Pathfinders

by Jim Al-Khalili

  In contrast, life for the poorer residents of Baghdad was in overcrowded multi-storey buildings, with floors separated by beams of palm-tree trunks, which were far more solid than the clay and sun-dried bricks that made up the walls and held the buildings together. In one account, a ninth-century Baghdadi landlord complains – as have all landlords before and since – about his tenants who

  constantly risk burning the building down by cooking on the roof, reducing the value of the property by clogging the drains, yanking on the doors and breaking the locks and hinges, and pounding their laundry on the floor instead of on the stone provided for that purpose. Their children dig holes in the courtyard, driving sticks into the walls and break the wooden shelves. And when they move out, they steal everything they can carry, including the ladders and water jars.6

  On the whole, this was a well-managed city, for the broad avenues and boulevards were kept clean and swept, and complex canals were used to ensure that water was carried in from the Tigris for the city’s inhabitants. The air would have been alive with the strong scent of local and imported spices and perfumes and, along the banks of the river, with the unmistakable smell of the local delicacy, a grilled fresh-water carp known as shabbout that is still popular to this day.

  Among my own most pleasant childhood memories of modern Baghdad are the sultry summer evenings out with my family on Abū Nou’was Street (see Plate 9). Named after one of Baghdad’s most famous poets and a contemporary of al-Ma’mūn, this tree-lined avenue along the east bank of the Tigris, with its parks and cafés, has always been a favourite meeting place. More than a thousand years earlier, Baghdadi families would no doubt have enjoyed similar riverside walks.

  But the Baghdad of my youth and the Baghdad of al-Ma’mūn’s youth have another, sadder, parallel. For in each case, the city was destined to suffer the ravages of a war that would banish its peaceful beauty, leaving much of its infrastructure destroyed and its glory in tatters. In both cases, the years of war and hardship would end in the same way: with the removal of the incumbent ruler from power. In 1980 Saddam Hussein’s Iraq declared war on Iran following many years of border disputes. The senseless eight-year-long conflict that followed would claim the lives of a million young men from both sides. And worse was to follow within just a few years when, in 1991, US fighter planes bombed Baghdad heavily in response to Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait. But they would wait a further decade – long enough for him to rebuild his powerbase and continue his acts of genocide while the population suffered the indignity of crippling international sanctions – before returning to finish the job in 2003.

  Twelve hundred years earlier, older, wiser and more ruthless than the innocent young student of Ja’far, al-Ma’mūn would himself be personally responsible for the destruction that befell his city.

  When it became necessary for al-Rashīd to choose an heir, he is said to have deliberated long and hard before deciding finally in favour of the younger and far less able but pure Arab-blooded al-Amīn. In 802, on the occasion of a pilgrimage to Mecca with his two teenage sons, the caliph formally announced their respective rights of succession following his death: al-Amīn as successor to the caliphate in Baghdad, with al-Ma’mūn sovereign over the eastern provinces of the empire, in Khurasan, with his seat in the city of Merv (now in Turkmenistan). His sons’ oaths of allegiance to stick to his wishes (what is called the Mecca Protocol) were recorded in documents that were rolled up, placed in boxes and stored within the Ka’ba.7 As a further part of the full succession agreement, al-Rashīd’s third and youngest son, al-Mu’tasim (794–842), was to become governor of Asia Minor and oversee the protection of the empire’s borders against the Byzantines.

  Al-Rashīd knew very well that the half-Persian al-Ma’mūn would make the better ruler: more intelligent, more determined and with sounder judgement. But he was pressured by those around him, particularly his wife Zubayda, to name the shallower and more frivolous al-Amīn. Once he had made up his mind, the extent of al-Rashīd’s determination to ensure his wishes were carried through is clear. He cut off the influential Persian Barmaki family from power and even went as far as having his loyal vizier Ja’far, who was of course very close to al-Ma’mūn, executed.8

  But it seems that al-Rashīd’s gift of Khurasan to his eldest son was more than a consolation prize. The province was highly symbolic, for this was where the Abbāsid revolution had started in the middle of the eighth century and from where it had spread to seize power from the first Islamic dynasty, the Umayyads. Moreover, al-Ma’mūn seems to have been given absolute power in Khurasan, providing him with an opportunity to rise up against his brother. Did their father predict this would happen? Did al-Rashīd carefully engineer things so that it would look as though he had favoured al-Amīn just to keep his wife and the Abbāsid family happy, while at the same time leaving the door open for al-Ma’mūn to snatch power if he so desired? No one can be sure, and al-Rashīd’s motives remain subject to conjecture. It has been speculated that he already harboured serious doubts about al-Amīn during the famous 802 pilgrimage.

  In 805 a rebellion broke out in Khurasan. The people of the province had risen up against the governor in protest against the extortionately high taxation. Matters slowly worsened until, in 808, al-Rashīd was obliged to personally ride east with his son al-Ma’mūn at the head of an army to quash the rebellion. Although still only in his early forties, al-Rashīd became ill from the exertions of the long trek across mountains and deserts and died on the way. His death changed the whole complexion of the campaign, for al-Ma’mūn now automatically assumed the governorship of this volatile part of the empire. However, most of his father’s army deserted him to return to their families in Baghdad. This setback proved to be a minor one for the 23-year-old al-Ma’mūn, who, after successfully putting down the rebellion, immediately set about establishing his powerbase. He was helped in this by his close adviser and confidant al-Fāthl ibn Sahl, a Persian who had replaced Ja’far the Barmaki as vizier. Slashing the high taxes in the province proved to be a hugely popular early policy. In addition, al-Fāthl advised him in no uncertain terms to improve his public image. Al-Ma’mūn was renowned for his love of good wine and the company of beautiful slave women, but he would need to come across as a far more pious Muslim if he wished to lay claim to the caliphate in Baghdad from the newly installed al-Amīn. All the while, he slowly and methodically put together his new army, recruited from across Central Asia.

  Back in the capital, the new caliph began flexing his muscles and trying to assert his authority in the East. He challenged his brother’s role as governor of Khurasan by demanding that tax revenues be sent back to Baghdad, recalling those in the original army who had remained loyal to al-Ma’mūn and even naming his own son as his direct successor, ahead of his brother.

  Armed conflict between the two men was quickly becoming inevitable. Al-Ma’mūn was fortunate to be served by the loyal and highly able Persian General Tāhir, who claimed an early victory over al-Amīn’s army on the outskirts of present-day Tehran, giving al-Ma’mūn control over much of Persia. Al-Amīn, suddenly growing concerned, appealed in vain first to his brother to see sense and to respect the wishes of their father, and then to his subjects in order to recruit new troops, mainly from among the Arabs of Syria. But al-Ma’mūn’s army kept advancing westwards, finally arriving at the outer walls of Baghdad in April 812. And so the great siege of Baghdad began. By this time most of the empire outside the immediate environs of Baghdad itself had already declared its allegiance to al-Ma’mūn.

  For more than a year the beleaguered caliph held his ground against the armies of his half-brother and pretender to the throne, who continued to reside in Merv. Al-Amīn initially found an unexpected source of popular support among the city’s trapped population, who fought with crude homemade weapons against the well-armed and well-trained Khurasani soldiers. Tāhir seemed initially unable to break down Baghdad’s defences and could not understand what was driving this newly emer
ged resistance from within. Al-Amīn, who had been living in the Qasr al-Khuld by the river, retreated within the fortified walls of the old Round City built by his great-grandfather, al-Mansūr, the founder of Baghdad. While Tāhir’s forces used catapults to pound the walls and buildings as they advanced through the vast metropolis, al-Amīn’s men set whole neighbourhoods on fire to slow down the enemy advance. By the time Tāhir had reached the Round City walls, much of Baghdad was in ruins.

  The ninth-century Baghdadi poet Abū Tammam wrote: ‘the death announcer has risen to mourn Baghdad’, comparing the city to ‘an old woman whose youth has deserted her, and whose beauty has vanished’.9 Given Baghdad’s long and bloody history since that time it sounds strange to hear of it being referred to as an ‘old woman’ just half a century after it was founded.

  After more than a year of siege, the stalemate was finally broken in the autumn of 813 when Tāhir persuaded the merchants of Baghdad to destroy the pontoon bridges across the Tigris that had served as critical communication routes between the resisting forces. The ensuing chaos offered the assembled eastern army the opportunity to attack. Anticipating eventual defeat, al-Amīn listened to the advice of his closest advisers who convinced him that he stood a chance of a future counterstrike against his brother if he escaped from the north and made his way to Syria or Egypt where he could organize a new powerbase. Tāhir, however, apparently having caught wind of the plan, sent a message to the troops loyal to al-Amīn, threatening to retaliate by destroying not only their property inside Baghdad but their estates in the country as well if they did not dissuade al-Amīn from this decision. Al-Amīn was soon ‘convinced’ by his advisers of the benefit of surrender instead – a decision that would prove fatal for him.

  Although the civil war had originated with al-Rashīd’s ill-advised decision over the succession – for al-Amīn was never cut out for great leadership – it also revealed the first cracks within the Abbāsid Empire. It was a question not merely of a personal rivalry between the two brothers, but of a conflict between different politico-religious trends that had become apparent during the preceding reign; al-Amīn had emphasized traditionalism and Arab culture, while al-Ma’mūn, who was open to new philosophical movements and outside influences, had courted the support of Persian intellectuals and was a strong supporter of the rationalist movement known as Mu’tazilism, a doctrine of open questioning and enquiry that opposed the literal interpretation of the Qur’an.

  The medieval historian al-Mas’ūdi recounts how al-Amīn’s mother, Zubayda, had predicted ill fortune for her son: in each of three separate dreams, a different woman appeared to her and described her son’s future rule as despotic, corrupt, weak, unjust and extravagantly wasteful. On each occasion Zubayda awoke in great horror. On a final visit, all three women appeared together to make their harshest prediction yet by not only graphically describing al-Amīn’s violent death (despite his surrender to Tāhir) but defending it as a fitting and glorious outcome.

  But we should not get too carried away with this depiction of al-Ma’mūn as the worthier of the two brothers. A cursory review of the literature of the civil war might at first strike one as overwhelmingly supportive of al-Ma’mūn – not so surprising, given that the sources were written after his victory and needed to be seen as being on the right side. However, despite his weakness al-Amīn had been a relatively popular caliph during his four years in power. More importantly, while this was not the first case of regicide in Islamic history it was nevertheless the first violent end to befall an Abbāsid caliph. It thus left an indelible mark on the collective consciousness of Islamic society. Al-Mas’ūdi’s story of Zubayda’s dreams, therefore, seems a harsh reflection on al-Amīn and has more to do with the historian’s hagiographic support for al-Ma’mūn.

  There does, however, seem to be some doubt over al-Ma’mūn’s part in his brother’s death. Several historians recount how Tāhir sent a message to al-Ma’mūn from Baghdad asking what he was to do with al-Amīn if and when he was finally captured. Al-Ma’mūn is said to have sent back to the general a shirt with no opening in it for the head. Tāhir interpreted this as al-Ma’mūn’s wish to have his half-brother beheaded and as soon as he captured the caliph he carried out his master’s wishes.

  Some accounts describe how al-Ma’mūn had his brother’s head displayed on a pole in the central courtyard of his palace in Merv after it had been carried back by his victorious troops on a two-week, 1,000-mile journey from Baghdad; and that he distributed sums of money among his military commanders, ordering whoever felt he had earned this reward in his service to come to the courtyard to curse the gruesome trophy. However, other Arab historians have argued that the execution of al-Amīn was a decision taken in the field by Tāhir himself and that al-Ma’mūn was horrified and grieved when he discovered what had happened. They claim that he wept openly when al-Amīn’s head was presented to him and that he cursed Tāhir for carrying out a deed he had not ordered.

  Al-Ma’mūn remained in Merv for a further five years, a period in which he did not endear himself to many of his subjects across the vast empire. This was partly due to his attempts to heal the divisions between the two main sects of Islam: Sunnism and Shi’ism.10 His sympathies towards the latter were such that he adopted its green flag instead of the black flag of the Abbāsid dynasty. It was also partly due to his sympathies, like his father’s, towards Mu’tazilism, a school of thought not shared by all Muslims. He certainly surrounded himself with Mu’tazilite sympathizers, among them his influential adviser, al-Fāthl. He even went so far as to declare that his successor would not be a member of his own family, but Ali al-Ridha, a descendant of the Prophet’s cousin and son-in-law, Ali, the spiritual leader of Shi’ism.

  This last decision was extremely unpopular among the Sunnis in Iraq and, in Baghdad, his uncle Ibrahim decided to lay claim to the caliphate. This seems to have been the final straw, and al-Ma’mūn had a change of heart and headed for Baghdad to put down this insurrection personally. Mysteriously, his two closest allies, the Persian vizier al-Fāthl and Ali al-Ridha, both met with their death in suspicious circumstances on the long journey west. Ali al-Ridha is regarded by the Shi’a as the martyred eighth Imam, or saint, and his shrine in the city of Mashhad in north-east Iran is still of great religious importance.

  Al-Ma’mūn arrived in Baghdad in 819, with the destructive siege six years earlier now a distant memory and the city mostly rebuilt and back to its former glory. One Baghdadi historian recounted how, as a young child, he was lifted up by his father over the heads of the crowds lining the streets of the capital to watch the caliph as he rode past, and remembered being told never to forget this momentous day.

  Upon his arrival in the city, al-Ma’mūn abandoned his policy of reconciliation between Sunnis and Shi’a and quickly reinstated the traditional black Abbāsid flag. But his sympathies towards the Mu’tazilite movement only grew stronger. He subscribed wholeheartedly to their rationalist world-view that borrowed from the works of the Greek philosophers, as well as to their notions of indeterminism and free will, a philosophical standpoint that is, surprisingly, broadly in line with thinking in modern science, based on current theories in theoretical physics.

  Under al-Ma’mūn’s patronage, and the spirit of openness and inclusiveness towards other religions and cultures that he fostered, many scholars from all over the empire gravitated towards Baghdad, drawn by a vibrant sense of optimism and freedom of expression that epitomized the mood of this golden age. The fusion of Greek rationalism and Islamic Mu’tazilism led to a humanist movement the like of which would not be seen again until fifteenth-century Italy. This attitude is best expressed by one famous Baghdadi scholar, al-Jāhith (c. 776–c. 869), who wrote in his famous Book of Animals:

  Our share of wisdom would have been much reduced, and our means of acquiring knowledge weakened, had the ancients [the Greeks] not preserved for us their wonderful wisdom, and their various ways of life, in writings which have revealed what wa
s hidden from us and opened what was closed to us, thereby allowing us to add their plenty to the little we have, and to attain what we could not reach without them.

  Interestingly, this spirit of tolerance and inclusiveness towards other faiths did not apply to those holding different ideologies within Islam itself. Late in his life, al-Ma’mūn instigated an uncompromising inquisition (mihna) against the Islamic conservatives and traditionalists of his day who would not subscribe to the Mu’tazilite ethos.

  As for al-Ma’mūn himself, his interest in science is known to have started when as a young boy he was imbued with a love of scholarship and learning by his tutor Ja’far. He would certainly have been aware of the great legacy of the ancient Greeks and their passion, even obsession, with trying to understand the world around them. However, one particular episode in his life is said to have affected him so dramatically that it would change his life for ever. Not long before returning to Baghdad, he had a vivid dream. The Arab historian from whom we obtain almost the entirety of our information on this wonderful yet probably (and sadly) apocryphal story is Ibn al-Nadīm, the tenth-century author of the Fihrist (Index), a biographical account of the scholars of Baghdad as well as a catalogue of all books written in the Arabic language. In it he writes: