Catastrophe: An Investigation Into the Origins of the Modern World

by David Keys

  Christian and Jewish communities both inside and outside the Roman Empire had long apocalyptic traditions in which the broad outline of human history was seen as a divinely preordained chronological structure that one day would end with the resurrection of the dead, the Day of Judgment, the dissolution of the mortal world, and its replacement by an everlasting Kingdom of God in which the righteous would live forever. According to both Jewish and Christian prophetic traditions, the end of the world would come in three distinct stages—the rule of the Devil and the barbarian invasions, the coming of the Messiah and the defeat of the Devil, and the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment. The whole sequence was seen as God’s plan for the denouement of human history.

  Both Jews and Christians certainly saw the Persian War of 605–630 in more starkly cosmic terms than previous conflicts. And at the time, many would have viewed the apparently imminent collapse of the empire in 610–620 (precisely the time of the emergence of Muhammad) as heralding the coming of the Messiah and the end of the world. Indeed, when the Persians captured Jerusalem in 614, it was said that “the assembled angels,” unwilling to “oppose the will of God,” deserted the Holy City because the Almighty had given it to the enemy, Christian sin having “exceeded God’s grace.” A Christian prophecy purporting to have been written before the Persian War (but, in fact, written just after it) said that soon “the day without evening” would arrive for Mankind and “there will be an end to earthly power.”7

  That prophecy stated in more precise terms the apocalyptic views aired by the Christian John of Ephesus during a comparatively early stage of the Avar wars, which racked the Roman Empire between 570 and 626. He had written in c. 580 of the “devastation and slaughter which has occurred in our times” so that “for the knowledge of future generations, if indeed the world is to last longer,” we may “expound and make known these things which Christ teaches, warns and shows to us about the time of the conclusion of the world.”

  Jewish opinion also saw the events of the time in cosmic terms—probably more so than at any time since the Jewish revolts against Rome in the first and second centuries A.D., the very period out of which Jesus Christ himself had emerged.

  The so-called Book of Zerubabel, written by a rabbi of that name in Persian-ruled Babylon in the first quarter of the seventh century A.D., prophesied the coming of the Jewish Messiah (and his mother) and their defeat of the Christian Roman monster—an emperor/pope called Armilus, the son of Satan.8 Furthermore, a Palestinian Jew called Jacob, who had been forcibly baptized by the Romans in Carthage, described the empire in typically apocalyptic terms as “the fourth beast,” which was being “torn in pieces by the nations, [so] that the ten horns may prevail and Hermolaus Satan [the Devil] the Little Horn may come.”9

  The Jews viewed the apparently imminent collapse of the Roman Empire in the first quarter of the seventh century as evidence that the “beast” (the formerly pagan but now Christian empire) was doomed, that the Devil in the guise of the last Roman emperor or Christian pope would be killed by the coming Messiah. They saw the Persians (and a few years later, the Arabs) as the agents who would help destroy the “Roman beast.” Violent and often Messianic Jewish revolutionary attitudes had been spreading and increasing in fervor throughout the second half of the sixth century and went into overdrive as the empire began to totter in the first quarter of the seventh. In Antioch in 608, Christian attempts at forced conversion, as the Persians threatened the city, triggered a major revolt in the Jewish quarter. At first the Jewish rebels were successful, and their community’s archenemy, the city’s powerful Christian patriarch, Anastasius, was captured, killed, and mutilated. But the revolt was soon put down, and the eight-hundred-year-old Antiochan Jewish community was almost totally extinguished.

  At the fall of Jerusalem and the siege of Edessa (modern Urfa in Turkey), Jewish anti-Roman, anti-Christian participation was equally violent and determined. And after the birth of Islam, as the early Muslims began to humble the Roman Empire, Jewish communities—oppressed and waiting for Messianic deliverance—were overjoyed. Some Jews thought that Muhammad was obviously a prophet who had come to prepare the way for the Messiah.

  “The candidatus [a Roman official] has been killed [by the Arabs] and we Jews had great joy. And they say that a prophet [Muhammad] has appeared [among the Arabs] and proclaims the coming of the [Messiah],” said the Jews of Sycaminum in Palestine in 634.10

  Certainly Islam was a creed ideally suited to its time—new religion that emerged directly out of the apocalyptic atmosphere of the period. The early surahs (chapters) of the Koran have an overwhelmingly apocalyptic flavor.11 Muhammad, described as a messenger of God, is said to have come to warn mankind of what lies ahead at and beyond the Day of Judgment. In the Koran, seen by Muslims as the word of God, the expression “yaum al-qiyama” (the Day of Resurrection) occurs no fewer than seventy times, while an alternative word for that event, al-sa’a (the hour) occurs a further forty times. The last day and the Day of Judgment itself are cited forty-five and twenty-two times, respectively. Other expressions such as “yaum al-hisab” (the Day of Reckoning) also occur frequently.

  In a historically vital surah of the Koran, dating from a year or two after the Persian seizure of Jerusalem as the Persians closed in on Constantinople, Muhammad was told by God that “the Romans have been defeated” and “know only some appearance of the life of the world and are heedless of the Hereafter.”12

  “Evil was the consequence of those who dealt in evil because they deny the revelations of Allah and made a mock of them,” says the Koran a few verses later, referring to both the Romans and the Persians.13 “And in the day when the hour riseth, the unrighteous will despair.”

  The destiny of nonbelievers and evildoers is quite clear throughout the Koran. They will be “assembled on the Day of Resurrection” and “their habitation shall be Hell”; whenever the fire abates, “we shall increase the flame.” On the Day of Resurrection, “when the trumpet is blown,” God shall “assemble the guilty white-eyed with terror.”14

  “He who turneth away from remembrance of Me [God], his life will be a narrow life and I shall bring him blind to the assembly on the Day of Resurrection,” says the Koran.15

  “Thus do We reward him who is prodigal and believeth not the revelation of his Lord and verily the doom of the Hereafter will be sterner and more lasting.”16

  The Koran never says exactly when the end of the world will come, but its imminence is hinted at in surah 7. “The Destined Hour [the Day of Judgment] is heavy in the heavens and the earth,” says verse 187, echoing earlier non-Muslim apocalyptic texts in which metaphorically the pregnant (heavy) cosmos gives birth to the events of the last days.

  Increased interest and belief in the end of the world—indeed, in its fairly imminent arrival—were to a large extent prerequisites for both the emergence and the spread of Islam.

  It was—and, arguably, is again today—a religion ideally suited to the political and popular theological mood of the time. But although it is clear why Islam emerged and flourished, one key question demands an answer: How were these apocalyptic and monotheistic ideas—traditionally associated with the Jewish and Christian religions—transmitted to the deserts of Arabia?

  Certainly both Judaism and Christianity had a strong presence in Arabia. There were Christian tribes and statelets on the northern fringes of Arabia, and there had been a Christian presence in the south (Yemen) as well. Jewish influence had also been widespread in Yemen and was most substantial in northwest Arabia, particularly in Medina—the very city (along with Mecca) in which Muhammad had family connections and which he used as his main power base following negotiations with the Medinans in 621.

  Although the apocalyptic atmosphere of the early sixth-century Mediterranean and Middle Eastern world was probably the key element in the birth of Islam, it was only one of the factors that allowed the new religion to flourish.

  The Persian War weakened the ability of
both empires to exercise political influence in Arabia and helped accentuate the power vacuum that had been developing since the demise of Yemeni influence in the previous century. The war also reduced the two empires’ ability to defend themselves against third parties, and this created new opportunities for Arab aggression in the form of raiding and territorial expansion.

  This explosion of external opportunities was the key factor that initiated, then drove the pace of, political change internally within the Arabian Peninsula. Indeed, the seventh-century series of Arab raids into Roman territory started (in a small way) before Islam had begun to play any role in them at all. The first major Arab attack of the period took place in 612. “The Arabs raided Syria, destroyed towns and many houses and then withdrew,” wrote the eighth-century Roman historian Theophanes, who was almost certainly quoting from a now-lost seventh-century source.

  Islam as a fundamentally political as well as religious development was an organizational and ideological innovation, through which Arab society adapted to the new political and military realities and opportunities—a way in which the Arabs were able to more efficiently take advantage of the weakness of the Roman Empire and Persia. Muhammad’s teachings created a situation in which it was not just expedient but also ideologically desirable to attack the two weakened superpowers.

  “God says, ‘My righteous servant shall inherit the earth’; now this is your inheritance and what your Lord has promised you,” Muslim commanders told their troops on the eve of the conquest of the Persian Empire. In the event of a Muslim victory, the enemy’s “property, their women, their children and their country will be yours.”

  The defeated Persian general was informed by the victorious Arab commander that God had “sent a prophet from among [the Arabs] and one of his promises was that we should conquer and overcome these lands.”17

  According to Muslim tradition, Muhammad informed both the Roman and Persian imperial authorities (probably via their frontier governors) of the teachings of Islam—but they took no notice. In fact, his envoy to the Romans was seized and executed. Both empires were no doubt seen by early Muslims as rejecting the word of God and so laying themselves open to conquest.

  A chapter of the Koran known as “The Spoils of War” makes it abundantly clear how Islam would aid the process of victory. This text uses as its lesson the experiences of the children of Israel in their conflict with Egypt at the time of the exodus, prior to the conquest of the promised land. The way of the nonbelievers is like “the way of Pharaoh’s folk … They disbelieved the revelations of Allah and Allah took [destroyed] them for their sins. Lo! Allah is strong, severe in punishment.”18

  The nonbeliever’s way is “as the way of Pharaoh’s folk; they denied the revelation of their Lord, so We destroyed them for their sins. And We drowned the folk of Pharaoh. All were evil-doers,” says verse 54 of “The Spoils of War”—a surah dating from around the time of Islam’s first great battle, that of Badr against the nonbelieving Meccans in 624. “Lo. The worst of beasts in Allah’s sight are the ungrateful who will not believe.”19 The surah adds, “Oh Prophet! Exhort the believers to fight. If there be of you 20 steadfast, they shall overcome 200, and if there be of you a hundred steadfast, they shall overcome a thousand of those who disbelieve because the disbelievers are a people without intelligence.”20

  The ideology of Islam matched exactly what was required by the Medinans in order to conquer the Arabian Peninsula and then for the Arabs as a whole to exploit the exhausted and weakened state of the Roman and Persian empires.

  The new ideology raised the normal antagonism felt toward an enemy to an altogether higher level. Instead of conquest and victory being seen in purely material and political terms, Islam allowed them also to be seen in terms of destiny and religious duty.

  “When thy Lord inspired the angels, saying ‘I am with you,’ so make those who believe stand firm. I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite [their] necks and smite of them each finger.

  “That is because they opposed Allah and his Messenger [Muhammad]. Whosoever opposeth Allah and his Messenger [for him] lo, Allah is severe in punishment.”21

  “Oh ye who believe! When ye meet those who disbelieve in battle, turn not your backs to them,” says a passage in “The Spoils of War” referring to the religious need for determination and courage.22

  “Whosoever on that day turneth his back to them, unless manoeuvring for battle or intent to join a company, he truly hath incurred wrath from Allah, and his habitation will be Hell, a hapless journey’s end.”23

  In a sense, even the killing in battle of a nonbelieving enemy was seen as the work of God.

  “Ye [Muslims] slew them not, but Allah slew them. And thou [Muhammad] threwest not when thou didst throw, but Allah threw,” says verse 17 of surah 8, written at the time of the Battle of Badr.

  Even the taking of prisoners was divinely discouraged in some circumstances. “It is not for any prophet to have captives before he hath made slaughter in the land.”24

  Again there are parallels with what the Old Testament relates as the events surrounding the Jewish exodus from Egypt. In early ancient Israel, the concept of holy war existed, inasmuch as fighting for God was seen as a sacred activity. The Book of Joshua (chapter 6, verses 18–24) provides a gruesome example, the capture of Jericho, in which all living things—men, women, children, and animals—had to be put to death and all buildings and property had to be burned as an act of ritual destruction.

  In Arabia in the 620s, Muhammad’s ability to survive as a radical politico-religious leader depended on military success. In order to succeed, he had to keep expanding. He had to keep on delivering success to his followers—and to would-be followers.

  “If we give allegiance to you and God gives you victory over your opponents, will we have authority after you?” one hopeful Arab tribal leader with an eye to the future is said to have asked Muhammad.25

  Furthermore, Arab tribal society was very warlike and always had been: “How many a Lord and Mighty Chief have our horses trampled underfoot … we march forth to war,” wrote a pre-Islamic poet, glorifying conflict.26 “When I thrust in my sword it bends almost double. I kill my opponent with a sharp mashrafi27 sword, and I yearn for death like a camel over-full with milk,” wrote one of his Islamic successors.28

  The conquest of nonbelievers was thus seen as a fundamentally good thing in terms of political survival, tribal tradition, and religious obligation. As one prominent historian of early Islam, Patricia Crone, put it, “Muhammad had to conquer, his followers liked to conquer and his deity told him to conquer.”29

  9

  I S L A M I C

  C O N Q U E S T S

  The Muslim advance was one of the most rapid in human history. Indeed, as we have seen, medieval Arab historians likened the swift progress of early Islam to the conquests of Alexander the Great a thousand years earlier. In one illuminated manuscript,1 Alexander is seen as a sort of proto-Islamic precursor of Muhammad—and is pictured actually standing beside Islam’s most holy place, the Kaba in Mecca.2

  The first clash between Muslim and Roman forces (the Battle of Mu’ta) took place in 629 in the political and military vacuum that existed immediately after the Persian withdrawal (628) and the proper reestablishment of Roman rule. Although the Romans were victorious, their success did not stop four Roman-controlled Arab towns (Aqaba, Jarba, Adhruh, and Ma’an) from defecting a year later to the newly emerging Muslim power. In the Roman authorities’ determination to prevent such civil defections, the governor of one of these towns, Ma’an, was promptly arrested and executed.

  For a few years Islam bided its time and built up its army. Then in 633, the year after Muhammad died, Muslim forces invaded both the Persian and Roman empires and scored notable successes—at the Battle of the River of Blood, against Persia, and at the battles of Dathin, Ajnadayn, and Fahl, against the Romans. Islamic forces even temporarily captured Damascus and Hims.

 
Smarting from defeat, the emperor ordered a counterattack. Damascus came once again into Roman hands, but its local Roman chief administrator, Mansur, who was an ethnic Arab, refused to cooperate with the Roman military and withheld vital provisions.3

  The Roman army, fifteen thousand to twenty thousand strong—its leadership divided between mutually suspicious generals—then collided with the Islamic forces eighty miles south of Damascus at Jabiya-Yarmuk.

  The battle—or, more accurately, a series of clashes culminating in a large battle—lasted some one and a half months. Much of the local population, including important local Jewish communities, was either indifferent or hostile to the Roman cause. And as described above, the Roman forces were riven with discord.

  In the end, it seems to have been a Muslim night attack, which took advantage of poor Roman discipline, command, and control, that turned the tide. In the dawn conflict that followed, the Romans were utterly annihilated. Thousands were killed in battle. Many of those who were not killed in the battle, their morale at rock bottom, simply sat down and tried to surrender, but they were slaughtered where they sat, for the Muslims were taking no prisoners. Those who escaped were pursued relentlessly. One group of fleeing soldiers was said to have been chased for five hundred miles!