There was no question of acknowledging the momentous roles played in the forging of Islam by countless others—be they autocrats such as Abd al-Malik or scholars such as themselves. Submission to God was definitively cast as submission to the Sunna. By 1258, when Baghdad was flattened by the Mongols, and the heir of Haroun al-Rashid, wrapped up in a carpet, was trampled to death by horses, the victory of the ulama had long since been secured. For centuries, Caliphs had played no more than an ornamental role. The death of the last Abbasid to rule in Baghdad had no effect whatsoever on the fortunes of the ulama. Just as Christianity had survived the collapse of Roman power, so Islam, it appeared, could flourish perfectly well without a Caliphate.
The peoples of late antiquity, then, when they imagined themselves to be living through the End Days foretold by the prophet Daniel, had been mistaken. Not the empire of the pagan Romans, nor that of their Christian successors, nor that of the Ishmaelites had proved to be the Fourth Beast. Nevertheless, those who saw in the convulsions of the age a process of transformation unlike any other, by means of which a kingdom would end up established on earth “which shall be different from all the kingdoms,” were not so far wrong. Caesars, Shahanshahs and Caliphs, none of them remain—but the words of the rabbis who taught in Sura, the bishops who met in Nicaea and the ulama who studied in Kufa still shape the world as living things today. There could be no more conclusive testimony to the impact of the revolution witnessed by late antiquity than the existence, in the twenty-first century, of billions upon billions of people who profess belief in a single god and lead their lives in accordance with that belief.
The pen, it seems, is indeed mightier than the sword.
Timeline
Italicised dates are either approximate or traditional.
753 BC
The foundation of Rome.
586
The Babylonians’ sack of Jerusalem.
539
Cyrus captures Babylon.
330
Alexander the Great burns Persepolis.
29
Virgil starts work on the Aeneid.
AD 33
The crucifixion of Jesus.
70
The Romans’ sack of Jerusalem.
220
The death of Tertullian.
224
Ardashir establishes the Sasanian Empire.
226
Ardashir conquers Mesopotamia.
250
The seven sleepers of Ephesus take refuge from persecution in a cave.
260
Defeat and capture of Valerian by Shapur I.
301
The conversion of Tiridates, King of Armenia, to Christianity.
312
The conversion of Constantine to Christianity.
324
The foundation of Constantinople.
325
The Council of Nicaea.
326
Helena discovers the True Cross in Jerusalem.
363
Death of Julian on campaign in Mesopotamia; Rome cedes Nisibis to Persia.
428
Nestorius becomes Bishop of Constantinople.
430
Simeon the Elder climbs his pillar.
451
The Council of Chalcedon.
476
The deposition of the last Roman emperor of the West; Italy comes under the rule of the Ostrogoths.
484
The Hephthalites defeat Peroz.
496
The forced abdication of Kavad.
/> 498
The return of Kavad to the Persian throne.
502
Kavad crowns Mundhir as King of Hira.
503
Kavad captures Amida.
505
The foundation of Dara.
524
The martyrdom of the Christians of Najran.
525
The defeat and death of Yusuf of Himyar; Justinian marries Theodora.
527
Justinian becomes emperor; Simeon the Younger leaves Antioch.
528
The execution of Mazdak.
529
The closure of the philosophical schools of Athens; the Samaritan revolt; Arethas is crowned King of the Ghassanids.
531
Kavad is succeeded as Shahanshah by Khusrow I.
532
Mass rioting in Constantinople almost topples Justinian; Justinian and Khusrow sign the “Eternal Peace.”
533
Justinian’s commissioners publish their Digest of Roman Law; Belisarius invades North Africa.
535
Belisarius invades Sicily.
536
Belisarius captures Rome.
537
The dedication of Hagia Sophia.
540
Khusrow sacks Antioch.
541
The plague spreads from Egypt.
554
Arethas defeats Mundhir at the Battle of Chalcis.
557
The collapse of the Hephthalite Empire.
565
The death of Justinian.
570
The birth of Muhammad.
579
The death of Khusrow I.
590
The coup and usurpation of Bahram Chobin.
591
The defeat of Bahram Chobin and accession of Khusrow II.
602
The murder of Maurice and usurpation of Phocas.
610
The overthrow of Phocas by Heraclius
610
Muhammad receives his first divine revelation.
614
The Persians burn Ephesus and storm Jerusalem.
619
The Persians capture Alexandria.
622
The emigration, or hijra, of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina.
626
The Persians and Avars lay siege to Constantinople.
627
Heraclius invades Mesopotamia.
628
The death of Khusrow II; Heraclius and Shahrbaraz sign peace treaty.
630
Heraclius returns the True Cross to Jerusalem.
632
The death of Muhammad.
634
The Arabs invade Palestine; the Battle of Gaza.
636
The Romans are defeated at the Yarmuk, and withdraw from Syria.
637
The Battle of Qadisiyya.
638
The Arabs capture Jerusalem.
639
The Arabs invade Egypt.
642
Alexandria falls to the Arabs.
644
The assassination of Umar.
650
The Arabs cross the River Oxus for the first time.
651
The murder of Yazdegird III.
656
The assassination of Uthman.
657
Ali and Mu’awiya fight an inconclusive battle on the banks of the Euphrates.
658
Ali defeats the Kharijites.
661
The assassination of Ali; Mu’awiya is hailed as “Commander of the Faithful” in Jerusalem.
674
The first Arab siege of Constantinople.
680
Yazid succeeds Mu’awiya; the Battle of Karbala; the rebellion of Ibn al-Zubayr.
683
The Umayyad sack of Medina; the burning of the Ka’ba; the death of Yazid.
684
Marwan is hailed as “Commander of the Faithful” in Syria.
685
Marwan is succeeded by Abd al-Malik; Mukhtar rebels against Ibn al-Zubayr.
686
The first mention of Muhammad on an Arab coin.
689
Work begins on the Dome of the Rock.
692
The defeat and death of Ibn al-Zubayr.
694
Al-Hajjaj appointed governor of Iraq.
702
Al-Hajjaj founds Wasit.
705
Abd al-Malik is succeeded by Walid; the final Arab conquest of Khorasan.
711
The Arabs invade Spain.
715
Walid inaugurates the great mosque of Damascus.
716–17
The second Arab siege of Constantinople.
732
The Franks defeat the Arabs outside Tours.
740
The Romans defeat the Arabs at Acroinum; Iraq is convulsed by an anti-Umayyad uprising.
747
Marwan II emerges from civil war as the new Umayyad Caliph; Abu Muslim declares open rebellion against Marwan in Khorasan.
750
The Abbasids defeat and overthrow Marwan.
755
The murder of Abu Muslim.
762
The founding of Baghdad.
Dramatis Personae
Iranshahr
Ardashir I (ruled AD 224–41) Founder of the Sasanian Empire.
Shapur I (241–70) The great warrior Shahanshah who captured the Roman emperor Valerian.
Peroz (459–84) Hephthalite-fighter, Jew-persecutor, oath-breaker.
Raham The head of the Mihrans, a Parthian aristocratic family; and the early power behind Peroz’s throne.
Kavad (488–96/498–531) Son of Peroz, and a royal enthusiast for communism.
