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DURUY'SHISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES |
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BOOK II.
THE ARAB INVASION
(622-1058).
CHAPTER VI.
MOHAMMED AND THE EMPIRE OF THE ARABS (622-732).
Arabia and the Arabs.—Mohammed.—The Hegira (622) ; Struggle with the Koreishites (624);
Conversion of Arabia. —The Koran.— The first Caliphs
of Persia and of Egypt ; Conquest of Syria (623-640).—Revolution in the
Caliphate, Hereditary Dynasty of the Ommiads (661-750).—Conquest
of Upper Asia (707) and of Spain (711).
We now pass from the forests and rivers of the north
of Europe to the sands and deserts in the south of Asia; from the country of
clouds, of rains, and of moist vegetation to one of a burning sun, to the
consuming and suffocating simoom, and to dry and aromatic plants. The men
dwelling in these two countries are as different as their climates. A people
sober in body and mind, of a quick and ardent temperament, seeing nothing but
their desired goal and going directly toward it, and accustomed to dash through
the desert with the swiftness of an arrow, because of the impossibility of
stopping there with impunity, and because there was nothing to attract them
between the place of departure and that of arrival; a people made either for
prompt action or absolute repose—such is the Arab people, and these traits of
character are seen in its history.
The Roman Empire was bounded by the Germans on the
north and the Arabs on the south. The former had directed their attacks for the
most part toward the Empire of the West, and had overthrown it by an invasion
prepared and indeed begun long before: the latter, emerging suddenly from their
deserts, had made the Empire of the East their special point of attack, and
without overthrowing it entirely, had, as it were, with a single blow of
their cimeter cut off a large portion. It
was by astonishing good fortune that the Empire at Constantinople survived
these two attacks coming from opposite directions, like an island in the midst
of an inundation.
Arabia, which then appeared for the first time on the
stage of history, is a vast peninsula of which some portions are still little
known. It is bordered on the north toward Asia by great deserts, and on the
northwest is connected with Africa by the isthmus of
Suez, where the small peninsula of Sinai projects between the gulfs of Suez and
of Akaba. The peninsula of Arabia forms an
imperfect square, with the longest side facing Egypt and Abyssinia across the
Red Sea and the strait of El Mandeb—the shortest side facing Persia, from which
it is separated only by the Persian Gulf. The width is very great, especially
at the southern end. A chain of mountains, the continuation of the Lebanon
range, extends along the Red Sea to Bab-el-Mandeb, the Gate of Tears. Another
range borders the Persian Gulf as far as the Strait of Ormuz. These two
mountain systems are connected by a line of hills which run from one strait to
the other. The inner slopes of these mountains surround a low and arid valley
which forms the center of Arabia, and their outward slopes face the sea and
form a girdle of lands, parts of which are rich and fertile, and here the heat
of the climate is mitigated by the sea-breezes, the rains, the watercourses,
and the numberless irregularities of the land.
While the impossibility of permanently settling or of
founding anything durable in the interior has always kept up the nomad life,
the advantages offered by the coast lands have given birth to fixed
institutions and to a civilization which at times is brilliant enough.
The only knowledge the ancients had of Arabia came
through a few scattered Roman expeditions. They divided it into three
parts,—Arabia Petraea (the peninsula of
Sinai); Arabia Deserta (the deserts which
extend from the Red Sea to the Euphrates); and Arabia Felix (Southern Arabia).
The Arabian geographers, on the other hand, do not
include either the peninsula of Sinai or the deserts of Suez or of the
Euphrates in their country, but consider them as lying outside of Arabia. They
divided the rest of the peninsula into eight countries: 1, Hedjaz (Hiyaz), which borders the Red Sea, southeast of the
peninsula of Sinai; 2, Yemen, which lies south of Hedjaz; 3, Hadramaut, on the Indian Sea, at the east of Yemen;
4, Mahrah, at the east of Hadramaut; 5, Oman, between Mahrah and the Persian Gulf and the Indian Sea;
6, Haga or Bahrein, on the Persian
Gulf, between Oman and the Euphrates; 7, Nedjed,
south of the Syrian deserts beween Hedjaz
and Bahrein; and 8, Ahkaf, south of Nedjed. The two latter provinces comprise the great valley
in the interior of the peninsula.
The most fertile of these provinces is Yemen, which is
also well situated for commerce, at the southwestern corner of Arabia between
the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. This is the country of Aden, of Sana, of the
ancient and wonderful Saba, and of Mocha, famous for its coffee. The best known
though not the most fertile of these provinces is Hedjaz, the country of Mecca
and of Medina, two cities which ruled all the rest of Arabia through their
religious influence, though their situation in the sandy zone, far from the
sea, obliged them to have two ports on the Arabian Gulf (Yanbo for
Medina, and Djidda for Mecca), in order to
derive their means of subsistence from abroad.
The Arabs attribute a double origin to their
population: to the Ariba, a primitive race
descended from Shem according to some, from Ham according to others, and to the
descendants of Abraham, who, according to their traditions, in obedience to the
commands of God came to Mecca to found the temple of the Kaaba. They say that
Abraham lived many years in Hedjaz, and was aided in his divine mission by
Ishmael, who was the founder of the Ishmaelites or
the Moutarriba; while his other son Kahtan or Jectan was
the father of the Jectanides or the Moustarriba. The Ishmaelites remained iu Hedjaz, the Jectanides settled mainly in Yemen. We must add to
these the Nabatean Arabs who live in the north of Arabia, and who are
believed to be of Syrian or Aramean origin.
The Arab populations of the north and of the south
founded great powers, and came often into contact both in peace and war with
foreign powers far and near. The Nabatean kingdoms of Hira,
Anbar, and Ghassan were often involved in the affairs of the Roman
Empire and of Persia. The Arabs of Hira under the dynasty of the
princes Moundhir or Mondar in the sixth century were formidable
adversaries of the Greek Empire, while those of Ghassan under the
princes of Djafna upheld the cause of
Constantinople. By the beginning of the seventh century, these powers were much
weakened and contracted between the Greeks and the Persians. The Jectanides brought great renown to Yemen, where one of
their branches, the Homerites, had the skill to
excite the fertility of the soil by remarkable works of irrigation. The dynasty
of the Tobbas played a great part in this
province, and tradition, though evidently falsely, attributed to them the
conquest of India, of Asia, and of Africa as far as the Atlantic. Under this
dynasty of idolaters, Christianity was preached by an envoy sent by
Constantine, but at the beginning of the sixth century they persecuted the new
religion, and the Greek Emperor Justin I induced the negusch or
king of Abyssinia, who was a Christian, to avenge the wrongs of the Cross. The
Abyssinians then invaded Yemen (525), and under the viceroy Abraha-el-Djadan, established
their dominion and the Christian religion in this country. They had a code of
laws drawn up by the Bishop Gregentius, and
built at Sana a church with which they tried to oppose the Kaaba of Mecca. A
rivalry had indeed always existed between Yemen and Hedjaz, between the Moutarriba and the Moustarriba.
In 575 the Abyssinians were driven from the country, but only with the
assistance of a Persian army sent by Chosroes, who
merely substituted his own dominion for that of the Africans.
In this way the prosperity and the independence of the
two outermost regions of Arabia had succumbed together. On the other hand, the
central region, which had never wielded so great a power, had at least
preserved that liberty without which no progress could be made in Arabia This
region had enjoyed that tranquillity which
in a great country divided into several states is always assured to those in
the center, as they cannot be approached before the outer states which form a
natural barrier to them are subdued. The foreign armies which had appeared in
the north and the south had not penetrated to Hedjaz. More traces of
patriarchal government were found there; the people were divided into tribes
composed of a certain number of families, a sheikh (lord) at the head of each
family; a supreme sheikh or emir (commander) at the head of each tribe, which
he governed with the advice of the sheikhs of the families. In ancient times
when a chief took possession of a pasturage he set his
pack of hounds barking, and so far as the hound could be heard, so far extended
his right of possession. So great simplicity was there in the
primitive customs of this people. Nevertheless the population
of Hedjaz, though hardly advanced from the primitive condition as far as their
institutions are concerned, held a variety and mixture of religious
ideas of every sort which prepared them for a brilliant destiny, and
compensated for their past obscurity. For another advantage possessed by
central states is that they are the meeting-ground of all the others, the point
where all intercourse, trade, and ideas converge. Three of the great religions
of Asia and Europe, without mentioning idolatry with all its gods, met there : Christianity, which had been carried to the north by
the Greeks and to the south by the Abyssinians; Sabianism,
brought by the Persians to the north and south, and finally Judaism, which had
been introduced everywhere with that faculty the Jews have always possessed of
making their way into every country. Three hundred and sixty idols were
gathered together in the Kaaba, and when Mohammed turned them out, there was
found among the number a Byzantine virgin, painted on a column, holding Christ
in her arms. Idolatry was the dominant religion,—not the ingenious idolatry of
Greek paganism, which personified the abstractions of the intellect and clothed
the gods in human form, but the Egyptian idolatry, the worship of animals, of
plants, of the gazelle, of the horse, of the camel, of palm-trees and of rocks.
Some worshiped the stars. All indeed, recognized a supreme god, Allah, and this
idea of a deity above all others was upheld by the influence of the Jewish and
the Christian religions, which also diffused abroad the idea of revelation, of
a future life, of paradise, of the infernal regions, etc., elements which are
found again in the Koran.
The form of this religion had not changed for a long
time. All its ceremonies were determined, processions in the Kaaba,
pilgrimages, sacrifices in the valley of Mina, etc. As with the Jews, the care
of the temple had been given to one chosen family for many years; in 440 Cossai, head of the Ishmaelite family of the Koreishites, had secured this charge, had rebuilt the
temple, and, in a way, founded Mecca and established the principal religious
and civil institutions of the Arabs. This showed a tendency toward organization
and unity.
A like movement was going on in the language; unity of
idiom, so necessary in effecting a great revolution of thought in a vast
country, was gradually produced by the influence of the poets. The Arabs were
poets as well as warriors and merchants; at least they had their bards, like
the men of the north, and their feasts, and their poetical contests, such as
were held at the Olympic games of the Greeks.
These poets, who were not merely literary men, but who
knew as well how to handle the sword and exchange merchandise as to give voice
to the tender and fierce feelings of the human soul, hospitality, revenge,
honor, or perhaps the solemn and pleasing scenes of nature, the immense desert,
fresh oases, the light gazelle,—these poets hastened to the poetical contests
which, with the religious ceremonies, were the object of these pilgrimages.
Then what were called contests of glory were held, and whoever was most
successful in moving the souls of the listeners and in awakening within them a
response, saw his work written in letters of gold on costly canvas and hung in
the Kaaba. In this way seven poems have come down to us, one of which was
written by the famous Antar, who died in 615,
during the life of Mohammed, and who best expressed the Arab spirit of his
times. It was he who cried one day, at the first recitation of his poems: “What
subject is there that the poets have not sung?” as if he felt that Arabia had
exhausted one phase of its existence and needed to begin a new life.
The Arabs are generally referred to as a young people:
but they were rather an ancient people who had traversed the whole sphere of
their political existence, narrow though it was. It could hardly have been
otherwise in the midst of this strange mixture of all the divinities in the
enclosure of the Kaaba, and it was but natural that the general feeling should
be an indifference and scepticism where
there were so many altars to choose from. We need only mention as an example
the small number of those who took part in the religious struggle at the time
of the first preaching of Mohammed; on the one hand, on the side of the prophet
a few devoted disciples, on the other a thousand Koreishites who
by their title of guardians of the temple necessarily constituted the defenders
of the ancient creeds, but who were themselves very incredulous, men of witty,
brilliant, and acute minds, scoffers, and without sincere attachment to the
beliefs which they defended much more from their interest and habit than from
conviction.
Certain men were greatly struck by this general lukewarmness and lack of faith, and sought for means
of escape. During a feast celebrated by the Koreishites in
honor of one of their idols, a few years before the preaching of Mohammed, four
men, more enlightened than the rest of the nation, met by themselves, and,
after agreeing that their fellow-countrymen were led astray into error,
resolved to seek the truth and to ask after it in foreign lands. One of them
went to Constantinople to be baptized, a second being persecuted fled into
Syria, the third became a Christian like the first, and the fourth just saw
Mohammed and died proclaiming that he was the true prophet.
Mohammed was born about the year 570. He was the son
of the Koreishite Abdallah, son of Abd-el-Muttalib, who had defended
Mecca against the Abyssinians, and who was himself son of Haschim, famous for his distribution of soup during a
famine. Having lost his father at two months, and his
mother at six years of age, he was taken charge of by his grandfather and put
under the guardianship of his uncle Abu-Talib. Being
without fortune he became a camel driver and traveled a great deal, especially
in Syria, where he is said to have become intimate with a monk of Bostra, and a Jewish rabbi, who both introduced him to
their sacred books, the Old and New Testaments. He fought with bravery in a
tribal war, and by his amiable qualities gained the affection of all, and by
his probity the name of Al-Almin (the
trustworthy man). A rich and noble widow, Khadijah, took him into her
service as director of her commercial affairs, and he served her interests so
well that she married him out of gratitude. From that time he was master of a
great fortune, and was able to give himself up to his meditations and to exert
that influence which is given by the possession of riches. Until his fortieth
year he did nothing really worthy of note, though every year he retired with
his family to the mountain of Hira and passed there entire nights in deep meditation.
In 611 he disclosed his projects to Khadijah, to
his cousin Ali, to his freedman Seid, and to his
friend Abu Bekr, and declared to them the necessity
of bringing the religion of Abraham back to its original purity. He told them
that he had received commands from God through Gabriel, and gave to his new
religion the name of Islam, which signifies a complete resignation to the will of
God. They believed in him.
When the growing numbers of the proselytes had spread
abroad the report of his undertaking, he assembled them together and said : “Which one of you will be my brother, my lieutenant,
my vicar?” No one spoke. Then Ali cried with the enthusiasm of an ardent
disciple and the fierceness of an Arab of the desert: “I will be that man;
apostle of God, I will support you, and if any one resists you, I will break
his teeth, I will tear out his eyes, I will cleave his belly and I will break
his legs”. They were engaged in a very dangerous struggle, and Abu-Talib trembled for his nephew and besought him to
abandon his plan. “If some one should come
to me with the sun in one hand and the moon in the other, I should not draw
back”, answered Mohammed. The Koreishites persecuted
him, and he could not go into the Kaaba to pray without being overwhelmed with
insults. One day he returned home after preaching all day in the midst of
outrages; and, dispirited, he wrapped himself in his cloak and threw himself
down on his mat; but soon courage for his undertaking returned to him, and he
dictated the beautiful surah, where the Angel Gabriel is supposed to say to him : “Arise and preach, O man, who art wrapped up in a
cloak...” His adherents were alarmed and took refuge in Abyssinia, and he
himself retired to the mountains near Mecca, from 616-619. The surahs or chapters of the Koran (Al-Koran, the book),
which he dictated according to the impressions and needs of the moment, and
which his secretary wrote on palm-leaves and on the bones of sheep—were
certainly impostures as far as concerns the pretended inspiration by the Angel
Gabriel. But full of elevated thought as they were, and written in a forcible,
pure and musical language, they delighted the Arabs, who were trained by their
poetic contests to appreciate such merit, and who, perhaps tired of a poetry
which had touched on all the old subjects, found a powerful charm in this
eloquence so keen, penetrating, practical, and yet rich in poetical color,
although it had thrown off the trammels of rhythm. Omar was one of those savage
warriors, one of those men of the sword who cannot bear that any one should
believe differently from themselves. He was starting to kill Mohammed it is
related when one of his relations stopped him and said he would do better first
to cleanse his own house, for his sister Fatima read the verses of the false
prophet. He returned home and found her reading with his brother-in-law. “What
are you hiding under your clothing?” he cried, and wounded her with his dagger.
But at the sight of the blood of his sister, he stopped, and taking the verses
glanced at them, and exclaiming, hastened to the prophet to declare himself his
disciple. From that time he gave to the councils of Islamism the benefit of his
decided and violent spirit, and we may, perhaps, attribute partly to his
influence the character of warlike propagandism and
conquest with the sword, which the religion of Mohammed, at first more peaceful
and mild, now assumes.
Mohammed had lost his protector Abu-Talib in 619, and had also lost Khadijah, whom he
always remembered with loyalty and gratitude. Deprived of these supports he
looked about for others. The inhabitants of Yatrib,
for a long time the rivals of those of Mecca offered him a refuge; and he went
to that city in 622 to escape the persecutions of the Koreishites.
This year is famous, because it is the first of the Mussulman Era ; it is called the year of the Hegira, or of the flight.
From that time Yatrib took the name of the
City of the Prophet, Medinat-en-Nebi.
Mohammed had gained much knowledge of men in his
youth, and showed great skill in building up a party in his new city and in
preparing himself to sustain an open contest. He himself made the first attack,
probably in order to prevent the faith of his new proselytes from wasting in
inactivity. He started with 306 men to surprise a caravan returning to Mecca.
Nearly 1000 Koreishites came out against
him. They fought at Bedr (624). The Mussulmans were giving way, when Mohammed, leaving his
wooden throne, whence he had been watching the combat, threw himself on his
horse and, tossing a handful of sand in the air, cried : “May our enemies be
covered with confusion!”. The courage of his troops revived, and they gained a
victory which bore great results for his cause.
He was, however, defeated somewhat later at
Mount Ohud (625), and the war then assumed
a more cruel character. He turned his attack upon the neighboring Jewish
tribes, in order to force them to take his part. They combined, and, with the
assistance of the Koreishites, laid siege to
Medina where he was. This is called the War of the Nations or of the Trench
(627). Mohammed had had a trench dug before the city; he himself seized a
pickaxe one day and, as the iron drew sparks from the rock, said
: “The first spark tells me of the subjection of Yemen, the second of
the conquest of Syria, and the third of the conquest of the East”. He succeeded
in driving away the besiegers by sowing discord among them, and the advantage
thus gained was so considerable that he was able to obtain a truce of ten years
from the Koreishites, and to turn his arms
against the Jews of Khaibar, five leagues from
Medina, whose power he completely destroyed (628).
The following year (629) he went on a pilgrimage to
Mecca and made many converts there; and when in 630 this city broke the truce,
he entered it with 10,000 men, marched against the temple and destroyed all the
idols, saying: “Truth has come, let falsehood disappear!”. From that time he was feared as the great religious chief of Arabia, and he
already was entering into relations with foreign states. Chosroes tore his letters in pieces: “Thus may his kingdom be torn to pieces!"
cried the Prophet. Heraclius gave a better reception to his messages;
nevertheless a war broke out with the Greeks of Syria, who had slain the
messenger of the Prophet. This war did not last long, but we already see in it
the fanatical courage of the Mussulmans. Djafar, son of Abu-Talib, after
losing both hands, still held the banner of Islamism between his arms and
received fifty-two wounds in front. For a short time Mohammed thought he should
have to carry on a general war; and clothed in a robe of green, the color still
worn by his descendants, he started off at the head of 10,000 horsemen, 20,000
foot-soldiers and 12,000 camels, but the enemy did not appear.
The union of Arabia, however, was brought about by the
adhesion of the chiefs of Yemen and of Mahrah,
the princes of Hadramaut, of Oman, of Bahrain,
etc. The character of these adhesions was undoubtedly in general rather
political than religious, and these far-off tribes had hardly had the time to
inquire minutely into the new religion. The religion of Mohammed did not have
preachers who carried the teaching of its dogma and its morality far and wide,
like the Christian religion. But buried as almost the whole of Arabia was in
religious indifference, these far-off Arabs heard of a powerful chief who had
arisen in Hedjaz, and who seemed to promise a brilliant future to Arabia, and
they hastened to share in these glories. These conversions were made almost as
summarily as that of the Franks under Clovis, and it is certain that many of
the soldiers in the first victorious armies which started from Arabia in search
of conquest hardly knew anything of the Koran. And though there were these
adhesions, there were, on the other hand, oppositions, antagonisms, and the
appearance of false prophets, which saddened the last years of the life of Mohammed.
After a sickness of several months he went, followed by 114,000 Mussulmans, to the holy places to make the great pilgrimage
of El-Haddj. On returning from Medina, as he felt the
approach of death, he was carried to the mosque, where he recited the public
prayers, and then asked the assembly in a loud voice if he had ever injured any
one or was in debt to any one. An old woman
claimed three drachmas; he gave them to her, and thanked her for having
reminded him of her debt here on earth rather than in heaven. He died on the
8th of June, 632.
The Koran is a collection of all the verses which fell
as occasion demanded from the lips of the Prophet, and which were gathered
together in a first edition by the orders of the Caliph Abu-Bekr,
and in a second by the orders of the Caliph Othman. The method of their
composition is shown by their incoherence and by the numberless contradictions
which they contain. It is composed of 114 chapters or surahs,
which are divided into verses. These verses, containing all the precepts of
Islam morality, are inscribed by the Mohammedans upon the walls of their
mosques, on their banners, and on their monuments.
What especially characterizes the Koran is a general simplicity and even a certain dearth of imagination. The
fervid exaggeration and the forcible images of the East are indeed to be found
in it, but only in rare flashes, with no trace of the Indian exuberance or of
the wealth of imagination of the European races. This is to be seen in the
fundamental principle of their dogma, which is simply this—"God alone is
God, and Mohammed is his prophet." The Koran does not acknowledge any
lower divinity by the side of Allah, the sole God, the all-powerful Creator; it
does not allow of a plurality of persons in Allah, and entirely rejects the
idea of God become man. It only teaches that God has been revealed to man by a
series of prophets, the last and the most perfect of whom is Mohammed; his
predecessors are Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ. It also recognizes the
existence of angels, messengers of God to the prophets. Mohammed acknowledged
that Christ had the power of performing miracles, and owned that he had not
received it himself. " When the unbelievers say : 'We will not believe you
unless you make a spring of fresh water gush from the earth, or a piece of sky
fall on us, or unless you produce God and his angels to bear witness to your
words.' .... Reply to them : 'Praise be to God—am I
anything but a man and an apostle?' "
The Koran admits the immortality of the soul, but
without venturing to define its nature. "The knowledge of the Soul is a
thing that is reserved to God. Man is only permitted to possess a small part of
knowledge." It also acknowledges the resurrection of the body and the
participation of this part of our being in the joys and sufferings of a future
life. Mounkir and Nebir,
black angels with blue eyes, question the dead; Gabriel weighs their deeds in
scales large enough to contain the heavens and the earth. Those risen from the dead are led to the bridge Al-Sirat, which is more slender than a hair and sharper than a
dagger. Those who are guilty cannot cross it. They fall into the infernal
regions which lie below it, and where the least guilty wear shoes of fire,
which make their brains seethe as in a caldron. Those who
truly believe cross the abyss as quickly as a flash of lightning, and go to
dwell in the gardens of the seventh heaven, or paradise. They find there
groves which are always fresh and green, pavilions of mother of pearl, of ruby,
of hyacinth, limpid streams flowing in yellow amber, diamonds and emeralds,
carpets of rich silk, flowers, perfumes, exquisite repasts and black eyed
immortal nymphs. Such is the sensual paradise that Mohammed promised to the
mass of faithful Mussulmans, but he places the
spiritual joys much higher. " The most favored of
God is he who shall see his face morning and evening, a rapture which surpasses
all the pleasures of the senses, as the ocean surpasses a drop of dew."
This doctrine of rewards and punishments in the future
life implies the moral freedom of man, since God can only reward or punish
those who have been free to choose between good and evil. Nevertheless Mohammed
teaches the opposite dogma of predestination, which destroys this freedom, by
declaring that a man is predestined to good or to evil from all Eternity. But
this belief was of powerful assistance to him, for why should one try to escape
from dangers or death if everything is decided beforehand, if the fate of each
is ruled by an unchanging will? Thus the Mussulman, impelled by his passions,
called by him the spirit of God, rushed against the enemy, to victory and to
the conquest of the world, much" as today, since he has lost his warlike
enthusiasm, he sits calm and resigned in the face of the "fire which burns
his towns, of the pestilence which decimates his people, and of the Christian
civilization which shakes the foundation of his empire, and would utterly
overthrow it if it had no interest in its preservation.
The religious law of the Arabs, like that of the Jews,
is also their civil law, and the Koran is at the same time the sacred book and
the code of the Mussulman. Mohammed reformed Arabian family life. He raised the
position of women. Daughters had before inherited nothing; he decreed that each
daughter should inherit half as much as was received by each of her brothers.
Though maintaining the authority of husbands, he commanded them to be
considerate protectors of their wives, and though he permitted polygamy in
order to avoid too much collision with the customs of the East, he praised and
encouraged those who contented themselves with one wife. The position of woman
as a mother also was raised. “A son gains paradise at his mother’s knees”. The
rights of the children are protected, and the Koran does away with the
frightful custom which permitted parents to bury their daughters alive. If it
did not require the abolition of slavery, it at least determined the obligation
of the masters toward their slaves, and recommended manumission to them as an
act agreeable to God.
The Koran provides severe punishments for theft,
usury, fraud, and false testimony, and prescribes the giving of alms. It
regulates the religious observances with severity: the fast of Rhamadan; the observance of the four holy months, an
ancient custom, which, by a kind of truce of God, suspended all hostilities of
the faithful with each other; the great annual pilgrimage to Mecca, which city
Mohammed had made the seat of the new religion in order that, instead of
disturbing the Arab customs, he might turn them to the profit of Islamism; and
the five daily prayers, which were so irksome an obligation, that the false
prophet Moseilama was able to draw many followers to
himself by simply dispensing with one of these prayers. Ablutions either with
water or, if water failed, with the fine sand of the desert, circumcision, the
avoidance of wine and of swine flesh, the latter health measures, are also
required by the Koran.
It reiterates the doctrine that the faithful are all
brothers, but also that all who do not believe are enemies. There; is,
however, a great distinction made between Christians, Jews, and all the
unfaithful who believe in one God and in the last judgment, and idolators, apostates, and schismatics.
With the former it is enough to avoid ties of blood, and it is not right to
fight with them unless they give the first offense. But as to the latter, it is
the duty of every good Mussulman to attack them, pursue them, and to kill them,
unless they embrace the religion of the Prophet. 'Ye believers, form no
connections with Christians and with Jews." Woe to the Mussulman who stays
by his fireside instead of going to war; he cannot escape death, for the term
of his life is fixed. Does he fear the burning heat of the combat? "The
infernal regions are hotter than the heats of summer." Does he think to
turn and flee? "Paradise is before you, behind you the flames of the
infernal regions."
These precepts, hopes, and menaces were the powerful
motives which sent the Arabs forth, sword in hand, in every direction.
Mohammed did not regulate either the form of the
government or the order of succession. The caliph was at the same time the
religious, civil, and military chief. Abu-Bekr, whom
Mohammed had enjoined to say the prayers in his stead, was recognized as caliph
(632), and afterwards chose as his successor Omar (634), who in his turn intrusted this choice to a commission of six important
persons. This commission appointed Othman (644), whose weakness gave rise to
disturbances in the midst of which Ali mounted the throne (656). Ali, the
husband of Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed, had, ever since the death of his
father-in-law, been one of the pretendants to
the throne, and chief of the party of the Fatimites.
These rivalries were perpetuated by the two Mussulman sects, the Schiites or Separatists, who considered Ali and his
posterity as unjustly deprived of their rights, and the Sunnites or the
conservative party, who recognized Abu-Bekr, Omar,
and Othman as legitimate sovereigns. Long and bloody wars resulted from this
division. Today the Persians are Schiites and
the Turks are Sunnites. After Ali (661) hereditary rule begins with the Ommiades.
This is the period (632-661) of the most rapid and
most marvelous conquests of the Arabs.
"Go," said Abu-Bekr to the Arab warriors, "and fight bravely and loyally; do not mutilate
those whom you have conquered, or kill the old men, the women and children; do
not destroy the palm-trees or burn the crops, or cut down the
fruit-trees." Some of these warriors went to the heart of Arabia to put
down the false prophets and the tribes who refused to recognize Islamism,
others marched against Syria, and others toward the
Euphrates and Persia.
The first subdued the interior of the peninsula and
thus gave unity to the whole Arab nation.
The second succeeded in six years in conquering Syria
from the Byzantine Greeks. They first took Bostra,
which was the key to the country toward the desert, and then besieged Damascus.
The siege was interrupted by the battle of Aiznadin,
where they utterly defeated an army of 70,000 men, sent by the Emperor
Heraclius. Damascus capitulated to the General Abu-Obeidah;
but the fiery Khalid, who at the same time successfully fought his way through
another gate, after three days of truce pursued the fugitives with all the
speed of his Arab horses, caught up with them, and utterly destroyed them,
returning with their spoils (635). A second victory gained on the banks of
the Yermuk in Palestine completed this
conquest (636). A Greek army of considerable size had come out against the
Mohammedans; three times they fell back, but each time their wives, who were on
horseback, bow in hand, at the rear of the army, sent them back to the combat.
The Arabian historians undoubtedly exaggerate when they speak of 150,000
enemies slain and 40,000 taken prisoners. Jerusalem opened its gates to the
Caliph Omar, who came in person to take possession; he was plainly mounted on a
rough-haired camel, and carried in front of him, on his saddle, a bag of wheat,
a bag of dates, and a leathern bottle of water, and offered to share his frugal
repast with all whom he met. He stayed ten days at Jerusalem in order to
regulate the affairs of the country, and to build a mosque, though he allowed
the Christians the free exercise of their religion. After Jerusalem, Aleppo,
and finally Antioch, the mighty capital of Syria, surrendered, and Heraclius
abandoned this country forever (638).
The army which had been sent in the direction of the
Euphrates had had no less marvelous a success. Khalid, the first commander,
took Hanbar and Hira. His passing into
Syria did not diminish his success. Persia, whose power was already declining,
tried in vain with 150,000 soldiers to resist 30,000 Arabs, and was defeated in
the great battle of Kadesiah, which lasted three
days (637). The famous standard of the Sassanides,
the leather apron, which recalled their origin, fell into the hands of the Mussulmans. The victors, leaving behind them the colonies
of Bussorah and Kufah,
hastened to Ctesiphon, which they captured. The victory of Jalula, and that of Nehavend,
or the victory of victories, at the south of Ecbatana (642), made Persia
subject to them. Ispahan was conquered,
Persepolis sacked, and Yezdegerd, the king of Persia,
just escaped being taken prisoner in the midst of his falling palace. He went
in search of aid as far as China, but in vain, and was assassinated on the
shore of the Oxus (652), and Khorassan became
subject to the Arabs.
While the overthrow of the great King was being effected, Egypt was subjugated. There, as in Syria, it was
the Eastern Empire that suffered the attack. Amru,
chief of the Arabs, skillfully took advantage of the hatred which the
Copts or the natives felt toward the Greeks, whom they
considered as foreigners and heretics. His progress was not checked till he
reached Alexandria, which held out against him fourteen months. It has not been
proved that Amru gave the order to burn the precious
library of this rich and learned city. On the contrary we see Amru organizing the government of the country with wisdom,
substituting a more just system of taxation for the capitation, and reserving
one-third of these taxes for the preservation of the canals and ditches, and
also reviving the ancient project of the Pharaohs, the Ptolemys,
and the Caesars, of connecting the Nile and the Red Sea, a project which was,
however, abandoned in the fear of opening to the infidels a way to the sacred
cities.
The intestine quarrels that filled and followed the
Caliphate of Ali brought the conquests of the Arabs to a halt, for the time
being. Ali, the leading representative of the Hashimites and
of Mohammed saw arise against him a Koreishite reaction
which had already shown itself in the election of Othman. Moawijah was the leader of the movement; he governed
Syria, where this party was strongest, while Ali was established at Kufah, in Irak-Arabi (Babylonia),
a country devoted to his cause. After several bloody contests Moawijah had the caliph assassinated by three
fanatics, and the hereditary dynasty of the Ommiades began,
which lasted 90 years (661-750). Under this dynasty, Damascus became the
capital of the Empire. From that time the character of the government changed
and became more despotic; though it must be borne in mind that it had to do
with a very different people from the Arabs of Hedjaz.
The institutions and the faith of the Mohammedans
underwent various modifications; while some on the one hand gave themselves up
to luxury and disobeyed the precepts of their religion, others by a natural
reaction formed the fanatical and gloomy sects of the Kharegites,
the Motazelites, the Kadonians,
etc., the puritans of Islamism, who struggled against the Ommiades with indomitable energy. The dynasty was only
established by rivers of blood, and more especially by
the victories of the valiant Hojiaj in the
reign of Abd-el-Melek.
A second and last period of conquests began in his reign.
In the east the conquest of Transoxiana, of the
ancient Sogdiana and the shores of the Indus (707) carried the
dominion of the Mussulman to the limits of the empire of Alexander. The Arabs
found at this extreme end of their empire, at Bokhara and at Samarcand (707), the fruits from the seeds of
civilization left there by the Greek conquerors, and they did not allow this
growing prosperity to perish.
They advanced also in the direction of Asia Minor and
of Constantinople. So far they had only fought on land, but the Syrian dynasty
of the Ommiades gave them a maritime power,
the elements of which they found in the conquered provinces of Phoenicia and
Cilicia. In 672 they began a series of attacks upon Constantinople itself, and
carried them on for seven years, but were driven away by the Greek fire, an
invention of a Syrian, which had the terrible property of burning in water.
This bold enterprise, which threatened to destroy all that was left of the
Roman Empire, was renewed in 717 under the Caliph Soliman.
An army of 120,000 men crossed Asia Minor and the Hellespont and stationed
themselves before Constantinople, which a fleet of 1800 sail was besieging at
the same time. Again the Greek fire caused the attempt to fail, and the Arab
invasion in this direction was given up. Their retreat decided that the Eastern
Empire should live some centuries longer.
The Arabs were summoned to Africa by the natives, who
were overwhelmed by the tributes imposed by the Romans. Akbah hastened thither and advanced as far as the
Atlantic, where he urged his horse into the waves. He founded Kairowan at the south of Carthage, twelve miles from
the coast (670). The Arabs feared the Roman fleet, but the desert, their
domain, had no terror for them. Akbah yielded
to the attacks of the Moors. But Hassan, under the Caliph Abd-el-Melek (692-698),
established the dominion of the Arabs over the whole length of the African
sea-coast by the conquest of Carthage, which was consigned to the flames and
has never been rebuilt. A last insurrection of the Moors, led by their
Queen Kahina, was put down in 709, and the Arabs
then turned their attention to the countries beyond the strait of Hercules.
Tarik crossed this strait in 711 and gave it the name
of Gibraltar (Djebel-Tarik, Mountain of Tarik). These
Arabs encountered here for the first time the barbarians of the north. They
found in Spain the Visigoth monarchy in an enfeebled condition, torn by discord
and allowing the walls of its fortifications to fall to pieces. They were aided
by the powerful Count Julian, Governor of Ceuta, and by the Archbishop of
Seville, who wished to overthrow King Roderic;
and were victorious at the battle of Xeres, on
the banks of the Guad-al-Lete. Roderic is said to have perished in the waters of the
Guadalquivir, when trying to make his escape (711). This three days' battle put
an end to the kingdom of the Visigoths, but it was eight years before the Arabs
succeeded in subjugating the peninsula as far as the mountains of Asturia, where Pelayo, a Visigothic chief, kept his independence. In 720 they
occupied Septimania as a dependency of the Gothic
kingdom. Thus they had crossed the Pyrenees, another mighty barrier, and Gaul
lay opened before them. It was now a question whether or not they would succeed
in conquering it as they had done
Asia, Africa, and Spain,
and in destroying with a single blow the German states and the Christian
religion. They had already
pushed their cavalry as far as Sens, and the Berber Munuza had already settled in Septimania and married the
daughter of the Duke of Aquitaine. This was a solemn moment in the history of
the world. The question was decided in the famous plains between Tours and
Poitiers, where the powerful Austrasian infantry of
Charles Martel, like a wall of iron, resisted the fiery horsemen of Arabia, of
Syria, and of Magrib (732).
Thus the Arab invasion found its bounds on the banks
of the Indus, at the entrance to Asia Minor, and at the Pyrenees. Like the
German invaders the Arabs settled in their conquered countries, and there arose
in the face of the western and Christian civilization, a civilization which was
entirely Eastern and Mussulmanic. The Byzantine
Empire, escaping from the torrents which rushed past on either side, thanks to
its position and to the walls of its capital, existed between the two new
worlds like a pale image of the ancient Roman world.
CHAPTER VII.
DISMEMBERMENT, DECLINE
AND FALL OF THE ARABIAN EMPIRE (755-1058).
Accession of the Abbasides (750),
and foundation of the Caliphate of Cordova (755).—Caliphate of Bagdad
(750-1058).—Almanssur, Haroun-al-Rashid, Al-Mamun.—Creation of the Turkish Guards. Decline and
dismemberment of the Caliphate of Bagdad.—Africa; Fatimite Caliphate
(968).—Spain; Caliphate of Cordova.—Arabian Civilization.
It was just a century after Mohammed’s death when
Charles Martel, in 732, forced the Arabian invaders to retrace their steps; in
one hundred years the Arabs had spread from the Indies to the Pyrenees. To give
their boundaries more exactly, their empire reached, on the east, as far as the
Indus and the Vale of Cashmir; on the north
their boundary line followed the steppes of Turkestan, the Caspian Sea and the
Caucasus, which Islamism had already crossed, then a line drawn obliquely from
the eastern point of the Black Sea to Tarsus, beyond which lay their
tributaries, Pontus and Cappadocia; the Mediterranean, where they occupied
Rhodes, Cyprus, and the Balearic Islands; finally the southern Cevennes and the
Pyrenees, excepting the little kingdom of Pelayo; on the
west their boundary was the Atlantic Ocean;—on the south, the deserts of
Africa, Ethiopia, and the Indian Ocean as far as the mouths of the Indus.
This empire was more than four thousand miles in
length; no empire in antiquity had attained to so great a size. But this great
belt was soon cut into three parts by the Abbassides in
Asia, the Ommiades in Spain and the Fatimites in Africa. Thus, while the German invasion,
carried on at different times and by different methods, without plan or unity
of direction reached under Charlemagne’s influence an organized result, the
Arab invasion, the outcome of a single, common idea, accomplished at one blow
and under one impulse, fell into a state of utter disorganization.
The extreme weakness of the Arabian Empire was due not
only to the extent of its territory but also to its institutions and its
dynasties. There had been a purely Arabian period under the first four
successors of Mohammed, and a Syrian period under the Ommiades;
now came a Persian period under the Abbassides,
and after that a Turkish period, each subject people claiming in turn the
supreme power, as is generally the case in great empires formed by conquest,
and as was the case in the Roman Empire.
The Ommiades of
Damascus had begun to arouse a certain civilization in Syria, steeped as it was
in all the ancient civilizations, as is shown by the celebrated mosque, one of
the wonders of the world, which Valid I had built at Damascus and which Tamerlain destroyed; nevertheless, conquest was the distinguishing
characteristic of that period. On the other hand, peaceful employments,
industry, and the cultivation of the sciences characterized the period that
followed.
The Ommiades, who were
perverted, wine-drinking Mohammedans, belonged, in fact, neither to the Arabs
who had remained in their native peninsula, nor to those who had settled in
large numbers in Irak (ancient Babylonia). This
country was an Arabia on a small scale, where the worship of Islam and the
attachment to the Prophet's family were kept up in all their purity. The
descendants of Ali preserved together with their pretensions great influence
over these tribes. But though they were men of virtue and fine character,
the Alides had not in general the talents
necessary to enforce the recognition of their rights. A family of their party,
and one which pretended to be connected with them by blood, undertook this on their own account; this was the Abbas family. The Abbassides, taking advantage of
a disturbance during which Merwan II. ascended the throne (744), stirred up a revolt
in Khorassan, where their influence reigned
supreme, and in Irak, where the Alides, although rivals, welcomed them out of hatred for
the Ommiades. They took black for their color,
because white was the color of the Ommiades, and
the two opposing parties were distinguished by their colors. Merwan was defeated on the banks of the Zab, a tributary of the Tigris, and his head was cut off
(750). The triumph of the Abbassides was
signalized by horrible acts of vengeance. The Ommiades and
their adherents were murdered by the thousand. Ninety of their chiefs were
invited to a banquet on the pretext of a reconciliation.
In the midst of the feast, a poet appeared, not an Antar singing
of combats, love, hospitality and glory, but a gloomy and awe-inspiring poet; “Abdallah”,
said he to the uncle of Abbas, who was presiding at the feast, “remember Al-Husein, remember Zaidi. Husein was
assassinated and his corpse, dragged through the squares of Damascus, was
trampled beneath the feet of horses, Zaidi, the son of Husein, conquered by Hescham the
Ommiad, was strangled before his eyes, and his body was exposed like a vile
criminal's. Remember your friends, remember your brothers. Hasten: this is the
moment for your just vengeance!” He finished speaking; an executioner appeared
behind each of the Ommiades; they were struck
down, and their still palpitating bodies were covered with planks and carpets.
Then, on this bloody platform, the feast went on (750). The tombs of the
caliphs of Damascus were opened, the bones found there were burned, and the
ashes thrown to the winds. Abul-Abbas acquired
in this way his name of El-Saffah—the bloody.
One Ommiad, however, escaped; the young Abderrahman; he hid himself first with the Bedouins
of Barcah, in Egypt, and then with the Zenetes, until he was called to rule by the Arabs of Spain.
The armies of Islam were composed of very varied
elements; in the army which invaded Spain, there were doubtless many pure
Arabs, but there were also Syrians, Egyptians and Berbers, and they settled
separately, in distinct bands, in the conquered territory; this explains,
though it is anticipating somewhat, the fall of the caliphate of Cordova. At
Cordova the royal legion of Damascus had established itself. It was these
Syrian Arabs, faithful to the Syrian family of the Ommiades,
who delivered Spain into the hands of Abderrahman (755).
He assumed the title of Emir-al-Moumenin (chief
of the believers), and founded the Caliphate of the West.
The Abbassides, though
deprived by this dismemberment of the western extremity of their empire, still
reigned over Asia and over Africa, though it, too, was to follow the example of
Spain, fifty years later. The first of the Abbassides,
the sanguinary Abul-Abbas, reigned only four
years. His brother Abu-Giaffar Almanssur, or the victorious, succeeded him (754-775). He
had to fight against his uncle Abdallah, one of principal promoters of the
fortunes of their house. He took him prisoner, and, as he had sworn not to kill
him by the sword or by poison, he crushed him under a falling ceiling. After
this act of cruel perfidy, which gave him absolute control, he reigned wisely.
It was he who gave the Arabian Empire its third and celebrated capital Bagdad
(762), situated on the banks of the Tigris, near the old Seleucia and built
around a hill which was crowned by the pavilion of the Caliphs; it was defended
from attacks without by a brick enclosure, fortified with 163 towers. Immense
sums were spent on its decoration. In that stronghold of despotism, which the
ghosts of the Persian kings, the great kings, still seemed to haunt, the
Caliphs of the East acquired a more and more absolute authority and began to
claim for themselves divine attributes, following the Oriental custom of the
worship of the sovereign. A pompous court, officers of all kinds, and a prime
minister called the Vizier (bearer of the burden), relieved the sovereign from
all the cares of government and of the administration of justice, but they also
separated him from his subjects. His primitive simplicity was exchanged for the
luxury taught by the magnificent Persian palaces. He accumulated vast wealth,
still following in the steps of the Persian kings. Almanssur's treasure amounted, it was said, to 150 millions of dollars. His
son Mahdi spent six million dinars (a dinar is worth about two dollars) in a
single pilgrimage to Mecca. What had become of Omar with his bag of dates and
his leather bottle of water?
The most famous of the Caliphs of Bagdad was
Haroun-al-Rashid (the Just) also called the Victorious (786-809). His name is
familiar even in Europe, as well as that of his faithful vizier, Giaffar. We shall see farther on his relations with
Charlemagne. He made eight invasions of the Eastern Empire, conquered
successively Irene and the usurper Nicephorus, forbade the Greeks ever to
rebuild the town of Heraclius on the Pontus, which he had destroyed, and laid
upon them a tribute which they were obliged to pay in money stamped with his
image. But even while he was waging war on them, he borrowed from them their
science and their books, and made them popular among the Arabs by the
protection he accorded to scholars.
His son, Al-Mamun, was still
more eminent in this respect (813-833). He founded many schools and an academy,
and spent enormous sums in the encouragement of science and literature.
Almanssur, Haroun-al-Rashid and Al-Mamun are
the three great names of the Eastern Caliphate. Motassem,
who came after them (833-842), although victorious in the wars he had to
sustain against the Greek Empire, prepared the way for fall of the Abbassides, by forming a guard of 50,000 Turkish slaves,
bought in Tartary. They proved masters, rather than slaves. This body of
soldiers disposed at their will of the throne and the lives of the caliphs,
who, surrounded by plots and menaces, developed a marvelous cruelty.
Motawakkil (847) is a typical representative of them; he
ordered a vizier who had offended him to be roasted alive in a furnace lined
with iron spikes; he invited all the officers of his court to a feast, and had
them massacred, to prevent a plot against him; he allowed wild and ferocious
beasts to run wild in his palace, and the courtiers were forbidden to protect
themselves from them. He was finally assassinated by his son Muntassir (861). His successor was poisoned. Another
was murdered. The palace of the caliphs became the scene of bloody tragedies,
unrelieved by any generous sentiments. It is the old story of despots who
surround themselves with a special and permanent military force whose duty it
is to guard them: the soldiers soon take the law into their own hands and
enforce it with the sword; witness the Praetorians at Rome, the Isaurians at Constantinople, and the Strelitz at
Moscow. In the midst of this anarchy the caliphate of Bagdad fell to pieces.
Africa had already broken away in the time of Haroun-al-Rashid. Even in Asia
independent dynasties were springing up on all sides— founded generally by the
Turks who had been made governors of provinces.
In this way the Turks were introduced little by little
into Asia, which had been galvanized rather than resuscitated by the electric
current of Arabian invasion. We have seen how, at the end of the Roman Empire,
the barbarians were really governing it, though they appeared to be its
servants, and then how, throwing aside the mask, they seized it openly by means
of invasion and declared themselves its masters; in the same way the Turks
first gained a footing in the caliphate as soldiers of the caliphs, and, when
they had them completely in their power even to the point of disposing of their
throne, and their lives, they degraded them and established themselves openly
in their place.
The dynasty of the Gaznevides sprang
from the province of Gazna (997). Mahmud,
the son of the founder, took the new title of Sultan, subjugated Khorassan and Kowarism,
laid a tribute upon the people of Georgia, sent twelve terrible expeditions
into the country between the Indus and the Ganges, conquered Delhi and Lahore,
and by his victories carried the religion of the Koran to all the peoples of Hindostan, who had become tributary to him. After him all
this vast dominion came into the possession of a new horde from the north. He
had established the Turkomans in the eastern part of Persia, and they
revolted after his death, led by Seldjuk, who
defeated Mahmud's son Masud and established
the Seldjuk dynasty in the midst of the
empire of the caliphs. Togrul-Beg, the grandson
of Seldjuk, completed the revolution which
deprived the Arabian race of their rule over the East (1058). The Caliph Kaim, reigning at Bagdad, when threatened by him sought his
protection, and delegated to him all temporal power over the States of Islam,
keeping for himself only the spiritual power. He placed on his head two crowns,
emblematic of the power with which he was invested over Arabia and Persia, and
girded him with a magnificent sword. The prince was then clothed successively
with seven robes of honor, and the caliph gave him
seven slaves born in the seven countries of the Empire, while he was proclaimed
sovereign over the East and the West.
Africa, as has been said, soon broke away from the
Caliphate of Bagdad. The Aglabides of Kairowan (800-999) were masters of the Mediterranean
in the ninth and tenth centuries, and established themselves in Corsica,
Sardinia, and Sicily, besides making several attacks on Italy. To guard against
them Pope Leo IV enclosed the neighborhood of the Vatican (Leonine City) with a
rampart. To the west of the Aglabides, the Edrissites gained their independence at Fez (789-919).
But the greatest of the Mussulman dynasties in Africa
was that of the Fatimites, which absorbed the
other two. Ever since the Alides had seen
the caliphate taken away from them by the Abbassides,
in spite of their legitimate claims, they had sought to enforce those claims
elsewhere than in Asia. A family, pretending to descend from Ali and Fatima,
superseded the Aglabides at Kairowan in 909, and established themselves in Egypt
under their chief Moez (968). “Of what
branch of the family of Ali are you?” he was asked. “These are my ancestors”,
he replied, pointing to his scimitar, “and these my children”, he added, as he threw some gold to his soldiers. The Fatimites brought about not merely a political but a
religious schism. They assumed the title of caliph, and made their residence at
Cairo, which they built, and whence their rule extended over all northern
Africa, Syria, and even over Bagdad for a brief space, about the time of Togrul-Beg's invasion. Fanaticism prevailed over all
this country; the names of Ali and of the successors of Moez were the only ones invoked in the mosques of
Africa. The schism was pushed to such a point that the Fatimite Caliph
Hakim, a cruel tyrant, perverting the Mohammedan religion, insisted on being
adored as the incarnation of God. Driven from Cairo, he carried his divinity
into Syria, where his doctrine, a unitarian religion,
is still in force among the Druses. The Fatimites brought
prosperity to Egypt and Egypt in return gave them great wealth; they built
superb mosques and made Cairo a center of science and literature, as Bagdad was
in the East, and Cordova in the West.
The Caliphate of Cordova had as brilliant and as
transient a career as the other two. The Arabs had shown great moderation in
the conquest of Spain. The Christians had everywhere not only liberty of
worship but also their laws and their judges. Councils were held by them with
the consent of the caliphs of Cordova. The tribute exacted of them was in no
way oppressive. Above all, the Jews, whom the Visigoths had treated with
extreme severity, were now unmolested and were even treated with favor, there
were some revolts— the most formidable of which took place in Toledo, which
mourned the loss of its title of capital and center of the government, but
except for these, the conquered mingled very generally with the conquerors and
formed a mixed population, the Mozarabes. The
caliphs of Cordova rarely had to fight for their power over the peoples of
central and southern Spain, and they were soon able to display in peace the
brilliant qualities which most of them possessed. Abderrahman I
(755), Hescham I (787), Abderrahman II (822), Al-Hakam II
(961), were able sovereigns absorbed in caring for the happiness of their
people, patrons of literature, and rich in the treasures which the fertile and
well-cultivated soil of Spain yielded in profusion. Abderrahman I
wept at the sight of a Syrian palm he had had brought to Spain, and which
reminded him of his native country whence he had been forced to fly. Another
made it his duty to perform some manual labor for an hour every day.
Nevertheless, during these reigns the Christians were
encroaching upon the Arabian Empire from the north. Pippin the Short seized Septimania (759); Charlemagne established his power south
of the Pyrenees as far as the Ebro (812), whence afterwards sprang the little
Christian States of Barcelona and Aragon; while the Christians of Asturia held their ground and increased, though
imperceptibly; so that, as we shall see farther on, there stretched across the
northern part of the peninsula a belt of independent Christian people, who were
later to drive out the Mussulmans.
The Walis, or governors
of provinces, had already sought under Mohammed I (852) to make themselves independent, and had sometimes succeeded; while
under the lead of Ibn-Hafson, Jewish and Berber
bandits, from their hiding-place in the mountains of Aragon, began an
insurrection which it took eighty years to subdue.
Abderrahman III (912-961), whose reign was the most
brilliant in the annals of the Cordova caliphate, restored the sway of the
Arabs by subduing Ibn-Hafson and his sons,
and by his signal victories over the Christians of Asturia.
This access of power was sustained until the reign of Hescham II
by the genius of the prime minister, Almanzor, who drove the Christians back beyond the Douro
and the Ebro, which they had crossed. But Almanzor carried with him to the tomb the power of the caliphs of Cordova (1002).
In the eleventh century the Caliphate of the West fell a prey to anarchy and confusion, in which the African
guard of the caliphs, like the Turkish guard at Bagdad, took a prominent part,
and during which the Walis shook off their
yoke. In 1010 Murcia, Badajoz, Grenada, Saragossa, Valencia, Seville, Toledo,
Carmona, and Algeziras had become so many
independent principalities. In 1031, Hescham,
the last of the Ommiades, was deposed and
retired with joy into obscurity; in 1060, even the title of Caliph had
disappeared.
Such was the fate of the Arabian Empire in the three
portions of the world—Asia, Africa, and Europe : first
a sudden and irresistible expansion, then at the end of a few centuries
division and general decay. The Empire had been built too quickly to endure. As
their poets improvised brilliant poems, so they
improvised a gigantic dominion. No one can say that it has entirely perished
who has seen the religion, the language, and the laws of the Koran still
reigning over the greater part of the country formerly included in the Arabian
Empire. Moreover, it handed down to the Europe of the Middle Ages discoveries,
arts, and sciences, often borrowed, it is true, from other peoples, but the
mere propagation of which sheds a luster over the Arabian name.
In fact, while Europe was lost in the darkness of
barbarian ignorance scarce pierced by a single ray, the capitals of Islamism
were flooded with a great light of literature, philosophy, arts, and industry.
Bagdad, Samarcand, Damascus, Cairo, Kairowan, Fez, Grenada, and Cordova were so many great
intellectual centers.
We have seen that the Arabs, before they left their
peninsula, already possessed a poetical literature which found expression in
two distinct dialects, the Homerite or Himyarite in Yemen, the Koreisch in
Hedjaz. The latter was used by Mohammed and gained the preponderance. It has
come down to us in all its purity, as the language of learning and religion, or
literary Arabian, while, as the language of the people, it has undergone
numerous changes, resulting from the diversity of the peoples subjugated to
Islamism, and from the lapse of ages. This language is exceedingly rich in
certain respects. The Arab poets had an inexhaustible supply of synonyms at
their command to express, from every point of view and in every varying
condition, the objects which their life in the desert brought continually before
their eyes and offered to their use. They boasted of having 80 different terms
to express honey, 200 for the serpent, 500 for the lion, 1000 for the camel, as
many for the sword, and about 4000 to express the idea of misfortune. An
extraordinary memory was necessary to permit of their making use of such a
multitude of words, and the rawia or
Arabian rhapsodists possessed such memories; one of them, Hammad, offered one day to recite to the Caliph Walid consecutively 100 poems of from 20 to 100 verses
each, and of fanciful construction, and the illustrious auditor was more
quickly tired by it than the indefatigable reciter.
Though at first addicted to lyrical literature, after
their conquests the Arabs enlarged the horizon of their minds, when they mingled
with a people more advanced in civilization. In their contact with the
Persians, the Grecianized Egyptians, and
even the Greeks of Constantinople, they acquired that rich intellectual
development which has always been rather energetical than
creative. They became acquainted with the writings of Aristotle through the
later ramifications of the Alexandrian school, which had become peripatetic
toward its end, and, with a wonderful fervor, applied themselves to commenting
on his great philosophical works. Al-Kindi, who is
regarded as the father of philosophy among the Arabs, and who taught in Bagdad
in the ninth century, professed the theories of the Stagirite philosopher.
Al-Farabi, who followed him and who was also of the
Bagdad school, wrote sixty separate treatises on the works of Aristotle.
Unfortunately they did not read the writings of the Greek philosopher in the
original, but only in Syriac versions from
which they made Arabic translations. Accordingly, when they handed these
writings over to the Christian Europe of the Middle Ages, which obtained a
knowledge of the most of Aristotle's works through them only, many new
variations crept in, because the Europeans were obliged, in their turn, to
translate them again.
It may be added in connection with Aristotle that the
Arabs carried on the debates on great philosophical problems which have always
agitated the human mind. Avicenna (died 1037) represented God as a motionless
being at the center of nature, and exerting scarcely any influence upon it; according
to others, Avicenna was a pantheist. Gazali, on
the contrary, after going through all the systems appeared, after a period
of scepticism, in the mystic school of the Soufis, and wrote his book on the "Destruction of the
Philosophers." The excitement stirred up by these disputes gave rise to a
host of sects in Jslamism. The one most inspired
by a philosophic spirit' was the sect of the Motazilites,
a kind of Islamic protestants, who laid great stress on the human reason, and
who were under the protection of some of the Abbassid caliphs.
Al-Mamun, especially, brought up as he was by the
Persian family of the Barmecides, encouraged
them; while others, whose ideas extended in the same direction with Gazali, formed numerous fanatical sects. While this confusion
of ideas and beliefs prevailed in the midst of the Eastern Caliphate the study
of philosophy was revived in the Western Caliphate by Ibn-Badja and by Ibn-Tofail,
who wrote that curious psychological romance of the Autodidactus, or the Natural Man,
in which he supposes a child thrown upon a desert island at its birth and there
growing to manhood, who comes by himself to the knowledge of nature, not only
in its physical but also in its metaphysical aspect and even of God. Later, in
the twelfth century, the study of philosophy had a fresh impulse given it under
the Almohades by Averroes, who was so
famous in the Middle Ages because it was from him that the Christian peoples
received their direct knowledge of the greater part of Aristotle's works.
The Arabs had better success in the exact sciences,
owing to the scholars who were attracted from Constantinople by the caliphs,
and especially by the second of the Abassid caliphs, Almanssur. As early as the first half of the ninth century,
two astronomers of Bagdad measured, in the plains near the Red Sea, a degree of
the meridian. Soon a commentary on Euclid, a corrected edition of the tables of
Ptolemy, a more exact calculation of the obliquity of the ecliptic and the
precession of the equinoxes, a more precise knowledge of the difference between
the solar year and the sidereal year, and the invention of new and exact
instruments, bore witness to the aptitude of the Arabs for the exact sciences;
and Samarcand, long before Europe, had a very
fine observatory. Yet it is a mistake to ascribe to them, as is often done, the
invention of algebra and of the so-called Arabic numbers which we use. They
only handed down to Europe these two valuable instruments of our mathematics,
as they did the Aristotelian philosophy, borrowing them from the work of other
nations. It is possible that we inherit from them, under a like title, the
mariner's compass and gunpowder, which they may have borrowed from the Chinese.
Europe owes to them also the use of linen paper, which first lowered the price
of manuscripts, and afterwards, when printing had been discovered, made its
benefits more accessible and more quickly felt.
They excelled in the practice of medicine; and in
that, too, they learned much from the Greeks, as can be seen from the treatises
on Galen by Averroes. Many of their great philosophers were physicians
also,—Avicenna, for instance, and Averroes, whom we have just mentioned. The
Arabian physicians had such a reputation that a king of Castile, who was
troubled with dropsy, wished to be treated for it at Cordova, and through the
courtesy of the caliph obtained permission to recover his health among his
enemies. They taught us the process of distillation and the uses of rhubarb;
they discovered alcohol and many new remedies and medicaments, the use of
manna, of senna, camphor, mercury, syrups, etc.
Geography is one of the sciences that owes most to the Arabs; their great conquests, their taste
for travel and adventure, their enforced pilgrimages gave them an exact
knowledge of many distant lands that had never been visited by Europeans or
else had been forgotten by them. Among these men the first in rank were Abulfeda, Masudi, and
particularly Edrisi, who was called to the court
of Roger, King of Sicily, and there composed his curious work, entitled: “Diversions
of a man desirous of becoming thoroughly acquainted with the different countries
of the world”. In the line of history, the annals of Masudi, Makusi, and Abulfeda may
be mentioned. But the Arabian historians were little given to criticism or
analysis, and rarely stated anything beyond bare facts.
Of the fine arts, they cultivated architecture alone,
as the law of their religion forbade the representation of the human form, and
so cut off the possibility of sculpture and painting. This prohibition itself
gave a peculiar character to their architecture, though little invention was shown
in it, as its principal element was borrowed from the Byzantine architecture,
that is, the more than semicircular [or horseshoe] arch borne on pillars—what
really belongs to them are the arabesques by which they supplied the places of
painted OV sculptured figures in their ornamentation. They were originally
inscriptions with a meaning; later the sense disappeared and they were merely
combinations of lines borrowed from the Arabic letters, which lend themselves
readily to the formation of the rich designs that we admire in the carpets and
stuffs of the East. As regards the pretended Arabic origin of the pointed
architecture, it is now known that nothing is more erroneous than this
supposition. The characteristics of Arabic architecture are the magnificence
and luxury of the interiors of their buildings, and the profusion of basins and
fountains of gold and precious stones, which they obtained from the East and
the mines of southern Spain. One of the most magnificent monuments of this kind
was the famous mosque built by Abderrahman I
at Cordova, with its 1093 marble columns and its 4700 lamps; another, no less
splendid, was the palace of Al-Tehra (Flowers),
which Abderrahman built upon the banks of
the Guadalquivir for one of his favorites, and where a jet of mercury fell
sparkling into a shell of porphyry. The Alhambra, at once a palace and a
fortress, can still be seen and admired at Grenada, and many parts of it,
especially the so-called court of the Lions, are models of architectural beauty
and splendor.
The Arabs have always been merchants by nature, and
when their power extended from the Pyrenees to the Himalayas, they easily
became the most considerable merchants of the world. No one knew so well as
those inhabitants of the desert how to make the best use of water in the work
of cultivation, under their burning sun. The system of irrigation instituted by
them, and still preserved in the plain of Valencia, the garden of Spain, might
serve as a model to the agriculturists of our own times. When they went to the
great Roman cities and became acquainted with works of industry, they developed
great skill as artisans. The reputation of Toledo for its arms, Granada for its
silks, Cuenca for its blue and green cloths, and Cordova for harnesses, saddles
and leather goods, spread throughout Europe, and these products of infidel
industry brought the highest prices. Spain especially profited by this time of
splendor, as she was more peaceful than the East during the first centuries of
the Caliphate. Her population was large; Cordova alone is said to have had
200,000 houses, 600 mosques, 50 hospitals, 80 public schools, 900 public baths,
and a million inhabitants.
We have given here a brief sketch of the civilization
which was diffused by the Arabs from the Tagus to the Indus, a civilization
brilliant but unstable; while that of Europe, though slower in its development
and suffering many convulsions and eclipses, has had the long continued
existence which is reserved for all slow and labored growth.
BOOK III.
THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE, OR THE ATTEMPT TO ORGANIZE
GERMAN AND CHRISTIAN EUROPE (687-814).
BOOK IV.
FALL OF THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE.NEW BARBARIAN INVASIONS
(814-887).
BOOK V.
FEUDALISM, OR THE HISTORY OF THE KINGDOMS FORMED FROM
THE CAROLINGIAN EMPIRE, DURING THE TENTH AND ELEVENTH CENTURIES.
BOOK VI.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN THE PAPACY AND THE EMPIRE
(1059-1250)
BOOK VII.
THE CRUSADES (1095-1270)
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DURUY'SHISTORY OF THE MIDDLE AGES |
