by A R Azzam
of al-Husayn through his son Zayn al-Abidin. The imams, in addition, were
divinely inspired and infallible. Only they understood the inner esoteric
meaning (batin) of the religion, and since they represented the fountain-
head of knowledge and authority, guidance and salvation could be achieved
only through them. To the Sunnis, who represented the majority of
Muslims, this view was nothing short of heretical. Although they viewed the
caliphate as the legitimate political institution of the community, they
stressed that the caliph possessed no spiritual function connected with the
esoteric interpretation of the revelation. As the guardian of the community,
the caliph was not to legislate law but to administer the Sacred Law (Sharia)
and act as judge in accordance with this Law.^ For Sunnis, the unity of Islam
was safeguarded not by the preservation of the caliph, but by the preservation
of the Sharia, whose guardians and interpreters were the religious scholars
(ulama). It was their consensus which represented the consensus of the
Muslim people and constituted the foundation of Islam itself,^ and though
the caliph patronised them in order to bolster his Islamic credentials, the fact
was he had no alternative but to 'toe the line'® set by the religious scholars.
The term ulama, however, must be used with caution. As a cohesive group
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1: T H E W E A K E N I N G O F T H E ABBASID C A L I P H A N D S U N N I REVIVAL
of people these scholars did not emerge until a later period and, although
the term is frequently used, it is rarely defined or clarified; was the posses-
sion of an Islamic education sufficient to label someone a scholar (alim), or
was it necessary to have secured a high position in an institution or the judi-
ciary? During this period the term is rarely used in the plural form and the
sources refer to terms such as jurist (faqih) or mystic (sufi), indicating that
the ulama wer^ not recognised as a unit. In the words of Humphreys, it is
probably easier to define what they were not, for they were neither a socio-
economic class, nor a clearly defined status group, nor a hereditary caste.
And yet they were the one group which made the society Islamic and not
something else.
By and large Shiism, destined to live in 'eternal opposition'® to Sunnism,
remained the choice of the minority - those who were outside the main
power structure. There is no doubt that by linldng their name, no matter
how tenuously, with the Prophet's uncle, the Abbasids had deliberately
tried to win the sympathies of the Shiites, and to a large extent they were
successful. Gradually, however, the followers of Ali came to view the
Abbasids as usurpers. The main dilemma which confronted the Shiite dynas-
ties which emerged during the tenth centuiy, such as the Buyids, was that
they were neither able to offset the Sunni viewpoint nor impose their
Shiite views. This was mainly for two reasons: first, the majority of Muslims
over whom they ruled remained indifferent to the Shiite message; and
second, even if they had chosen to end the House of Abbas and replace him
with that of Ali, they had no claimant or imam to produce. This effectively
meant that the actions of the Buyids who now controlled Baghdad differed
little, on the whole, from their Sunni counterparts, and they chose to retain
the caliph, offering him a nominal loyalty and allegiance, 'so far as loyalty
had any m e a n i n g ' a n d in religious ceremonies the caliph continued sym-
bolically to wear the cloak that the Prophet wore. There was equally a polit-
cally expedient reason why the Buyids chose not to end the caliphate; if a
dispute arose between the Abbasid caliph and the Buyid amir, the followers
of the amir would have not hesitated to Idll the caliph as they did not believe
him to be the rightful claimant, but in the case of a Shiite caliph then they
would have followed his orders and not those of the amir.
The Buyids may have chosen to retain the Sunni Abbasid caliph, but that
did not mean they could not provoke him. Of immediate concern for the
caliph were the increasingly public Shiite demonstrations encouraged by the
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SALAD I N
Buyids. What must have outraged the Sunnis in particular was the vocal
denigration of the first two caliphs, Abu Bakr and Umar, who succeeded the
Prophet and were accused of usurping Ali's claim. The Sunnis were also
appalled by the celebration of Shiite festivals, such as Ghadir Khumm, which
Shiites believed was when the Prophet aclcnowledged Ali as his successor,
or the mourning for al-Husayn, Ali's son, whose slaying at Karbala was
commemorated annually by the Shiites with an outpouring of wailing
and grief The Buyid emphasis on these two acts - the denigration and the
commemoration - were symbolically of great importance. Whereas in the
past any Sunni, as a Muslim, could accept the veneration of Ali without
being labelled a Shiite, no Sunni could accept the celebration of Ghadir
Khumm or the cursing of the two first caliphs without cutting himself off
from his fellow Sunnis. It was during the Buyid period that Shiism defined
itself as a distinct group or party; one either followed it or rejected it,^" and Baghdad began to be divided into Sunni and Shiite quarters, each armed
and defending its own areas. And not just Baghdad; the sectarian division
rapidly spread to other cities, like Wasit, with conflicts frequent and violence
and bloodshed common. To an extent, and as far as they could, the author-
ities clamped down on the outbreaks of violence. On one occasion, Abu Ali
Hurmuz, sent to oversee affairs in Baghdad, and to set an example, bound
one person from the Sunni and one from the Shiite side together and
drowned them.
If the Buyid Shiites, driven by political expediency and largely uninter-
ested in theological matters, chose to retain the Sunni Abbasid caliph, other
Shiite movements, who split away, were unwilling to be satisfied with
worldly matters and to render unto the caliph that which was in heaven.
Unlike the Buyids, who were Twelver Shiites, the Fatimids were Ismaili
Shiites,^^ and the emergence of the Fatimid caliphate, whose fate would
be so closely linked to that of Saladin, is a major event in Islamic history.
Emerging initially in North Africa in 909, the dynasty, named after the
daughter of the Prophet and the wife of Ali, ruled an empire that extended
from Palestine to North Africa. It was under the imam Muizz that the
Fatimids reached the height of their glory. Served by the brilliant general
Jawhar, the Fatimids took full advantage of the political fragmentation
which lay ahead of them throughout the Muslim world and, for a brief
period, it truly did appear that the universal triumph of Ismailism was
about to be achieved. In 969 Jawhar routed the Turkish Ilchshidids, who
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1: T H E W E A K E N I N G OF T H E ABBASID C A L I P H A N D S U N N I REVIVAL
controlled Egypt, and the Fatimids entered the country victorious. A new
capital city was now commissioned: the original Cairo, or al-Qahira (the
triumphant), as it was called by its founde
r the Fatimid caliph al-Muizz, was
built between 969 and 973, and its foundation was inaugurated in great
splendour. By the beginning of the eleventh century, Cairo, which was
adjacent to the old city of Fustat, had grown to be one of the largest and
most cosmopolitan urban complexes of the medieval world. From the start,
the Fatimids brazenly rejected the spiritual claims of the Abbasids, but in
sharp contrast with the other Shiite dynasties of this period, who merely
sought power, they openly declared that the true spiritual and political
leader was the imam, the progeny of Ali, who naturally was none other than
the Fatimid caliph.
For the Abbasid caliph in Baghdad, the news emerging from Fatimid
Cairo was alarming. Not only in the mosques of Egypt was the name of
the Fatimid imam invoked, but also in Mecca and Medina, where Fatimid
power had spread, for whoever controlled Egypt controlled the route to the
holy sites. And not just in Arabia, but also in Syria, where Damascus fell to
Jawhar. Half of the Islamic world was under Fatimid control and the other
half appeared destined to follow. But what was more alarming for the Sunni
caliph was not just a political but an ideological threat. A magnificent
college - al-Azhar - was established in Cairo to preach the Ismaili doctrine
and propagandists were despatched to all corners of the Muslim world to
preach its message. Politically, ideologically and also economically a threat,
under the Fatimids Egypt flourished and Alexandria shone like a jewel, the
'market of the two worlds' in the words of William of Tyre. Trade was brisk
between the city-port and the Italian republics of Amalfi, Venice and Pisa.
From the south and the Sudan trade flowed north, carrying gold and ivory
and Arabica. Along the Nile vast quantities of corn grew - enough to feed
the land of Egypt many times over.
Provoked by vociferous public Shiite demonstrations and denuded of
any political authority, the Abbasid caliph now took up the religious mantie
of defender of Sunnism, perhaps out of religious motivation, certainly out
of political expediency. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the caliph
al-Qadir ordered that epistles be read out in the caliphal diwan (palace)
which articulated his beliefs and which developed into a creed known as
the Qadiri Creed. This was a strident combative Sunnism, reflecting the
besieged mentality of the caliph. Three edicts were proclaimed in the
• 13 •
SALADIN
caliph's palace and on each of these occasions there was a gathering of
judges and scholars, who heard the reading of the edict and signed it, as
proof of their presence. Each edict was more elaborate than the preceding
one, the third being of such length that it reportedly required attendance
throughout the day, until nightfall. Lengthy and elaborate they may have
been, but the Qadiri epistles were important for they contained an explicit
and positive definition of Sunnism. Hitherto the Sunnis had been defined
by their opposition to Shiism, but with the Qadiri Creed there now existed
a definition of what a Sunni should believe in. No longer would it be pos-
sible to be simply a Muslim; one was either a Sunni or a Shiite.^^ The Sunni
response to the Shiite demonstrations has been labelled by historians as the
Sunni Revival. In reality it was more of a transformation and an integration
than a revival, and was not the work of one man or dynasty alone but a
cumulative and wide-ranging process that touched on almost all aspects
of Islamic thought: from law to theology and from mysticism to politics.
Neither did it proceed in a linear fashion; there was no uniform Sunni move-
ment, and accusations of heterodoxy were common among the diverse and
mutually opposed Sunni schools.
The successful entry into Baghdad by the Turkish Sunni Seljuqs, in
1058, marks a new chapter in the history of this period. A Turldc people
from the steppes who had entered military service in the Abbasid empire,
the Seljuqs, who were fervendy Sunni, succeeded in seizing power in
Baghdad and, under Toghril Beg, expelling the Shiite Buyids from the city.
The fall of the Buyids meant that never again would the caliph find himself
a hostage of the Shiites, and the power of the state could now be employed
aggressively to confront Shiism and the Ismailis in particular. In Baghdad
the Seljuqs stumbled across a mere shadow of the caliphate, one which
politically had allowed half of the Muslim world to fall into the hands of the
Fatimids. And yet its allure remained unmistakable, for even in its wealoiess
the institution was revered by the Turkish parvenus, recent converts to
Islam, as a symbol of legitimacy. And so politically the Seljuqs were to play
shoguns to the caliph's mikado.'
Building a new Sunni ortliodoxy
It is with the Seljuqs that we can finally speak of the two men who are
universally acloiowledged to have been the architects of the Sunni Revival:
• 14
1: T H E W E A K E N I N G OF T H E ABBASID C A L I P H A N D S U N N I REVIVAL
the Persian vizier of the Seljuq sultans, Nizam ul-Mulk, and the great theo-
logian, mystic and thinker, al-Ghazali. In trying to comprehend the genius
that was inherent in the two men, we go a long way to understanding the
character of Saladin himself, for one cannot begin to understand the actions
of Saladin without first understanding those of Nizam ul-Mulk, nor can one
comprehend the intellectual and spiritual world in which Saladin lived with-
out examining the contribution which al-Ghazali made to its firmament. In
many ways, Saladin was the heir of Nizam ul-Mulk and his actions mirrored
those of the great Seljuq minister. As for al-Ghazali, in his biography of
Saladin, Newby makes the point that had it not been for him, Saladin would
have been much more of a fundamentalist,^^ and in that statement, as we
shall see, there is considerable truth. To understand Saladin one needs to
understand this new Sunnism that was emerging and, in that sense, Nizam
ul-Mulk can be seen as its political manifestation and al-Ghazali as its
spiritual one. The epistles of the Abbasid caliph al-Qadir may have enjoyed
considerable resonance but they were not papal edicts and no one was
obliged to follow them. Above all they were a symbolic message of a defiant
Sunnism, but they would have come to naught had not Nizam ul-Mulk
fashioned this new Sunnism into a policy and integrated it into the political
and administrative framework of Seljuq rule. The Sunni Revival truly began
with him.
In the second half of the eleventh century the history not just of
Baghdad but of the Islamic world was dominated by the figure of Nizam
ul-Mulk, the Persian minister to the Turkish Seljuq sultans Toghril Beg and
Malik Shah. But to understand the political genius'® of Nizam ul-Mulk and
his actions, which would have profound if unexpected repercussions, we
need first to make a brief diversion into the world of law and theology.
Within 50 years of the Prophet Muhammad's death in 632, the Muslim
armies had conquered the whole of North Africa, and Isla
m had reached
from Morocco to Egypt and from the Yemen to the Caucasus; and by the
tenth century Islam had spread over three continents, from the Pyrenees in
the west to Siberia in Northern Europe and from Morocco in Northern
Africa to China in Asia. With this rapid geographic spread new problems
emerged for the ulama and the judges (qadis) in interpreting and applying
a uniform Islamic law, since a judge in Trans-Oxania was not faced with the
same daily legal problems as one in Maghrib, nor one in Kufa with the same
situation as in Medina.''' This eventually led to the establishment of legal
• 15 •
SALADIN
schools that were called madhahib (singular: madhab),^^ of which four were
by far the most important and have survived to this day: the Maliki, Hanafi,
Shafii and Hanbali. With the establishment of the schools of law, the Sharia
became, in Hodgson's memorable phrase, no longer an adventure but a
heritage,^' and Sunni orthodoxy was determined by membership in one of
the schools of law. Indeed every Sunni Muslim, to this day, follows in their
daily rituals, or in matters such as inheritance, one of the schools of law. To
switch from one madhab to another required no formality and did not alter
a person's religious status; an excellent example of this was Muhammad
Ibn Khalaf, who died a couple of years before Saladin's birth, and who was
loiown as 'Hanfash', because he belonged at different times to three of the
different schools (Hanbali, Hanafi and Shafii).^" While the political disinteg-
ration of the caliphate therefore meant that there was no longer a single
power ruling over the whole Muslim world, the same laws continued to be
administered, regardless of the collapse of the centre. At the same time this
was an age when theology was debated within the framework of the law
schools and two major theological schools played a role during this period:
Mutazilism and Asharism. Mutazilis (the word means those who withdraw)
saw the Islamic creed through a more rationalistic interpretation and criti-
cised elements of popular belief Their insistence on allegorical interpreta-
tions appealed strongly to the Hanafi scholars. The Hanbalis, on the other
hand, were largely opposed to the rationalist interpretation and demanded
