The Age of Faith

  The simple and hardy Arabs gazed in wonder at the royal palace, its mighty arch and marble hall, its enormous carpets and jeweled throne. For ten days they labored to carry off their spoils. Perhaps because of these impediments, Omar forbade Saad to advance farther east; “Iraq,” he said, “is enough.”72 Saad complied, and spent the next three years establishing Arab rule throughout Mesopotamia. Meanwhile Yezdegird, in his northern provinces, raised another army, 150,000 strong; Omar sent against him 30,000 men; at Nahavand superior tactics won the “Victory of Victories” for the Arabs; 100,000 Persians, caught in narrow defiles, were massacred (641). Soon all Persia was in Arab hands. Yezdegird fled to Balkh, begged aid of China and was refused, begged aid of the Turks and was given a small force; but as he started out on his new campaign some Turkish soldiers murdered him for his jewelry (652). Sasanian Persia had come to an end.

  BOOK II

  ISLAMIC CIVILIZATION

  569–1258

  CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE FOR BOOK II

  570–632:

  Mohammed

  610:

  Mohammed’s vision

  622:

  His Hegira to Medina

  630:

  Mohammed takes Mecca

  632–4:

  Abu Bekr caliph

  634–44:

  Omar caliph

  635:

  Moslems take Damascus

  637:

  and Jerusalem & Ctesiphon

  641:

  Moslems conquer Persia & Egypt

  641:

  Moslems found Cairo (Fustat)

  642:

  Mosque of Amr at Cairo

  644–56:

  Othman caliph

  656–60:

  Ali caliph

  660–80:

  Muawiya I caliph

  660–750:

  Umayyad caliphate at Damascus

  662:

  Hindu numerals in Syria

  680:

  Husein slain at Kerbela

  680–3:

  Yezid I caliph

  683–4:

  Muawiya II caliph

  685–705:

  Abd-al-Malik caliph

  691–4:

  Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock at Jerusalem

  693–862:

  Moslem rule in Armenia

  698:

  Moslems take Carthage

  705–15:

  Walid I caliph

  705f:

  Great Mosque of Damascus

  711:

  Moslems enter Spain

  715–17:

  Suleiman I caliph

  717–20:

  Omar II caliph

  720–4:

  Yezid II caliph

  724–43:

  Hisham caliph

  732:

  Moslems turned back at Tours

  743:

  The Mshatta reliefs

  743–4:

  Walid II caliph

  750:

  Abu’l-Abbas al-Saffah founds Abbasid caliphate

  754–75:

  Al-Mansur caliph; Baghdad becomes capital

  755–88:

  Abd-er-Rahman I emir of Cordova

  757–847:

  The Mutazilite philosophers

  760:

  Rise of the Ismaili sect

  775–86:

  Al-Mahdi caliph

  786f:

  Blue Mosque of Cordova

  786–809:

  Harun al-Rashid caliph

  780–974:

  Idrisid dynasty at Fez

  803:

  Fall of the Barmakid family

  803f:

  Al-Kindi, philosopher

  808–909:

  Aghlabid dynasty at Qairuan

  809–10:

  Moslems take Corsica and Sardinia

  809–77:

  Hunain ibn Ishaq, scholar

  813–33:

  Al-Mamun caliph

  820–72:

  Tahirid dynasty in Persia

  822–52:

  Abd-er-Rahman II emir of Cordova

  827f:

  Saracens conquer Sicily

  830:

  “House of Wisdom” at Baghdad

  830:

  Al-Khwarizmi’s Algebra

  844–926:

  Al-Razi, physician

  846:

  Saracens attack Rome

  870–950:

  Al-Farabi, philosopher

  872–903:

  Saffarid dynasty in Persia

  873–935:

  Al-Ashari, theologian

  878:

  Mosque of Ibn Tulun at Cairo

  909f:

  Fatimid caliphate at Qairuan

  912–61:

  Abd-er-Rahman caliph at Cordova

  915:

  fl. al-Tabari, historian

  915–65:

  Al-Mutannabi, poet

  934–1020:

  Firdausi, poet

  940–98:

  Abu’l Wafa, mathematician

  945–1058:

  Buwayhid ascendancy in Baghdad

  951:

  d. of al-Masudi, geographer

  952–77:

  Ashot III and 990–1020: Gagik I: Golden Age of Medieval Armenia

  961–76:

  Al-Hakam caliph at Cordova

  965–1039:

  Al-Haitham, physicist

  967–1049:

  Abu Said, Sufi poet

  969–1171:

  Fatimid dynasty at Cairo

  970:

  Mosque of el-Azhar at Cairo

  973–1048:

  Al-Biruni, scientist

  973–1058:

  Al-Ma’arri, poet

  976–1010:

  Al-Hisham caliph at Cordova

  978–1002:

  Almanzor prime minister at Cordova

  980–1037:

  Ibn Sina (Avicenna), philosopher

  983f:

  Brethren of Sincerity

  990–1012:

  Mosque of al-Hakim at Cairo

  998–1030:

  Mahmud of Ghazna

  1012:

  Berber revolution at Cordova

  1017–92:

  Nizam al-Mulk, vizier

  1031:

  End of Cordova caliphate

  1038:

  Seljuq Turks invade Persia

  1038–1123:

  Omar Khayyam, poet

  1040–95:

  Al-Mutamid, emir and poet

  1058:

  Seljuqs take Baghdad

  1058–1111:

  Al-Ghazali, theologian

  1059–63:

  Tughril Beg sultan at Baghdad

  1060:

  Seljuq Turks conquer Armenia

  1063–72:

  Alp Arslan sultan

  1071:

  Turks defeat Greeks at Manzikert

  1072–92:

  Malik Shah sultan

  1077–1327:

  Sultanate of Roum in Asia Minor

  1088f:

  Friday Mosque at Isfahan

  1090:

  “Assassin” sect founded

  1090–1147:

  Almoravid dynasty in Spain

  1091–1162:

  Ibn Zohr, physician

  1098:

  Fatimids take Jerusalem

  1100–66:

  Al-Idrisi, geographer

  1106f:

  fl. Ibn Bajja, philosopher

  1107–85:

  Ibn Tufail, philosopher

  1117–51:

  Sanjar, Seljuq sultan

  1126–98:

  Ibn Rushd (Averroës), phil’r

  1130–1269:

  Almohad dynasty in Morocco

  1138–93:

  Saladin

  1148–1248:

  Almohad dynasty in Spain

  1162–1227:

  Jenghiz Khan

  1175–1249:

  Ayyubid dynasty

  1179–1220:

/>   Yaqut, geographer

  1181f:

  Alcazar of Seville

  1184–1291:

  Sa’di, poet

  1187:

  Saladin defeats Crusaders at Hattin & takes Jerusalem

  1188:

  fl. Nizami, poet

  1196:

  Giralda tower at Seville

  1201–73:

  Jalal-ud-Din Rumi, poet

  1211–82:

  Ibn Khallikan, biographer

  1212:

  Christians defeat Moors at Las Navas de Toledo

  1218–38:

  Al-Kamil sultan at Cairo

  1219:

  Jenghiz Khan invades Transoxiana

  1245:

  Mongols take Jerusalem

  1248f:

  The Alhambra

  1250–1517:

  Mamluk rule in Egypt

  1252:

  Moorish rule in Spain confined to Granada

  1258:

  Mongols sack Baghdad; end of Abbasid caliphate

  1260:

  Mamluks repel Mongols at Ain-Jalut

  1260–77:

  Baibars Mamluk sultan

  CHAPTER VIII

  Mohammed

  570–632

  I. ARABIA*

  IN the year 565 Justinian died, master of a great empire. Five years later Mohammed was born into a poor family in a country three quarters desert, sparsely peopled by nomad tribes whose total wealth could hardly have furnished the sanctuary of St. Sophia. No one in those years would have dreamed that within a century these nomads would conquer half of Byzantine Asia, all Persia and Egypt, most of North Africa, and be on their way to Spain. The explosion of the Arabian peninsula into the conquest and conversion of half the Mediterranean world is the most extraordinary phenomenon in medieval history.

  Arabia is the largest of all peninsulas: 1400 miles in its greatest length, 1250 in its greatest width. Geologically it is a continuation of the Sahara, part of the sandy belt that runs up through Persia to the Gobi Desert. Arab means arid. Physically Arabia is a vast plateau, rising precipitously to 12,000 feet within thirty miles of the Red Sea, and sloping through mountainous wastelands eastward to the Persian Gulf. In the center are some grassy oases and palm-studded villages, where water can be reached by shallow wells; around this nucleus the sands stretch in every direction for hundreds of miles. Snow falls there once in forty years; the nights cool down to 38 degrees Fahrenheit; the daily sun burns the face and boils the blood; and the sand-laden air necessitates long robes and head-bands to guard flesh and hair. The skies are almost always clear, the air “like sparkling wine.”1 Along the coasts an occasional torrent of rain brings the possibility of civilization: most of all on the western littoral, in the Hejaz district with the cities of Mecca and Medina; and southwest in the district of Yemen, the home of the ancient kingdoms of Arabia.

  A Babylonian inscription of approximately 2400 B.C. records the defeat of a king of Magan by the Babylonian ruler Naram-Sin. Magan was the capital of a Minaean kingdom in southwest Arabia; twenty-five of its later kings are known from Arabian inscriptions that go back to 800 B.C. An inscription tentatively ascribed to 2300 B.C. mentions another Arabian kingdom, Saba, in Yemen; from Saba or its North Arabian colonies, it is now agreed, the Queen of Sheba “went up” to Solomon about 950 B.C. The Sabaean kings made their capital at Marib, fought the usual wars of “defense,” built great irrigation works like the Marib dams (whose ruins are still visible), raised gigantic castles and temples, subsidized religion handsomely, and used it as an instrument of rule.2 Their inscriptions—probably not older than 900 B.C.—are beautifully carved in an alphabetical script. The Sabaeans produced the frankincense and myrrh that played so prominent a role in Asiatic and Egyptian rituals; they controlled the sea trade between India and Egypt, and the south end of the caravan route that led through Mecca and Medina to Petra and Jerusalem. About 115 B.C. another petty kingdom of southwest Arabia, the Himyarite, conquered Saba, and thereafter controlled Arabian trade for several centuries. In 25 B.C. Augustus, irked by Arabian control of Egyptian-Indian commerce, sent an army under Aelius Gallus to capture Marib; the legions were misled by native guides, were decimated by heat and disease, and failed in their mission; but another Roman army captured the Arab port of Adana (Aden), and gave control of the Egypt-India route to Rome. (Britain repeated this procedure in our time.)

  In the second century before Christ some Himyarites crossed the Red Sea, colonized Abyssinia, and gave the indigenous Negro population a Semitic culture and considerable Semitic blood.* The Abyssinians received Christianity, crafts, and arts from Egypt and Byzantium; their merchant vessels sailed as far as India and Ceylon; and seven little kingdoms acknowledged the Negus as their sovereign.† Meanwhile in Arabia many Himyarites followed the lead of their king Dhu-Nuwas and accepted Judaism. With a convert’s zeal, Dhu-Nuwas persecuted the Christians of southwest Arabia; they called to their coreligionists to rescue them; the Abyssinians came, conquered the Himyarite kings (A.D. 522), and replaced them with an Abyssinian dynasty. Justinian allied himself with this new state; Persia countered by taking up the cause of the deposed Himyarites, driving out the Abyssinians, and setting up in Yemen (575) a Persian rule that ended some sixty years later with the Moslem conquest of Persia.

  In the north some minor Arab kingdoms flourished briefly. The sheiks of the Ghassanid tribe ruled northwestern Arabia and Palmyrene Syria from the third to the seventh century as phylarchs, or client kings, of Byzantium. During the same period the Lakhmid kings established at Hira, near Babylon, a semi-Persian court and culture famous for its music and poetry. Long before Mohammed the Arabs had expanded into Syria and Iraq.

  Aside from these petty kingdoms of south and north, and to a large extent within them, the political organization of pre-Islamic Arabia was a primitive kinship structure of families united in clans and tribes. Tribes were named from a supposed common ancestor; so the banu-Ghassan thought themselves the “children of Ghassan.” Arabia as a political unit, before Mohammed, existed only in the careless nomenclature of the Greeks, who called all the population of the peninsula Sarakenoi, Saracens, apparently from the Arabic sharqiyun, “Easterners.” Difficulties of communication compelled local or tribal self-sufficiency and particularism. The Arab felt no duty or loyalty to any group larger than his tribe, but the intensity of his devotion varied inversely as its extent; for his tribe he would do with a clear conscience what civilized people do only for their country, religion, or “race”—i.e., lie, steal, kill, and die. Each tribe or clan was loosely ruled by a sheik chosen by its leaders from a family traditionally prominent through wealth or wisdom or war.

  In the villages men coaxed some grains and vegetables from the unwilling soil, raised a few cattle, and bred some fine horses; but they found it more profitable to cultivate orchards of dates, peaches, apricots, pomegranates, lemons, oranges, bananas, and figs; some nursed aromatic plants like frankincense, thyme, jasmine, and lavender; some pressed itr or attar from highland roses; some cupped trees to draw myrrh or balsam from the trunks. Possibly a twelfth of the population lived in cities on or near the west coast. Here was a succession of harbors and markets for Red Sea commerce, while farther inland lay the great caravan routes to Syria. We hear of Arabian trade with Egypt as far back as 2743 B.C.;3 probably as ancient was the trade with India. Annual fairs called merchants now to one town, now to another; the great annual fair at Ukaz, near Mecca, brought together hundreds of merchants, actors, preachers, gamblers, poets, and prostitutes.

  Five sixths of the population were nomad Bedouins, herdsmen who moved with their flocks from one pastureland to another according to season and the winter rains. The Bedouin loved horses, but in the desert the camel was his greatest friend. It pitched and rolled with undulant dignity, and made only eight miles an hour; but it could go without water five days in summer and twenty-five in winter; its udders gave milk, its urine provided hair tonic,* its dung could be burned for fuel; w
hen it died it made tender meat, and its hair and hide made clothing and tents. With such varied sustenance the Bedouin could face the desert, as patient and enduring as his camel, as sensitive and spirited as his horse. Short and thin, well-knit and strong, he could live day after day on a few dates and a little milk; and from dates he made the wine that raised him out of the dust into romance. He varied the routine of his life with love and feud, and was as quick as a Spaniard (who inherited his blood) to avenge insult and injury, not only for himself but for his clan. A good part of his life was spent in tribal war; and when he conquered Syria, Persia, Egypt, and Spain, it was but an exuberant expansion of his plundering razzias or raids. Certain periods in the year he conceded to the “holy truce,” for religious pilgrimage or for trade; otherwise, he felt, the desert was his; whoever crossed it, except in that time, or without paying him tribute, was an interloper; to rob such trespassers was an unusually straightforward form of taxation. He despised the city because it meant law and trade; he loved the merciless desert because it left him free. Kindly and murderous, generous and avaricious, dishonest and faithful, cautious and brave, the Bedouin, however poor, fronted the world with dignity and pride, vain of the purity of his inbred blood, and fond of adding his lineage to his name.