Because of the economic strains, the government had difficulty paying its troops regularly. The soldiers became restive, and the various ethnic groups suspected each other of benefitting from favoritism. The mutual suspicions led to frequent clashes among the various units, and the Turks gained a reputation for initiating many of the fights. More disturbing still, the civilian population of Baghdad frequently fell victim to slights or outright injury from the arrogant soldiers, most of whom did not bother to learn Arabic. As early as 836, al-Mu‘tasim felt compelled to separate the Turks from the other troops and from the general populace by moving his capital some eighty miles to the north, where he built the city of Samarra. The move was intended to be permanent: Samarra entailed a massive investment on a scale not less than the founding of Baghdad itself. The palace and mosque complexes were imperial monuments, and within a few decades the city extended along the Tigris for twenty-four miles. Baghdad continued to function as a commercial and intellectual center, but it was no longer of political importance.
The Great Mosque of Samarra, late ninth century. Its outer walls enclose a prayer space larger than nine football fields.
The Assertion of Regional Autonomy
The move to Samarra only postponed the resolution of the crisis, which could hardly be solved by creating yet another imperial capital, especially as the economy was heading into a slow decline. The problem of the rebellious Turkish mamluks became only more serious. These military slaves, totally dependent on the caliph for their subsistence, could be loyal to the death to him when his support for them was unquestioned; on the other hand, they could pose a threat to him when doubts arose regarding their own security. In 861, the caliph al-Mutawakkil (847–861) punished a corrupt Turkish officer by seizing his property. In retaliation, a group of Turkish soldiers murdered him. The relationship between the soldiers and the court had become so poor that no caliph was able to repair it. The remainder of the decade was a period of anarchy during which three of the four caliphs who came to power were assassinated. The chaos in the capital ended strong central control over the provinces, and local leaders were quick to seize the opportunity to enhance their own power at the expense of Samarra. A Turkish general by the name of Ahmad ibn Tulun was appointed governor of Egypt in 868, but he took advantage of the confusion in the capital to establish an autonomous regime. He did not formally reject the authority of the caliph, but he stopped sending Egypt’s critically needed revenue to Iraq. Under Ibn Tulun and his descendants, Egypt remained autonomous for almost four decades.
The insecurity of Abbasid society is reflected in both the religious and political developments of the period. The eleventh Imam of the Imamiya died in 874, and the Lesser Occultation began at that time. The same decade witnessed the transformation of Isma‘ilism from a little-noticed underground activity into a major challenge to Abbasid power. In the eastern parts of the caliphate, dramatic political developments were taking place. Between 867 and 873, a coppersmith, al-Saffar, led a rebellion in Khorasan and Afghanistan and established the Saffarid dynasty there. Although the Saffarids did not sever relations with the caliph, they openly expressed their contempt for him, and they sent the revenue from their area to Samarra only at their pleasure, rather than on demand. By the beginning of the tenth century, the Saffarids were in turn ousted by the Samanid regime, which became truly independent of Baghdad. The new dynasty, based in Bukhara, continued to have the prayers in the mosques said in the name of the caliph, but it did not send revenue to his treasury at all. Moreover, the Samanids began a program of patronizing Persian literature as a way of declaring cultural independence from Arabic influence. During the ninth century, a revival of Persian literature had already been encouraged at the provincial courts of Iran, and the so-called “new Persian” had begun to adapt the Arabic alphabet and borrow certain Arabic words, as well as to borrow from motifs in Arabic poetry. Under the Samanids, the revived interest in the Persian heritage developed into a magnificent literature of epic poetry celebrating pre-Islamic heroes without becoming anti-Islamic in sentiment. We shall see examples of this later.
An unexpected challenge to the Abbasid government during this period was also in some ways the most threatening. The tens of thousands of African slaves who had been brought into southern Iraq in order to try to revive agricultural production were treated brutally, and in 869 they arose in revolt. They overwhelmed the local garrison, and for the next fourteen years the rebels, known as the Zanj, maintained a stronghold in southern Iraq, constantly threatening Baghdad with attack and depriving the caliphate of the revenue from its most productive province. The magnitude of this rebellion can be gauged by the fact that the rebels captured the military city of Wasit and the major city of Basra. Throughout the period, the rage that the ex-slaves felt about their treatment was expressed in the ferocity of their fighting. They massacred the inhabitants of the cities they captured and destroyed mosques and other public buildings. Because of the danger, commerce over the important Persian Gulf trade route was diverted to Iranian ports and to the Red Sea. When the revolt was finally quelled in 883, the consequences were severe: Basra had been destroyed, large-scale land reclamation projects were never resumed, and the major trade routes had shifted permanently.
In 892, in an attempt to revive the fortunes of the empire, the Abbasid government began the formidable project of moving the government apparatus back to Baghdad. Abandoned, Samarra’s vast and magnificent mud-brick structures began to melt into the desert, becoming a metaphor for the fortunes of the dynasty as the economic crisis of the caliphate accelerated. The political disintegration of the empire played a major role in this regard. The Samanid seizure of power ended the prospects of revenue coming from Khorasan, and the drying up of the Persian Gulf trade route starved both the customs revenue and the local retail trade. The land revenues from southern Iraq, which had already been declining before the Zanj revolt, continued to plummet. By the early tenth century, the revenues from the once-wealthiest province were one-third what they had been during the time of Harun al-Rashid. Egypt became increasingly autonomous throughout the tenth century and was able to reduce the amount of revenue sent to Baghdad. The reduction of the flow of revenue from the Nile valley (and Palestine, which was controlled by the Egyptian regime) was a catastrophic blow to the Abbasid court, for it meant that insufficient revenue was available to pay the army. The result was a state of perpetual mutiny.
In a desperate effort to bring order to the capital, the caliph in 936 agreed to give a Turkish general responsibility for both civil and military administration. The caliphal office, which had been weak for several decades to that point, now became ineffectual for over two centuries. But even this fateful step did not bring stability. The devolution of power from the caliph to a general triggered a jealous struggle among the local military elite, leading to a decade of turmoil in Baghdad. The stage was set for a well-organized outside force to march in and take control. In 945, the Buyid clan did just that.
The Buyids were from Daylam, in the Elburz mountain range. Because it was a wild and remote area, it served as a refuge to people throughout history who wanted to keep imperial governments at arm’s length. During the late eighth century, Alids began to seek refuge in the area, and over the next hundred years, this remote area became a stronghold of both Zaydi and Imami Shi‘ism. In 932, a Daylami named ‘Ali ibn Buya, along with two of his brothers and a few hundred infantrymen, ventured south into Fars. This province, the heartland of the old Sasanian empire, had remained prosperous throughout the previous century, even as Baghdad suffered blow after blow. One of the few revenue-producing provinces left to the Abbasids, Fars had only recently fallen victim to the depredations of some renegade soldiers from Baghdad and was ripe for the plucking. In a single battle, ‘Ali won control of the area, and from his base in the provincial capital of Shiraz, he and his brothers sought to expand their area of control. In 945 one brother, Ahmad, negotiated a takeover of Baghdad, and the following year a
l-Hasan conquered the Iranian plateau from Rayy to Esfahan.
The Buyid brothers and their immediate descendants ruled their provinces as a confederation. Utterly pragmatic, they acknowledged the spiritual authority of the caliph and asserted that he had appointed them to their posts. Ahmad assumed the title of Commander of Commanders, while ‘Ali and al-Hasan took the title of governor of their respective provinces. Despite the connotation of the titles, ‘Ali remained the most influential of the three rulers, and he sealed the issue by adopting as his title Shahanshah, a Sasanian title meaning “King of Kings.” The first generation of Buyid rulers seem to have been Zaydi Shi‘ites, but later they provided generous support to Twelver Shi‘ism. Although the Buyids did not try to force their subjects to adopt Shi‘ism, the Sunni Abbasid caliph was humiliated to be under Shi‘ite control. After eighty years of splendor in Baghdad and a century of decline, the Abbasid caliphs had been reduced to figurehead status.
The Fatimid Caliphate
In the preceding chapter, we saw that the Isma‘ilis were the Shi‘ites who regarded Isma‘il’s son Muhammad as the Imam when Ja‘far al-Sadiq died in 765. After a century of underground activity, they reemerged as militant social and religious activists. One faction of Isma‘ilis even set up a rival caliphate, challenging the Abbasid caliphate in Baghdad. This was a development of major importance for Muslim history. Shi‘ites had verbally expressed their disdain of the Sunni caliphate, but never before had a competing caliphate actually been created. For over two and one-half centuries, the Fatimid caliphate would pose a threat to Sunni political and religious dominance.
Isma’ili Activism
The first two centuries of Muslim rule had brought about a dramatic urbanization of southwestern Asia, transforming the economic and social relationships of the area. By the middle of the ninth century, the Arab tribal aristocracy that had been dominant during Umayyad times was a secondary influence, having been shouldered aside by a ruling class composed of merchants, military leaders, administrators, religious leaders, and landowners. Many of the new elite were the offspring of marriages between Arabs and local women, and some had no Arab lineage at all. The striking wealth of the cities, and the relative impoverishment of the peasants and the bedouin, became a focal point of grievances that led to rural unrest. As we have seen, the Abbasid caliph had become more remote than before, causing some Muslims to mumble about their “Sasanian prince.”
It was in this period of growing social cleavage, a widespread perception of injustice, near anarchy in some regions, and the erosion of the legitimacy of the Abbasid regime that, after more than a century of underground activity, Isma‘ilism burst onto the scene. From the outset, the movement served as a vehicle of social protest and promised that the existing order would be overthrown in favor of a just and egalitarian society. Isma‘ilis preached that Muhammad ibn Isma‘il never died, but rather remained alive in seclusion. His return as the Mahdi was imminent, at which time he would eliminate the corruption, favoritism, and oppression inherent in the materialist society that had been built on the trade of luxury goods and the exploitation of the poor. He would inaugurate a new age of justice and abrogate the old law. In the meantime, his intermediaries provided spiritual leadership to his followers. Initially, the peasants and bedouin were the most responsive to the appeal, but over time a small group of the intelligentsia became involved in the movement, as well as substantial numbers of artisans and day laborers.
Much about the reemergence of Isma‘ilism is obscure, and the evidence is partial when it is not contradictory. Some of the confusion is due to the obsession for secrecy characteristic of an opposition movement; some is the result of genuine confusion on the part of observers, who could not distinguish among the many Shi‘ite groups competing for followers; and some is due to the fact that the Isma‘ilis’ enemies slandered them when they were not confused by them. It is clear that more than one group of Isma‘ilis arose toward the end of the third quarter of the ninth century.
One of these groups came to be known as the Carmathians. They had their demographic support in Syria, Iraq, and the Persian Gulf coast. Because of their proximity to Baghdad, they were a serious threat to the Abbasid regime, which they vowed to destroy. They attacked several Abbasid installations during the 890s and developed a fearsome reputation. They captured Bahrain from the Abbasid governor in 900 and maintained a prosperous state there for almost two centuries. The Carmathians of Bahrain gained favorable publicity among the poor as a result of their policy of sharing material goods equally, whereas notorious rumors (such as the sharing of wives) gained it equal disrepute among its detractors. Bahrain became the base for numerous raids against the Abbasids, including the capture of the large city of Basra.
The Carmathians became infamous for their massacres of pilgrims en route to Mecca. Making the pilgrimage was arduous and dangerous under the best of circumstances, but for extended periods of time, particularly during the years 902–906 and 923–939, Carmathian raids caused pilgrims to realize that performing the hajj could be an act of martyrdom. An episode in 930 won everlasting opprobrium for the sect when a group of Carmathian raiders attacked Mecca and carried away the Black Stone from the Ka‘ba. It was kept in Bahrain until 951, when it was returned for a large ransom. On the one hand, this act of theft and desecration caused most Muslims to loathe the Carmathians; on the other, it helped to show how irrelevant the Abbasid caliph had become. Combined with their regular attacks on pilgrims, the theft demonstrated that the Abbasid caliphate had no power outside the metropolis of Baghdad. Bahrain remained a regional power until the second half of the eleventh century, when it began to experience political and economic problems. In 1077, a bedouin army defeated and destroyed it.
Another Isma‘ili group appeared in Iran and Iraq in the 860s that resulted in the Fatimid movement. Its leaders, based in the lower Tigris River valley, established networks of agents throughout southern Iraq. Soon the Isma‘ili headquarters was transferred to Salamiya, north of Damascus. Because of its implicit—and often explicit—criticism of the existing social and political order, the organization came under increasing repression by the Abbasid government. Already having developed a complex underground system of secret cells that communicated with each other across vast distances, the Isma‘ilis now accelerated their efforts to spread their message of an alternative to the Abbasids. By the end of the ninth century, Isma‘ili missionaries were organizing cells in villages and cities from North Africa to India.
As noted in Chapter 3, the Isma‘ili leader at Salamiya, ‘Abd Allah, left Syria in 902 and made his way westward. The traditional account of the reason for this move attributes it to a schism within the Isma‘ili leadership. There is evidence that in 899 ‘Abd Allah began suggesting to the leadership of the group that he would soon publicly announce that he was the Imam himself, rather than merely a spokesman for him. He also claimed that he was descended from Ja‘far al-Sadiq’s son ‘Abd Allah rather than from Isma‘il. These were stunning revisions of accepted doctrine and came as a great shock to many Isma‘ilis. They had been accustomed to denigrating the followers of any claimant to the Imamate of Ja‘far al-Sadiq other than Isma‘il and his son Muhammad. For ‘Abd Allah to claim that a rival of Isma‘il’s line was the true Imam required a greater shift in loyalties and identity than many Isma‘ilis could muster. Many of them revolted, and in 902, ‘Abd Allah was forced to flee.
After spending several years in hiding in Egypt, ‘Abd Allah made his way to the Maghrib, where Isma‘ili missionaries had gained a large following among the Kutama Berbers of Ifriqiya. Making his way in 905 to the Kharijite oasis settlement of Sijilmasa on the fringe of the Sahara, ‘Abd Allah took up residence there in the guise of a merchant. He made contact with missionaries in Ifriqiya who were loyal to him. In 909, they overthrew the Aghlabids in ‘Abd Allah’s name. The following year, they escorted him from Sijilmasa to Qayrawan, where he took power in the royal suburbs of the city.
A Second Calipha
te in the Umma
As the self-proclaimed Imam, ‘Abd Allah also adopted the title of Mahdi and was known thereafter as ‘Abd Allah al-Mahdi. Since he claimed descent from Ja‘far’s son ‘Abd Allah, in a technical sense his mission was not Isma‘ili at all: It traced its origins to Isma‘il’s brother, rather than to Isma‘il himself. As we shall see in Chapter 6, one of his descendants reclaimed the Isma‘ili mantle several decades later. The followers of al-Mahdi’s organization eventually came to be known as the Fatimiya, or the Fatimids, which suggested descent from ‘Ali and Fatima. This claim, of course, was not unique to his group, but it is the name that became permanently associated with it. The Fatimids themselves apparently did not use the word Fatimid. They simply called themselves dawlat al-haqq, which means “the legitimate governmental authority.”
The ruling elite realized the importance of the Aghlabid navy that they inherited, and they enlarged it for military and commercial purposes. Their orientation toward the sea took graphic form when ‘Abd Allah created a new capital on the coast and named it Mahdiya, “(The City) of the Mahdi.” The Fatimid navy captured Sicily, raided the coasts of France and Italy, and plundered Genoa. The fleet dominated the central Mediterranean and threatened the trade of the Muslims of the Iberian Peninsula. The Fatimids also made great efforts to increase the existing trans-Sahara trade and were able to enhance Ifriqiya’s importance as a commercial center for goods from both the Mediterranean basin and the sub-Saharan region.
A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilization Page 17