A History of the Muslim World to 1405
Page 25
Al-Ash‘ari’s attempt to reconcile God’s omnipotence with man’s responsibility for his own acts was rejected by the Mu‘tazilites and Hanbalis alike. The Mu‘tazilites saw that it precluded free will, and the Hanbalis were opposed to the use of rational arguments in support of doctrinal points. Moreover, the Mu‘tazilites could not accept the literalist presuppositions of al-Ash‘ari, and the Hanbalis refused to recognize that reason had any role in affairs of religion. Al-Ash‘ari did have followers, however, and they continued to refine his approach in ways that became acceptable to most Muslims. By the middle of the eleventh century, “Ash‘arism” represented a compromise between rationalists and those who placed a premium on faith, and became the major expression of Sunni theological thought. Hanbalis were a dwindling, if influential, minority, whereas Mu‘tazilism practically disappeared among Sunni scholars and became associated with Shi‘ism. It had become apparent to most scholars that the real conflict was not between rationalism and faith, but over the scope and the validity of reason in faith. The theologians, as opposed to the philosophers, could not accept reason as a source of new and certain knowledge, but they became increasingly sophisticated in their use of reason to demonstrate the truths of revelation.
Conclusion
Just as the middle of the tenth century represents a major watershed in the political history of the Dar al-Islam, it also marks a milestone in the development of Islam as a major religion. By that time, the principles for deriving the Shari‘a had been established, and, as a result, Sunni Islam had its basic organizing principle. Shi‘ism had become a sectarian movement, and the majority of its adherents were clustered into two groups. One of them had become known as the Isma‘ili or Fatimid movement and had achieved political power in North Africa, allowing it to develop without fear of governmental persecution. The members of the Imami branch of Shi‘ism, who heretofore had followed a “visible” and “present” Imam, became “Twelvers” after 874, awaiting the return of the Twelfth Imam, who was being groomed by God to return in triumph from his “occultation.” The essential difference between Sunnis and Shi‘ites seemed to be that the former sought God’s will in a method of inquiry for determining the Shari‘a, whereas the latter sought God’s will in the first instance from a divinely guided descendant of Muhammad.
Sufism, too, had achieved an important milestone by the middle of the tenth century. The major issues of basic presuppositions and of the methods for achieving spiritual maturity had been established, but Sufism was still in its infancy in terms of organization and literature. Sufism offered new avenues for worshiping God, and its deep spirituality appealed to many. Conversely, it threatened others. Whereas some Sufis understood their quest to be the fulfillment of the Shari‘a, others saw it as an alternative to the practice of the Shari‘a, with the result that some of the ulama were deeply suspicious of it.
Muslims were also active in science, philosophy, and medicine in this period. The translations of the ninth century, in particular, made available the heritage of the Greco-Roman tradition and of India. Important work by Muslims in medicine, mathematics, and philosophy laid the foundations for subsequent generations of philosopher-scientists to make contributions that are still admired. Other Muslims were beginning to question whether the quest for knowledge independent of the scriptures was either worthwhile or pious.
It is noteworthy that the work of scholars in Iraq was central to the developments within Imami Shi‘ism, the Shari‘a, Sufism, philosophy, mathematics, and medicine during this period. The Muslims there—Arabs and converts, natives and immigrants—managed to create a tradition that was enriched by its sophisticated environment and yet remained a distinctly Islamic enterprise, inspired by the Qur’an and the example of the Prophet. After the mid-tenth century, the most important intellectual work would take place on the geographical periphery of the Dar al-Islam, rather than in its heartland. The glory days of the Abbasid caliphate were over.
NOTES
1.
Ptolemy, the second-century Roman scientist, postulated a model of the universe that would shape the thought of scholars in the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic lands for over a millennium and a half. Like almost all other intellectuals, he assumed that the earth was at the center of the universe, and that surrounding it were spheres containing the various celestial bodies. The spheres contained the moon, the sun, each of the five planets, and the stars (which were equidistant from the earth, and hence all in the same sphere), as well as what many scholars referred to as the Primum Mobile, or the agency that drives the entire apparatus as a result of the First Cause, or the One.
FURTHER READING
The Origins of Islamic Law
Coulson, N.J. A History of Islamic Law. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1964.
Hallaq, Wael B. A History of Islamic Legal Theories: An Introduction to Sunni usul al-fiqh. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Juynboll, Gualterus H. A. Muslim Tradition: Studies in Chronology, Provenance and Authorship of Early Hadith, Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Schacht, Joseph. An Introduction to Islamic Law, Second Impression. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964.
Schacht, Joseph. The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Fourth Impression. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967.
Early Sufism
Arberry, A. J. Sufism: An Account of the Mystics of Islam. New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1950.
Knysh, Alexander. Islamic Mysticism: A Short History. Leiden, Boston, Koln: Brill, 2000.
Peters, F. E. Allah’s Commonwealth: A History of Islam in the Near East 600–1100 A.D. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973.
Schimmel, Annemarie. The Mystical Dimension of Islam. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: The University of North Carolina Press, 1975.
The Reception of Science and Philosophy
Anawati, G. “Science.” In Cambridge History of Islam, edited by P. M. Holt, A. K. Lambton, and B. Lewis, vol. II, pp. 741–779. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1970.
Fakhry, Majid. A History of Islamic Philosophy, 2d ed. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987.
al-Hasan, Ahmad, and Donald R. Hill. Islamic Technology: An Illustrated History. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1986.
Hill, Donald R. Islamic Science and Engineering. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1994.
Lindberg, David C., ed. Science in the Middle Ages. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1978.
Peters, F.E. Aristotle and the Arabs: The Aristotelian Tradition in Islam. New York: New York University Press, 1968.
Turner, Howard R. Science in Medieval Islam: An Illustrated Introduction. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1995.
Ullmann, Manfred. Islamic Surveys II: Islamic Medicine. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1978.
Young, M.J.L., J.D. Latham, and R.J. Serjeant, eds. Religion, Learning, and Science in the ‘Abbasid Period. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
PART TWO
A Civilization Under Siege, 950–1260
By 950, Muslims were justified in feeling a sense of satisfaction in the accomplishments of the past. The agreement upon a methodology for jurisprudence had produced a comprehensive set of rules and laws that Sunnis accepted without question; after a bumpy start, the mystical life was becoming attractive to more and more Muslims; science and philosophy were being selectively incorporated into the Islamic theological framework; and a far-flung commercial network was increasing wealth and stimulating creative solutions to everyday problems. The result was the emergence of a civilization that could compare favorably with any that had existed in history.
Despite these achievements, many thoughtful Muslims shared a sense of foreboding about the future of the Dar al-Islam. In 950, three caliphs claimed exclusive legitimacy as leader of the Muslim world, and they were prepared to act upon those claims. The competing claims of authority were exacerbated by differences in religious creeds
: The caliph in Cordoba was a Sunni; the one in Mahdiya was a Fatimid Shi‘ite; and in Baghdad, the Sunni caliph was powerless, whereas the Buyid sultan—who exercised the real power in the Abbasid caliphate—supported Twelver Shi‘ism. The sense of lost unity, both spiritual and political, has haunted Muslims ever since, and has been a major factor in the rise of reform movements for more than a millennium.
As it turned out, the next three centuries would confirm both the highest hopes and the worst fears of the mid-tenth century. The period from 950 to 1260 witnessed major cultural achievements—many historians judge its cultural productivity to have been one of the most spectacular in world history—but it is dominated by shocking violence and disorder. The first three centuries of Muslim history experienced violence, as we have seen, but it was episodic and most of it occurred between armies. In the second period, by contrast, we witness numerous examples of factional conflict among the inhabitants of the same city, persecution of subjects by their rulers, and “total war” tactics by invading armies, in which farmers and city dwellers alike suffered from ruined property or death, simply for being in the way.
The political history of the period 950–1260 can be divided in half to illustrate some important differences. The first half, 950–1100, provides a rough approximation for the period during which most of the violence was that of Muslims against other Muslims. This is the subject treated in Chapter 6. From eastern Iran to Andalus, new political dynasties came to power, and they did so in the only way they could, which was to overthrow the existing rulers. The second half of the three-century period, roughly 1100–1260, is the subject of Chapter 7. The degree of the violence intensified and tended to affect noncombatants more than previously. The origin of most of the violence was from outside the Dar al-Islam, and was initiated by non-Muslims. This is the period of the Reconquista in the Iberian Peninsula, the Crusades in Anatolia and Syria, and the Mongols in Iran and Iraq. Overlapping both of these periods is the in-migration of tens of thousands of Turkish warrior–herdsmen. Some of their leaders were devout Muslims and sophisticated leaders of great ability, but the vast majority of their followers were illiterate, only nominally Muslim, and were in search of plunder. Their initial impact was destructive, too, but the long-term effect of the irruption of the Turks into the Dar al-Islam would be not only constructive, but decisive, in shaping the character of Islamic civilization.
Chapter 8 returns to the topic of religious and intellectual developments that we last explored in Chapter 5. By the mid-tenth century, Muslim scholars were sufficiently familiar with the Greek and Indian cultural legacies to begin making major contributions of their own, and some of the most famous intellectuals in Muslim history produced their work during the next three centuries. Their achievements in science and philosophy were so impressive that western Europeans began a major translation process to transfer Arabic learning into Latin. On the other hand, a consensus developed among Muslims that the exercise of reason, unless guided by revelation, was a dangerous force in society. Increasingly, intellectuals who might have pursued a path in philosophy became mystics instead. Indeed, this was the period in which the most distinctive Sufi institutions—the lodge and the order—emerged.
Chapter 9 surveys the state of the Dar al-Islam as it was in the mid-thirteenth century, employing the concept of “commonwealth” that some scholars have adopted to characterize this vast and diverse portion of the planet which, for all its differences, constituted a single civilization. The scale of the violence of the period could have spelled the end of Islam. Islam’s enemies, in fact, counted on that to happen. Precisely the opposite happened. Muslims proved to be highly resourceful, and developed new social institutions that enabled them to weather the storms that afflicted them both physically and emotionally. They had created a civilization that would not only survive, but would thrive, under the most severe conditions.
CHRONOLOGY
969 Fatimids conquer Egypt
998–1030 Reign of Mahmud of Ghazna
c.1000–1037 Career of Ibn Sina
1034–1060 Norman conquest of port cities in Ifriqiya
969 Fatimids conquer Egypt
998–1030 Reign of Mahmud of Ghazna
c.1000–1037 Career of Ibn Sina
1034–1060 Norman conquest of port cities in Ifriqiya
1058 Tughril Bey secures Baghdad for Saljuqs
1050s–1147 Almoravid Empire
1060–1091 Norman conquest of Muslim Sicily
1066 Norman conquest of England
1071 Battle of Manzikert
c.1085–1111 Career of al-Ghazali
1085 Toledo falls to Reconquista
1092 Civil war begins among Great Saljuqs
1094 Musta‘li-Nizari schism among Fatimids; “Assassins” become notorious
1099 First Crusade conquers Jerusalem
1130 Hafizi-Tayyibi schism among Fatimids
1140s First Gothic cathedral (Saint Denis)
1144 Edessa falls; first Crusader state to do so
1147–1269 Almohad Empire
c.1160–1198 Career of Ibn Rushd
c.1170 Emergence of Sufi lodges
1171 Saladin takes power in Cairo, ends Fatimid caliphate
1176 Battle of Myriokephalon
1187 Battle of Hattin
1189–1193 Third Crusade
1180–1225 Caliphate of al-Nasir, who attempts a renaissance of Abbasid power
c.1200 Emergence of Sufi tariqas
c.1200–1240 Career of Ibn al-‘Arabi
1204 Fourth Crusade results in sack of Constantinople and creation of Latin Kingdom
1212 Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa
1215 Magna Carta issued in England
1219–1222 Chinggis Khan’s campaigns in Muslim world
1236–1266 All of Andalus except Granada falls to Reconquista
c.1240–1273 Career of Rumi
1241 Batu defeats coalition army of Europeans at Liegnitz
1250 Mamluke era begins
1258 Hulagu destroys Baghdad
1260 Mamlukes defeat Mongols at ‘Ayn Jalut
1261 Byzantines regain Constantinople from Latin Kingdom
1269 Marinids replace Almohads in Morocco
CHAPTER 6
Filling the Vacuum of Power, 950–1100
In 950, three cities claimed to be the seat of the legitimate caliphate. The next century and a half proved that each claim merely demonstrated that the Muslim world was hopelessly divided, both religiously and politically. The inherent weakness of each polity, and the emerging social strains in each region, rendered their claims ephemeral. Their petty concerns and evident weakness encouraged other ambitious leaders to make bids for power, with the result that the period witnessed frequent clashes for power.
The year 1100 is a convenient one with which to close the period. In the east, the Buyids fell in 1055 to a group of invaders called the Saljuq Turks. Their entry into the heartland of the Muslim world heralded the arrival of a dynamic ethnic group that would dominate large parts of the Dar al-Islam for centuries to come. A dynastic struggle for power within their ranks in the 1090s, however, left the Mediterranean coastline vulnerable to the invasion of the Frankish Crusaders at the close of the decade. In North Africa, the Fatimid empire became the greatest of the Muslim powers in the eleventh century, but it suffered a debilitating schism in 1094, also just before the Crusaders showed up to seize Palestine from it. In the west, the Reconquista claimed its first major triumph in 1085 by taking Toledo, but a new Berber dynasty known as the Almoravids immediately came across the Strait of Gibraltar from North Africa to prevent any more of Andalus from falling under Christian control. By 1100, the Almoravids had incorporated most of Andalus into their North African empire.
The Buyid Sultanate
In Baghdad, one of the first orders of business for the Buyids when they seized power in 945 was the regularization of pay for the military. They inherited from the Abbasid regime a practice that had begun as early
as the ninth century of substituting “tax farms” for the salaries due to officers. Because tax collection was so inefficient, the government was often short of cash to pay military officers and high civilian officials. The new technique entailed granting to officials the right to collect the taxes themselves from specific villages or districts. The system under the Abbasids had had only limited success due to its intermittent practice and to the fact that the officers in charge of the revenue of a district sometimes would not forward to the government the amount in excess due to the officer himself. The Buyids codified the practice, guaranteeing the officers that if their assignment was inadequate, another would be exchanged for it, and implementing audits that secured the amount due the government. The grant of a tax district is known as an iqta‘, and it proved to have a long life in southwestern Asia. Its theoretical appeal to government officials is understandable, but in practice it proved detrimental to the economic productivity of the areas in which it operated. The officer in charge of local revenues was often tempted to extract more taxes than were due him whenever he saw any accumulated wealth, and as a result peasants and merchants soon learned that they had no incentive to improve their farms or businesses.
The early Buyids wore their Zaydi convictions lightly, but later generations made no secret of their Twelver Shi‘ite sympathies. On the one hand, they did not force their sectarian identity upon their subjects and they never threatened the Sunni caliph. On the other hand, they did protect and encourage the practice of Shi‘ism, which had been crystallizing in Iraq even before the Buyids assumed power there. Hasan al-‘Askari, the eleventh Imam of Twelver Shi‘ism, was in Samarra when he died in 874, and the scholars who began developing the idea of the Hidden Imam in the 940s were centered in Baghdad. During the 960s, the Buyid regime in Baghdad inaugurated two ceremonies that became central to the ritual life of subsequent Twelver Shi‘ism. One was ‘ashura’, which memorializes the death of Husayn at Karbala. ‘Ashura’ literally means “tenth,” referring to the tenth day of the month of Muharram, when Husayn was killed. Over the next several centuries, the observance of the martyrdom eventually developed into an elaborate ten-day observance involving prayer, Qur’anic recitations, reenactments of the battle at Karbala, and, in some localities, self-flagellation by the pious as a way to share in Husayn’s suffering.