by Ehsan Masood
With the fall of the Umayyad caliphs in Cordoba, al-Andalus split into a variety of city states. The Almoravids lasted a century and were followed by the Almohads, who ruled from 1130 to 1269. The Almohads were known in Arabic as al-Muwa-hidun, or ‘the unitarians’, and like ibn-Arabi they took the view that the universe and all of life are a part of God. Not unlike the Almoravids, they were also zealous about reforming what they saw as Spanish society’s lax morals. They persecuted, equally, Muslims who disagreed with them and non-Muslims, which meant that people such as Maimonides were forced to leave home and settle in other parts of the Islamic empire. It is interesting that more than two centuries of an often violent and anti-intellectual atmosphere witnessed both the flowering and the decline of learning, and especially philosophy, in Islamic Spain.
Many other Andalusian scientists introduced earlier, such as ibn-Zuhr and al-Zarqali, were working around the same time. And this period further produced two of Islam’s best-known geographers and travellers: al-Idrisi of Cordoba and ibn-Batuta. Al-Idrisi produced a famous map of the world for the Norman King Roger of Sicily in 1139, and also one of the first great geographies of the world, known as the Book of Roger. In this, he describes the climates, people and products of the entire known world. He also tantalisingly tells the tale of a Moroccan navigator who was blown off course in the Atlantic and sailed west for 30 days, before returning to tell of a fertile land far across the sea.
Ibn-Batuta of Granada was one of the great travellers of the age. In 1325, at the age of 21, he set off on the Hajj to Mecca. He finally came home after 24 years, having visited not just Arabia, but Egypt, Syria, Iraq, East Africa, India, Russia, and even China and Sumatra. The story of his journey is one of the best travel books of all time, and added considerably to people’s knowledge of the world.
At the same time as the exodus of Muslims and Jews from al-Andalus had begun, Christian kings were gradually regaining control of Spain. Quite often, the new rulers were happy to respect Islamic ways as they moved south, and Arabic inscriptions were often incorporated in new churches and synagogues. But in 1492, the reconquista under Queen Isabella was finally complete, and Jews and Muslims had to leave al-Andalus permanently. Many settled across the waters in Morocco or in other Islamic lands – where many of their descendants still live.
Footnote
1 The Tables of Toledo were the work of a group of Toledan astronomers in the 11th and 12th centuries, led by Sa’id al-Andalusi and including al-Zarqali. They were mostly based on existing tables by al-Khwarizmi and al-Battani, but included some new observations by al-Zarqali. It is thought that they were essentially an attempt to adjust data to the latitude of Toledo, which became the new astronomical meridian. But for all their care, they apparently contained serious errors in relation to the movements of Mercury and Mars. Nevertheless, they became famous throughout Europe over the next few centuries, and in Chaucer’s The Franklin’s Tale, the clerk proudly displays his ‘Tables Tolletanes’.
7
Beyond the Abbasids
To whom, indeed, can it be easy to write the announcement of the death blow of Islam and the Muslims, or who is he on whom the remembrance can weigh lightly? … For even Antichrist will spare such as follow him, though he destroy those who oppose him, but these Mongols spared none, slaying women and men and children, ripping open pregnant women and killing unborn babes.
Ibn al-Athir writing of the Mongol invasion of Persia in 1221
For 200 years or so under the Abbasid caliphs the Islamic empire was vast and Baghdad was among the world’s wealthiest and most dynamic cities, a magnet for thinkers and scholars. Yet as with the Umayyads before them, not all were happy with the Abbasids and there were troubles on the fringes of the empire. Just as during the Umayyads’ twilight years in Damascus, discontent was brewing.
Sensing weakness at the centre, governing families of individual provinces began to establish their own territories independent of the caliphate. In Central Asia, the Safavids and Samanids set themselves up as rulers, while out to the west, in North Africa, the Tulunids declared themselves in Egypt and the Aghlabids in Tunisia and then Sicily.
With less and less revenue flowing into Baghdad and the caliph’s power dwindling, the irrigation systems in Iraq began to break down for lack of maintenance and agricultural production dropped. Baghdad was slipping into a spiral of decline. To maintain a semblance of power, the caliph was forced to rely upon his professional army – and so they gained more and more influence.
No longer feeling that the Abbasid caliph was in control, the Fatimids, a family that claimed descent from the Prophet Muhammad (through his daughter Fatima), declared their own caliphate in North Africa in 909. Twenty years later, the Umayyad leader in Cordoba, Abd al-Rahman III, declared himself caliph too. And finally, in 945, one family of generals, the Buyids, marched south to Baghdad from the Elborz mountains in the north of Iran and stormed the city. The Buyids left the caliph in power nominally, but adopted the title sultan and shahanshah (king of kings) for themselves, reminiscent of the old Sassanian kings.
The Fatimids
Among those who succeeded the Abbasids, it was the Fatimids who perhaps did most, as a caliphate, to continue advances in science and learning. The Fatimids had come to power on the basis that they had a relationship to the family of Muhammad and were therefore the legitimate heirs to the Prophet. They belonged to the Ismaili tradition, a branch of Shia Islam. The Abbasid administration was multi-cultural and multi-religious yet increasingly unpopular with Muslims, in part because of the interrogation of those who refused to agree with their rationalist take on religion. The ending of the Abbasid inquisition by the Caliph al-Mutawakkil weakened them further and the close of the 9th century, therefore, saw pockets of dissent in many places, as well as, for the first time, the emergence of a power in the Fatimids who were strong enough to challenge the Abbasids.
At last, Muslims of the Shia tradition were in power. They had waited nearly three centuries for this moment, and when it came they ensured that it would last as long as possible. The Fatimids ruled from 909 to 1171, with Cairo as their capital. Like the Abbasids, the Fatimids were patrons of science, medicine, engineering and learning. They were rationalist to a degree, and could be as hard-core as, say, al-Mamun. The origins of the Fatimid caliphs lay in missionary work, and for them, learning was seen as an important vehicle for the spread of faith – not unlike the view taken by al-Mamun’s opponents, the traditionalist scholars of Baghdad. In this and in other ways, they were closer to popular religion compared with the Abbasids, which meant, for example, that they had little time for astrology. They were keener on astronomy, however, and better builders of institutions. Their most famous legacy, Al-Azhar university, built in 988 initially to train Fatimid missionaries, is one of the world’s oldest fully-functioning institutions for teaching and research.
If there is one Fatimid caliph who stands out above the others, a strong candidate would have to be al-Hakim, who ruled for 25 years from 996 to 1021. He was as much a patron of science as the Abbasid al-Mamun, but had less of the urge to conquer Christianity and quickly concluded an armistice with the emperor of Byzantium. Similarly, he seemed to have no desire to smother his people with his own personal take on religion, and was happier to see the Fatimid caliphate provide a neutral space for Islam’s many (and rapidly dividing) traditions, from the extremely rationalist to the extremely orthodox. Famous scientists that were Ismaili (or brought up under the Ismaili influence of the Fatimids) included ibn-Sina, author of the Canon of Medicine, and the physicist Hassan ibn al-Haitham, who made important discoveries in optics and in astronomy among other things.
An Islamic world
Within the space of less than half a century, as quickly as it had come into being, the vast Islamic empire that stretched 4,000 miles from Central Asia to the Atlantic had disintegrated. Or at least so it seemed. The remarkable thing is that that wasn’t how it turned out at all – at least for a while.
In just three centuries, Islam had laid down such deep roots in nearly all the regions of the world it had touched that even with the power of the one caliph all but gone, and the empire entirely broken up, Islam was as strong as ever. There were now three separate caliphs – one in Baghdad, one in Egypt and one in Spain – and dozens of local rulers who paid them no heed. Yet the Islamic world was, if anything, even more unified in culture, language and religion than ever.
So as Baghdad’s glory faded a little, other cities across Islam began to shine. Cordoba already rivalled Baghdad, and when the Umayyads lost their dominance in Spain, so the city states of Seville, Toledo and Granada burst into life. In Morocco, there was Fez. And out in the east, in Central Asia, the Safavids and Samanids established thriving cities – Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara – that emulated Baghdad in culture, learning and architecture. Another appeared in what is now Afghanstan at Kabul. The new city that made the most lasting impact, though, was al-Qahirah, or Cairo, established by the Fatimids near Fustat in Egypt in 969.
New centres
There was no shortage of opportunities for scholars and scientists in any one of these new alternatives. If anything there were more. But Islamic learning was no longer concentrated effectively in one place, and so it is much harder to see the thread of what was going on (which is why this continuation has only recently been appreciated by historians). Indeed, it must have been as hard for scholars at the time – hard to know where to go for the best opportunities, and hard to keep abreast of the latest developments in cities up to 4,000 miles away. Thus different centres began to go different ways.
Each of the centres acquired its own scientific stars in time. Seville in the 12th century, for instance, had the physician Abu Marwan ibn-Zuhr and the great astronomer Nur al-Din Abu-Ishaq al-Bitruji (Alpetragius). Al-Bitruji was not one of those who seriously questioned Ptolemy, but his mathematical rigour and calculations helped to provide some of the groundwork for Copernicus to create his heliocentric theory centuries later. In Madrid, there was the astronomer Maslama al-Majriti who perfected the astrolabe and gave Europe its first taste of Islamic astronomical tables. In Toledo, as we have already seen, there was al-Zarqali (Alzachel).
Also, as Christians were beginning to push south into Spain in the first stages of the reconquest, in the east came increasing incursions from the Turkic peoples. Most had converted to Islam but had a different culture to those who spoke Arabic. Over time, they edged further and further west into the heartland of the Abbasid Caliphate. In 1050, a group called the Seljuk Turks invaded Syria and Mesopotamia and, five years later, captured Baghdad.
As with the Buyids, the Seljuks called themselves sultans and let the Abbasid caliphs remain in Baghdad. There were still opportunities for scholars in the east, but they had to be more and more careful to attach themselves to the right patron and avoid being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time – like Omar Khayyam, who was caught in Isfahan after his patron, the Sultan Malik Shah, was killed in battle and his other protector, Nizam al-Mulk,1 was assassinated. Khayyam was lucky only to be forced to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca.
Heading for Cairo
For a while, Cairo must have seemed the safest bet – far from the troubled eastern and western fringes – and it attracted some of the greatest minds of the age, such as astronomer ibn-Yunus and physicist ibn al-Haitham. Cairo was one of the great medical centres, and eventually had three big hospitals: the ibn-Tulun, one of the first Islamic hospitals, dating to 872; the famous al-Mansuri where ibn al-Nafis was ‘Chief of Physicians’ in the 13th century; and the Qalawun hospital which was set up by Sultan Qalawun in 1284 and lasted some 650 years until it was demolished in the early 20th century. Part of the complex can still be seen today.
Hospitals existed before Islam, of course, but Islam’s duty of care meant that early Islamic hospitals were often well funded by benefactors. The effect was to create hospitals that were models of healthcare for their age, and which seem surprisingly modern in their arrangements.
From the records, we know that the hospital was of a cruciform shape and divided into wards in which patients were separated depending on the type of illness they were suffering from. The mentally ill were kept apart from those with physical symptoms and men were housed separately from women. There were also separate units for patients with eye disorders, stomach complaints and those needing surgery. Hospital doctors by that stage had begun to specialise, and the Qalawun hospital’s records tell us that it employed physicians, surgeons and opthalmologists, as well as administrators, nurses, accountants and orderlies. According to one report, many new patients were treated every day. If someone died during their stay in the hospital, the endowment would also pay for their burial expenses.
Cairo was also the location for Al-Azhar university, founded by the Fatimids. Historians debate the debt that European universities owe to these older Islamic universities, but they were definitely pioneers in the field of higher education. They were initially mosques designed for teaching, but the curriculum gradually extended to include a wide range of subjects. Students would travel long distances to study at Al-Azhar.
In 1005, the Fatimid Caliph al-Hakim gave Cairo its own Dar al-Hikma (House of Wisdom). It was essentially an academy for teaching astronomy, maths, medicine and astrology, but it also taught the Shia beliefs of its Fatimid patrons – which occasionally inspired the resentment of the predominantly Sunni population. Soon, Cairo acquired its own intellectual salons too, run by al-Hakim and his successors.
Ibn al-Haitham’s madness
Al-Hakim is one of those figures over whom opinions are quite divided, and to this day writers from the Ismaili tradition say that he has been unfairly caricatured by his enemies. Traditionally, he has been described as an erratic and cruel ruler. Yet these descriptons come from sources who were opposed to the Ismailism that al-Hakim espoused.
One of the stories about al-Hakim is in relation to the physicist ibn al-Haitham. In Egypt, the annual flooding of the Nile was both a blessing and a curse. It brought the water for crops, and the rich silt in which they grew, but it also caused widespread devastation. The magnificent nilometers built by the Egyptians to check the levels of water in the river are a testament to how seriously and scientifically they took the problem. Still working in Basra, ibn al-Haitham came up with a plan to manage the Nile’s floods by building a dam up-river. Al-Hakim heard of ibn al-Haitham’s plan and brought him to Cairo to put it into action. Ibn al-Haitham arrived and set off up the river to get to work. By the time he had got as far as Aswan, he realised that the Nile was still far too wide to ever create a dam, and that his plan would never work.
Now, the story goes, he had to go back to the caliph and tell him that the plan failed, but fearing the wrath of the irascible al-Hakim, ibn al-Haitham feigned madness, acting even more strangely than the caliph himself. It was a risky idea, but ibn al-Haitham’s mad ramblings and subsequent stupor apparently convinced the caliph and he was kept under effective house arrest in the Al-Azhar in Cairo. Here, the peace and quiet and the patronage of al-Hakim’s sister Sitt al-Mulk gave him the scope to do his brilliant work on optics. There is no way of knowing how true the story is, but ibn al-Haitham’s scientific achievements are indisputable.
Cairo was not immune to the divisions being experienced in Islam, but at the same time, different caliphates found temporary unity in the shape of opposition to the Crusades. In 1171, the famous Salah al-Din Ayyubi (Saladin) overthrew the Fatimids and reunited the forces of Islam sufficiently to drive the Crusaders out. Still, Cairo and Egypt remained relatively safe compared to what was happening in the east of the Islamic world.
The coming of the Mongols
In 1219, Genghis Khan and his Mongol army conquered China with swiftness and ease, and then turned westwards. With an army numbering up to 800,000, many with incomparable skill on horseback, the Mongols were unstoppable.
Bukhara was quickly overwhelmed, and when they reached th
e university town of Nishapur, the slaughter was dreadful. Men, women and children in the city were beheaded, then disembowelled. In other cities that fell in the Mongols’ path, people were rounded up and slaughtered for sport like cattle. Those that survived the onslaught faced years of starvation, as the Mongols destroyed the qanats, the tunnels that supplied the fields with water.
When Genghis withdrew, the people of Islam might have sighed with relief. But the Mongols were not done. In 1256 and 1258, they were back, now led by Genghis’s grandson Helagu. This time, even Baghdad was not safe. Ignoring the caliph’s warning that his death would bring chaos to the world, the Mongols entered the city, killed the caliph and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of people.
No one knows how many citizens of the Islamic empire died at the hands of the Mongols, or how many died of starvation in their wake, but estimates suggest that it was many, many millions. One historian of the time suggested that the blow was so devastating that the population would take a thousand years to recover. He was not far wrong. The population of the region finally reached its pre-Mongol level again just a few decades ago.
The slaughter of those years is still etched deep on the memory of people in these parts. Yet there was still another dreadful invasion from the east to come in 1384. This was the Tartar army of Tamerlane the Great, which left a tower of heads piled in the square at Isfahan, and another in Baghdad, painfully rebuilt in the century after the Mongol destruction.
Survival
It would be easy to think that these unimaginable traumas would have spelled the death of Islamic science and culture. And yet, remarkably, they didn’t. Helagu Khan, the destroyer of Baghdad, for instance, became a Muslim and a patron to one of the greatest Muslim astronomers, Nasir al-Din al-Tusi; while in Iran, when the slaughter stopped, Tamerlane and his Timurid successors presided over the continuing flowering of Iranian culture. Indeed, some of medieval Islam’s greatest scientific achievements occurred after the Mongol and Tartar invasions.