I am also grateful for the comments, insights, and corrections that I received on the manuscript from Herbert Bodman, Donald Reid, David Commins, Gladys Frantz-Murphy, Erik Gilbert, John Parcels, Kenneth Perkins, and two reviewers who wished to be anonymous. They saved me from several egregious errors, although I obstinately persisted in certain interpretations despite their best efforts (but never when they agreed on a criticism). I invite readers to send me their own suggestions on how to improve this book—I have been known to yield in the face of overwhelming odds.
Finally, anyone who works on a major project within the context of a family knows that an author’s acknowledgment of a family’s support and patience is not a perfunctory gesture: The writing of a book inevitably disrupts family life. I welcome the opportunity to thank Mary, Krista, and Rachel for their good-humored patience and encouragement throughout this endeavor.
Vernon O. Egger
Note on Transliteration and Dating
Any work that deals with the Muslim world faces the challenge of the transliteration of words from one alphabet to another. Scholars need a comprehensive system that represents in the Latin alphabet all the vowels and consonants of other alphabets, but nonspecialists can find such a system more confusing and alien than useful. The problem is a serious one when transliterating only one language; in this book, we have to deal with several. I have tried to compromise between accuracy and ease of use.
Geographic place names are spelled in this book as they appear on modern English-language atlas maps (Khorasan, Baghdad, Cairo). In some cases, no consensus exists among cartographers on the spelling of place names, and so this book occasionally provides alternate spellings (Zaragoza/Saragossa, Qayrawan/Kairouan). In a few cases, this book uses names that are more easily understood by English-speakers than some that are more culturally authentic. An example is the Greek-based “Transoxiana” for the Arabic phrase ma wara’ al-nahr.
In the interest of trying to make transliterated words less of an obstacle to the task of understanding the material, I have also used the more popular spellings for some words, even when doing so seems inconsistent with the practice of the book as a whole. Thus, I discuss “Sunnis and Shi‘ites” rather than “Sunnis and Shi‘is” or “Sunnites and Shi‘ites.”
For personal names and technical words in the Arabic, Persian, and Turkish languages, a simplified version of the Library of Congress system is used. No distinction is indicated in this book between long and short vowels, nor are diacritical marks provided for the vowels of words from any language. For the Arabic language, no attempt is made to indicate the so-called velarized consonants, and no distinction is made between the forms of the letter h, which should be sounded or aspirated. The combination dh represents the sound of the th in the English word then; kh is similar to the ch in the Scottish loch; gh is best described as the sound made when gargling. The q is pronounced farther back in the throat than the k. The symbol ’ represents a glottal stop, the sound that begins each syllable of the English expression uh-oh. The symbol ‘ represents an Arabic consonant with no English equivalent, but it is important in words such as ‘Ali or Shi‘ite. Phonetically, it is a “voiced guttural stop” produced in the very back of the throat, by constricting the larynx to stop the flow of air. An approximation may be achieved by making a glottal stop as far back in the throat as possible.
The prefix al- is the definite article in Arabic, meaning the. Before most letters in the alphabet, the prefix sounds the way it is spelled, but it assumes the sound of certain letters when it precedes them (t, th, d, dh, r, z, s, sh, n). Thus, al-Rahman is pronounced ar-Rahman.
Notes regarding the significance of names containing ‘Abd, Abu, and Ibn may be found in the glossary. Understanding these terms makes the learning of Arabic-based names easier and more meaningful.
This book uses the abbreviations B.C.E. (Before the Common Era) and C.E. (Common Era). The abbreviations refer to the same dates that are designated as B.C. (Before Christ) and A.D. (anno Domini), respectively, on the Gregorian calendar, but they are an attempt to use religiously neutral nomenclature. They have almost totally replaced the B.C./A.D. designations in books on world history because of the latter’s Christian-specific nature. In a book on Muslim history, the most logical (and considerate) way of dating would be to use the A.H. (anno hejirae) system, which is based on the Islamic calendar. The first year of this system began in July 622 on the Gregorian calendar. Most readers of this book, however, are non-Muslim citizens of the United States, who, in my experience, are usually confused rather than helped by the use of the A.H. dating system. It is explained in the glossary.
PART ONE
The Formative Period, 610–950
Islam arose in the early seventh century as a religio-social reform movement in the small, hot, and dusty town of Mecca in the western Arabian peninsula. During its first decade, the movement appeared to be highly vulnerable, attracting only a few dozen followers. Many observers expected it to fail miserably. If those same skeptics could have used a time machine to travel one century into the future, they would have found Muslims ruling an empire from the Atlantic to the Indus River valley in modern Pakistan—a region that stretched across 5000 miles. Other groups before and after this period also conquered huge territories in a very short time, but their rule proved ephemeral. The Muslims, by contrast, created a new civilization in this vast area. Their achievement may well be the closest approximation to the cosmological theory of the “Big Bang” that human history has to offer.
The period of Muslim conquests was necessarily followed by an extended period of consolidation. Muslims shared a common set of beliefs and practices, but they lived in dramatically different cultures, had access to a wide range of resources, and were confronted with challenges specific to their region. As they worked out the implications of their faith, they found that their solutions differed from those of their fellow Muslims in other parts of the world. One of the most fascinating features of Muslim history is the continuity of Islamic identity in the absence of a central religious authority such as a pope, patriarch, or synod. The important developments in religious doctrine and practice were the products of pious individuals who communicated with each other across vast distances. As a result, differences arose among those who called themselves Muslims. In a few cases, such differences were irreconcilable and even deadly. In general, however, the story of Muslim history is that devotion to the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet have enabled Muslims across a wide spectrum of societies to recognize that they belong to the same community of faith.
Chapter 1 provides a broad overview of the areas in which Muslim societies first developed: the regions of what had been the eastern Byzantine Empire, the former Sasanian Empire, and the Arabian Peninsula. Muhammad’s career was confined almost exclusively to the peninsula, but his immediate successors as leaders of the Muslim community were preoccupied with the areas they were conquering in the Byzantine and Sasanian empires. It was here that Islam in the post-prophetic period largely developed, and it is important to understand the pre-Islamic history of these territories. Chapter 2 discusses the conquests of the first century of Muslim history and the development of administrative structures in the newly conquered areas. It shows that this first Muslim state created after the death of the Prophet was an “Arab empire” that failed to live up to the ideals of Islamic equality and justice. Chapter 3 examines the first major divisions within the Muslim community. It traces the rise of a movement known as Kharijism and explores the early history of Shi‘ism. It shows how the history of Shi‘ism was linked to the revolutionary Abbasid movement that overthrew the Arab empire. Chapter 4 examines the political fragmentation of Muslim society after the eighth century and its organization into three caliphates. The apparent disunity of these political systems was balanced by the development of a highly integrated and sophisticated economic system that linked all of the regions under Muslim control. Chapter 5 surveys the religious and intellectual devel
opments of the era. It is here that we can see more clearly the correlation between the cessation of the conquests on the one hand and the establishment of the foundations of religious institutions on the other.
The period from 600 to 950 is called “formative” not because Islam assumed its permanent form during this time, but because its possibilities for future development were narrowed into specific directions. For nearly three centuries after the conquest of the Pyrenees Mountains and the Indus valley, the frontiers of Muslim-ruled territory remained essentially stable. During this time, the methodology for determining Islamic law was developed, Islamic mysticism and theology developed their frameworks, science and philosophy were introduced as fields of study, and the distinctions between the terms Sunni and Shi‘ite became well defined. As we shall see in Part Two, the subsequent three centuries saw further elaborations on Islamic traditions, but they were channeled by the developments of the period to 950.
CHRONOLOGY
570 Traditional date for the birth of Muhammad
602–628 Last Byzantine-Sasanian war
610 Traditional date for the first revelation to Muhammad
622 Hijra
632 Death of Muhammad; Abu Bakr becomes caliph
633 Muslim army crushes Ridda
634 Muslim conquests begin; ‘Umar becomes caliph
637 Muslim armies conquer Syria
638 Muslim armies conquer Iraq
642 Muslim armies conquer Egypt
644 Slave murders ‘Umar; ‘Uthman becomes caliph
651 Muslim armies conquer Iran
656 Muslim soldiers murder ‘Uthman; ‘Ali becomes caliph
661 Kharijite murders ‘Ali; Mu‘awiya becomes caliph in Damascus; Umayyad dynasty begins
680 Battle of Karbala
685–705 Caliphate of ‘Abd al-Malik, who makes Arabic the official language of the empire, mints coins with Islamic details and builds Dome of the Rock as symbol of Islamic supremacy
705–715 Muslim armies conquer Central Asia and Sind
711–720 Muslim armies conquer Iberian peninsula
740 Berber revolt in North Africa and Iberia
750 Abbasids overthrow Umayyads
756 ‘Abd al-Rahman establishes the Umayyad amirate of Cordoba
762 Al-Mansur founds Baghdad
765 Death of Ja‘far al-Sadiq
768–814 Reign of Charlemagne in western Europe
813–833 Caliphate of al-Ma‘mun creates the Bayt al-Hikma and provokes a storm of criticism for his attempt to enforce Mu‘tazilism
860s Anarchy in Baghdad, provinces become autonomous; Isma‘ilis become active in Iran, Iraq, and Syria
874 Imami twelfth Imam goes into Lesser Concealment
850–900 Feudalism emerges in western Europe
909 Fatimids declare a caliphate in Ifriqiya
900–950 Acceptance of Shafi‘i synthesis for jurisprudence
929 ‘Abd al-Rahman III declares a caliphate in Cordoba
936 Abbasid caliph cedes power to Turkish general
941 Imami twelfth Imam goes into Greater Concealment
945 Buyids seize power in Baghdad
CHAPTER 1
Origins
Islam arose in the Arabian Peninsula in the early seventh century. Arabia is surrounded on three sides by ocean and on the north by the Fertile Crescent, the arc formed by the life-giving rivers of Iraq and the green plains and mountains of western Syria. A remarkably arid region of almost one million square miles, the interior of Arabia attracted little interest from its neighbors. On the other hand, the era’s su-perpowers—the Byzantine Empire and the Sasanian Empire—were keenly interested in Arabia’s coastline and its frontiers with the Fertile Crescent. The traditional Byzantine–Sasanian rivalry entailed a competition for control both of those coasts and the desert frontiers. Thus, when a highly destructive conflict between the two imperial powers took place throughout the first quarter of the seventh century, the entire region was affected.
The inhabitants of Arabia followed the conflict closely, for they knew that its conclusion would determine which of the powers controlled their frontiers. What they—and the superpowers themselves—could not know was that during the war the balance of power in the region had completely changed. The two combatants were exhausted by 628, when the Byzantines appeared to have won the war. Meanwhile, however, a prophet named Muhammad was in the final stage of consolidating his political and religious authority in the peninsula and was creating a dynamic and seemingly irresistible force. Only a decade after the Byzantine triumph, Arab armies fighting in the name of the movement created by Muhammad would seize the greater part of the Byzantine Empire and utterly destroy the Sasanian Empire.
Southwestern Asia in the Seventh Century
The Arabs would conquer their two imperial neighbors in the name of a monotheistic faith that bore striking similarities to Judaism and Christianity. Like these two other faiths, Islam would take centuries to develop many of the institutions and doctrines that are most characteristic of it today. Many such developments would take place in the territories formerly under Byzantine and Sasanian rule. Thus, before we examine the career of Muhammad, it will be useful to survey certain features of the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, as well as of the Arabian Peninsula.
The Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire owed a large debt to Alexander the Great, whose bloody campaigns between the Mediterranean Sea and the Himalayas during the late fourth century B.C.E. introduced Greek culture into southwestern Asia and northeastern Africa. In the centuries after Alexander’s death in 323 B.C.E., the Macedonians and Greeks who came into this area as soldiers, merchants, craftsmen, and rulers brought with them their language, architecture, and social institutions. The result was a synthesis of Greek and indigenous cultures that is called Hellenistic civilization. Urban life along the eastern Mediterranean seaboard experienced a cultural transformation. Newly established cities, such as Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria, became the dominant economic and cultural centers, and the architecture of older cities received new inspiration with the advent of Greek styles for theaters, gymnasia, and temples. Greek became the language of learning and of politics. The era was remarkable for its scientific, artistic, philosophical, and economic achievements. This was the period when such philosophical schools as Stoicism, Epicureanism, Skepticism, and Cynicism flourished; Aristarchus devised his seemingly audacious theory that the sun, rather than the earth, occupied the center of the universe; Archimedes introduced the concept of pi and developed theories of the properties of the lever and of the specific gravity of water; and Eratosthenes became the first man known to have measured with remarkable accuracy the circumference of the earth.
The chief threat to the Hellenistic kingdoms was the Roman Republic, which began flexing its military muscle in the mid-third century B.C.E. by challenging Carthage for control of the western Mediterranean. Soon its ambitions extended to the eastern Mediterranean as well, and between 146 B.C.E. and 30 B.C.E. it absorbed its Hellenistic neighbors. The last of the Hellenistic rulers was Cleopatra of Egypt. She might have been as little known to most of us as the other Hellenistic rulers had it not been for her tragic affairs with the Roman leaders Julius Caesar and Mark Antony.
With the defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra, Octavian assumed the title of Augustus Caesar, and the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire. The empire’s eastern half was in effect the Hellenized region. When Rome took over this area, the language of governmental administration changed to Latin, but the power of the Hellenistic legacy is revealed in the fact that Greek remained the most influential language of culture in the eastern Mediterranean until the Arabs came, six centuries later. The Romans themselves continued to look to Greek sources for the inspiration of much of their own cultural production.
Even during the famous Pax Romana of the two centuries during and after the reign of Augustus (the period 27 B.C.E.–180 C.E.), the former Hellenistic areas remained the mos
t populous and wealthy sections of the empire. The emperor Constantine’s decision to establish an eastern capital (Constantinople, or “Constantine’s City”) on the site of the ancient Greek colony of Byzantium, at the mouth of the Black Sea, reflected the importance that the East had for the Roman Empire. The dedication of the new capital in 330 C.E. is a convenient point to identify as the beginning of Byzantine history. It is important to remember, however, that the Byzantines always regarded themselves as “Romanoi” and that a distinctive Byzantine culture required at least two centuries to emerge.
Map 1.1 Western Asia and the Mediterranean on the Eve of Islam
The eastern half of the Roman Empire remained stable and even flourished over the next two centuries while the western half succumbed to the attacks of Germanic invaders in the fourth and fifth centuries. By 410, Germanic tribes controlled Europe west of the Adriatic Sea and North Africa west of modern Tunisia. Constantinople ruled over an area that extended across southeastern Europe to the Adriatic, into Asia to a frontier just west of the Euphrates River, and into North Africa as far as modern Tunisia.
The Mediterranean climate of the coastal areas produced long, hot, and dry summers and temperate, rainy winters. The agriculture of these regions usually specialized in the production of grapes, olives, and grain. Away from the coast, agriculture was much more limited. Topography was one factor. Rugged mountains and narrow valleys are the dominant feature of the Balkans (southeastern Europe) and characterize all but the narrow coastal plains and central plateau of Anatolia (the bulk of modern Turkey). Spotty rainfall was another factor. The Anatolian plateau typically receives just enough rainfall to make growing wheat worthwhile, but the interior of Syria, Egypt, and North Africa are arid, making agriculture impossible without irrigation. Irrigation had made Egypt one of the earliest centers of civilization, and the centrality of irrigation to the life of Egypt had prompted the ancient Greek historian Herodotus to call Egypt “the gift of the Nile.” In Syria, the Euphrates and Orontes rivers and numerous oases provided water for irrigation. The river valleys and oases were the most densely populated regions of both Syria and Egypt. Because of their grain-producing potential, the two regions were invaluable “breadbaskets” for the empire, and were more important than ever after the loss to the Germanic invaders of grain-growing areas in the western Mediterranean.
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