CHAPTER IV. MOHAMMEDANISM AND THE ARABIC CONQUESTS.
CONDITION OF ARABIA.—In the sixth century the influence of the Greek and of the Persian Empires, especially of the Persian, was prevalent in Arabia. It was then inhabited mostly by tribes either distinct or loosely bound together, and contained no independent state of any considerable importance. The Arabs of that day had "all the virtues and vices of the half-savage state, its revenge and its rapacity, its hospitality and its bounty." In the Hejaz district—situated between fertile and more civilized Yemen, or Arabia Felix, in the south-west of the peninsula and the Sinaitic region,—and in Nejd to the east of Hejaz, which were the two districts in which Islam and the Arabian Empire took their rise, dwelt tribes whose common sanctuary was the Kaaba at Mecca, in the wall of which was the quadrangular black stone kissed by all devotees, and supposed to have been received from the angel Gabriel. The religion of the Arabs was polytheism in many different forms, in which idol-worship was prominent; but all agreed in acknowledging one supreme God, Allah, in whose name solemn oaths were taken. Once in the year the tribes gathered in Mecca for their devotions; and a great fair in the vicinity, attended by a poetical contest, made the city prosperous. The town was made up of separate Septs, or patriarchal families, each under its own head, of which septs the Omayyads were of principal importance, and had charge of the Kaaba. Mohammed belonged to the Hashimites, another and poorer branch of the leading tribe of Koreish. The Koreishites, by their trading-journeys to Syria, had acquired more culture then others, whether Bedouins, or residents of Medina. At the time when Mohammed was born, which was probably in 572, the religion of the Arabs had sunk into idolatry or indifference. There were three hundred and sixty images in the Kaaba. But there were some who were called hanifs, who were serious and earnest, and turned away from idolatrous worship. Besides the Sabian religion of the Persian sun-worshipers, the leading tenets and rites of Christianity and of Judaism, both in the degenerate types which they assumed on the Syrian borders, were not unfamiliar to Arabs dwelling in the caravan routes on the borders of the Red Sea.
CAREER OF MOHAMMED.—Mohammed was early left an orphan under the care of his uncle Abu Talib. In his youth he tended sheep, and gathered wild berries in the desert. In his twenty-fifth year he became the commercial agent of a wealthy widow, Khadija, made journeys for her into Palestine and Syria,—where he may have received religious knowledge and impressions from Christian monks and Jewish rabbis,—and, after a time, married her. He is described as having a commanding presence, with piercing eyes, fluent in speech, and with pleasing ways. Eventually he came into close contact with the hanifs. He followed the custom of retiring for meditation and prayer to the lonely and desolate Mount Hira. A vivid sense of the being of one Almighty God and of his own responsibility to God, entered into his soul. A tendency to hysteria in the East a disease of men as well as of women—and to epilepsy helps to account for extraordinary states of body and mind of which he was the subject. At first he ascribed his strange ecstasies, or hallucinations, to evil spirits, especially on the occasion when an angel directed him to begin the work of prophesying. But he was persuaded by Khadija that their source was from above. He became convinced that he was a prophet inspired with a holy truth and charged with a sacred commission. His wife was his first convert. His faith he called Islam, which signifies "resignation to the divine will." His cousin Ali, his friend Abubekr, and a few others, believed in him. There is no doubt that the materials of Mohammed's creed were drawn from Jewish and Christian sources: Abraham was the hanif, whose pure monotheism he claimed to re-assert; but the animating spirit was from within. The sum of his doctrine was, that there is only one God, and that Mohammed is the apostle of God.
AFTER THE HEGIRA.—The Koreishites, the rulers and the elders, persecuted him. They flung out the reproach, that his adherents were from the poor or from the rank of slaves. This provoked him to denounce them, and to threaten them with the Divine judgment and with perdition. He lost his uncle in 619: his wife had died before. He had found sympathy with his claims from pious men from Medina. They offered him an asylum. Thither he went in 622, the date of his Hijira, or flight from Mecca, from which the Mohammedan calendar is reckoned. At Medina he won influence: he was frequently resorted to as an adviser, and as a judge to settle disputes. His activity in this direction was beneficent. His injunctions respecting the rights of property, and the protection due to women, were, in the main, discreet and wholesome. Naturally and speedily he became a political leader as well as a religious reformer. This new course on which he entered made a breach between him and the Jews, whom he had hoped to conciliate. He drew off from fellowship with them, made Friday the principal day of public worship, and Mecca its principal seat. For the Jewish fast he substituted the month of Ramadan. His plan was to cement together the Arab tribes, superseding the old tie of blood by the new bond of fellowship in adherence to him. The project of a holy war to conquer and to crush the idolaters, and to establish his own authority, was the means to this end. Mecca was the first object of assault. He attacked and plundered a Meccan caravan in 623. The next year he defeated the Koreishites in the battle of Bedr. In the battle of Ohod (625) his followers were worsted. Other conflicts ensued, with attacks on the Jews in the intervals, until, in 630, he entered Mecca at the head of ten thousand men, and destroyed all the idols. This event secured the adhesion of the Arabian tribes, together with the chiefs of Yemen and of the other more civilized districts. Hearing that the Emperor Heraclius was proposing to attack him, he went forth to meet him, but found that the rumor was false. He was preparing a new expedition against the Greeks when he died, in 632.
CHARACTER OF MOHAMMED.—From the time of the flight of Mohammed to Medina, the prophet turned more and more into the politician. Under the circumstances, this was, perhaps, an almost inevitable change. But one consequence was the bringing out of his natural vindictiveness, and the transformation of the enthusiast into the fanatic. Beginning as the prophet of Arabia, he came to think that he was the prophet of the whole world. There was a call to a wider warfare against idolatry. A crusade, partly political and partly religious, involved a mixture of craft and cruelty which exhibit his character in a new light. Yet it is probable that he always sincerely felt that his work in general was one to which he was called of God. Even the prosaic regulations and "orders of the day," which are placed in the Koran, if not the reproduction, in cataleptic visions, of his previous thoughts, may have been regarded by him as having a divine sanction. The extent of possible self-deception in so extraordinary a combination of qualities, it is not easy to define. His conduct was, for the most part, on a level with his precepts. There was one exception; he allowed not more than four wives to a disciple: he himself, at one time, had eleven. While Khadija lived he was wedded to her alone.
THE KORAN.—The Koran is regarded as the word of God by a hundred millions of disciples. It is very unequal in style. In parts it is vigorous, and here and there imaginative, but generally its tone is prosaic. Its narrative portions are chiefly about scriptural persons, especially those of the Old Testament. Mohammed's acquaintance with these must have been indirect, from rabbinical and apocryphal sources. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ are acknowledged as prophets. The deity of Christ and the doctrine of the Trinity are repudiated. The miracles of Jesus are acknowledged. Mohammed does not claim for himself miraculous power. Predestination is taught, but this became a conspicuous tenet of Moslems after the death of the founder. The immortality of the soul is admitted, the pains of hell are threatened to the wicked and to "infidels;" and a sensual paradise is promised to the faithful, although it is declared that higher spiritual joys are the lot of the most favored. The faith of Mohammed was, in substance, Judaism, the religion of the Old Testament; power being set before holiness, however, in the conception of God, and the supernatural mission of Mohammed substituted for the future Messianic reign of righteousness and peace, and coupled with the emphatic proclamation of the last judgment. The law in the Koran is a civil as well as a moral code. Notwithstanding his countenance of sensuality by his own practice, as well as by his legalizing of polygamy, and his notion of paradise, Mohammed elevated the condition of woman among the Arabs. Before there was unbridled profligacy: now there was a regulated polygamy. Severe prohibitions are uttered against thieving, usury, fraud, false witness; and alms-giving is emphatically enjoined. Strong drink and gambling were prohibited.
The gem of the Koran is "The Lord's Prayer of the Moslems:" "In the name of God, the compassionate Compassioner, the Sovereign of the day of judgment. Thee do we worship, and of Thee do we beg assistance. Direct us in the right way; in the way of those to whom Thou hast been gracious, in whom there is no wrath, and who go not astray."
THE ARABIC CONQUESTS: SYRIA, PERSIA, EGYPT.—Mohammed made no provision for the succession. The Caliphs, or "successors," combined in themselves civil, military and religious authority. They united the functions of emperor and pope. Ali, the husband of Fatima, Mohammed's favorite daughter, had hoped to succeed him. But, by the older companions of the prophet, Abubekr, Mohammed's father-in-law was appointed. The Shiites were supporters of Ali, while the Sunnites, who adhered to "the traditions of the elders," were against him. These two parties have continued until the present day; the Persians being Shiites, and the Turks, Sunnites. Mohammed, before he died, was inflamed with the spirit of conquest. Full of the fire of fanaticism, mingled with a thirst for dominion and plunder, the Arabians rapidly extended their sway. These warriors, to their credit be it said, if terrible in attack, were mild in victory. Their two principal adversaries were the Eastern Empire and Persia. Mohammedanism snatched from the empire those provinces in which the Greek civilization had not taken deep root, and it made its way into Europe. It conquered Persia, and became the principal religion of those Asiatic nations with which history mainly has to do. Mohammed had made a difference in his injunctions between heathen, apostates, and schismatics, all of whom were to embrace Islam or to perish, and Jews and Christians, to both of whom was given the choice of the Koran, tribute, or death. They must buy the right to exercise their religion, if they refused to say that "Allah is God, and Mohammed is His prophet." Omar (634-644), the next caliph after Abubekr, and a leader distinguished alike for his military energy and his simplicity of manners and life, first brought all Arabia, which was impelled as much by a craving for booty as by religious zeal, into a cordial union under his banner. Then he carried the war beyond the Arabian borders. Palestine and Syria were wrested from the Greek Empire; the old cities of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Damascus fell into the hands of the impetuous Saracens. A mosque was erected on the site of Solomon's Temple. The Persian Empire was invaded, and, after a series of sanguinary battles, especially the battle of Cadesia (636), followed by the battle of Nehavend (641), was destroyed. Ctesiphon, with all its riches, was captured, and Persepolis was sacked. The last king of the line of Sassanids, Yezdegerd III., having lived for many years as a fugitive, perished by the hand of an assassin (652). Meantime Egypt had submitted to the irresistible invaders under Amr, who was aided by the Christian sect of the Copts, out of hostility to the Greek Orthodox Church. After a siege of fourteen months, Alexandria was taken; but it is probably not true that the library was burned by Omar's order. In the disorders of the times, the great collections of books had probably, for the most part, been dispersed and destroyed. Six friends of Mohammed, selected by Omar, chose Othman (644-656) for his successor, who stirred up enmity by his pride and avarice. Under him the Christian Berbers in Africa were won over to the faith of Islam, and paved the way for its further advance.
THE OMAYYADS: CONQUEST OF AFRICA AND SPAIN.—Othman was assassinated by three fanatics, and Ali was then raised to the caliphate; but Muawiyah, representing the family of the Omayyads, made himself the head of an opposing party, and, after the assassination of Ali, became sole caliph (661). He removed the seat of the caliphate to Damascus. He carried the Arabian conquests as far as the Indus and Bokhara. He created a fleet on the Mediterranean, under an "Admiral," that is, a commander on the sea. In seven successive years he menaced Constantinople with his navy. At a later time, in 717, under the caliph Soliman, another great attempt was made on the capital of the Greek Empire. With an army of a hundred and twenty thousand men, he traversed Asia Minor and the Hellespont, and was supported in his attack by a fleet of eighteen hundred sail. But the energetic defense, which was aided by the use of "the Greek fire,"—an artificial compound which exploded and burned with an unquenchable flame,—caused the grand expedition to fail; and the Eastern Empire had another long lease of life. The successors of Muawiyah accomplished the subjugation of Africa. They were invited by the native inhabitants, who groaned under the burdens of taxation laid on them by the Greek emperors. About A.D. 700 the Arab governor, Musa, completed the conquest of the African dominion of the Greeks as far as the Atlantic. The amalgamation of the Berbers with the other inhabitants of that region, and with the Arabs, resulted in the race called Moors. At this time the Spanish Visigothic kingdom, which had become Catholic (586-601), was much enfeebled, and a prey to discord. Under Tarik—from whom Gibraltar, or the mountain of Tarik near which he landed, is named—the Arabs crossed into Spain, and for the first time found themselves face to face with the barbarians of the North. In the great battle of Xeres de la Frontera, near the Guadalquivir, in 711, which lasted for three days, the fate of the Visigothic kingdom was decided. Eight years were occupied in conquering Spain. In 720 the Saracens occupied Septimania north of the Pyrenees, a dependency of the Gothic kingdom. Gaul now lay open before them. The Mohammedan power threatened to encircle Christendom, and to destroy the Church and Christianity itself. In the plains between Tours and Poitiers, the Saracens were met by the Austrasian Franks under Charles Martel (732). The impetuous charges of the Saracen cavalry were met and beaten back by the infantry of the Franks, which confronted them like an iron wall. The Mohammedan defeat saved Christian Europe from being trampled under foot by the Mussulman; it saved the Christian people of the Aryan nations from being subjugated by the Semitic disciples of the Koran. At the same time that Spain was overrun, the Turkish lands on the east of the Caspian were subdued. The old antipathy between the Iranians and Turanians, the Schiite Persians and the Sunnite Turks, was afterwards carried into Europe by the Ottoman Moslems.
THE ABBASSIDES: BAGDAD.—Misgovernment embittered the faithful against the rule of the Omayyads in Damascus, although Syria had become a source of higher culture for the Arabians: there they became acquainted with Greek learning. The adherents of Ali found vigorous champions in the Abbassides, who, as Hashimites, laid claim to the caliphate. One of them, Abul Abbas, was made caliph by the soldiers in 750. The fierce cruelty of his party against the Omayyads led to the murder of all of them except Abderrahman, who fled to Africa, and, in 755, founded an independent caliphate at Cordova. The Abbassides attached themselves to the Sunnite creed. Under Almansor, the brother and successor of Abbas, Bagdad, a city founded by Almansor (754-775) on the banks of the Tigris, was made the seat of the caliphate, and so continued until the great Mongolian invasion in 1258. Bagdad was built on the west bank of the Tigris, but, by means of bridges, stretched over to the other shore. It was protected by strong, double walls. It was not only the proud capital of the caliphate: it was, besides, the great market for the trade of the East, the meeting-place of many nations, where caravans from China and Thibet, from India, and from Ferghana in the modern Turkestan, met throngs of merchants from Armenia and Constantinople, from Egypt and Arabia. There trading-fleets gathered which carried the products of the North and West down the great rivers to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Bagdad was to the caliphs what Byzantium was to Constantine, or Alexandria to the Ptolemies. It became the grandest city in the world. Canals to the number of six hundred ran through it, and a hundred and five bridges bound its two parts together. It was furnished with many thousand mosques and as many baths. The palace of the caliphs comprised in itself all the splendor which Asiatic taste and extravagance could collect and combine in one edifice.
THE EASTERN CALIPHATE.—Deprived of the western extremity of their empire, the Abbassides still ruled over Asia and Africa. In their luxurious and splendid court, the caliphs, served by a vast retinue of officers with the Vizier at their head, copied the magnificence of the ancient Persians. The most famous of the caliphs of Bagdad is Harun-al-Rashid, or "Aaron the Just" (786-809). His name is familiar even to children as the wonderful hero of the "Arabian Nights." His reign, like that of Solomon in ancient Judæa, was considered in after times the golden age of the caliph dominion. As in the case of Charlemagne, poetry and romance invested his character and reign with all that can give glory and honor to a king and a sage. Brilliant pictures were drawn of the boundless wealth and luxury of his court, and of his admirable piety and wisdom. About him there was assembled a host of jurists, linguists, and poets. Three hundred scholars traveled at his expense through different lands. Righteous judgments were ascribed to him, and oracular sayings. He was made the ideal ruler of Oriental fancy. His real character fell much below the later popular conception. He behaved like an Eastern despot towards all his kindred who stood in his way. The Persian family of Barmecides he exterminated, when his passionate attachment to one of them turned to hatred on account of an obscure affair connected with the harem. Stories told by Western chroniclers of his relations with Charlemagne require to be sifted. The Greek emperor Nicephorus, who had rashly defied him, he addressed as the "Roman dog." Nine times Harun invaded the Greek Empire, left its provinces wasted as by a hurricane, and extorted from it a tribute which he obliged the emperors, who repented of their daring, to pay in coin stamped with his image. His best distinction is in the liberal patronage which he, no doubt, extended to learning. In this he was imitated by his son Al Mamun (813-833), who founded numerous schools, and expended vast sums in behalf of science and letters. The caliphate was weakened by the introduction of the Turks, somewhat as the Roman Empire fared from its relations with the Germans. Motasem (833-842), the eighth of the Abbassides, brought in a Turkish guard of forty thousand slaves, purchased in Tartary. These soldiers, instead of remaining servants, became lawless masters, and disposed of the throne as the prætorians at Rome had done. The palace of the caliphs was filled with violence. Revolution and anarchy, kept up during two centuries, broke the caliphate into fragments. Conspiracies and insurrections were the order of the day. Africa had detached itself in the time of Harun-al-Rashid. In Asia various independent dynasties arose, formed mostly by Turkish governors of provinces.
THE TURKISH EMIRS.—In the eleventh century, the Seljukian Turks despoiled the Arabs of their sovereignty in the East. The caliph at Bagdad gave up all his temporal power to Togrul Bey (1058), and retained simply the spiritual headship over orthodox Mussulmans. To the Turk who bore the title Emir al Omra, was given the military command. He was what the Mayor of the Palace had been among the Franks. In 1072 his son, Malek Shah, made Ispahan his capital, and governed Asia from China to the vicinity of Constantinople.
THE FATIMITE CALIPHATE.—In the ninth and tenth centuries the Aglabites (800-909), whose capital was Cairoan (in Tunis), were dominant in the Western Mediterranean, established themselves, in their marauding expeditions, in Corsica, Sardinia, and Sicily, and several times attacked Italy. In 909 they, with the Edrisites, adherents of Ali, in Fez, formed, under a Fatimite chief, Moez, with Egypt, the African Caliphate, the seat of which was at Cairo (968). The Fatimite caliphs extended their power over Syria. The most famous of the caliphs of Cairo was Hakem (996-1020), a monster of cruelty, who claimed to be the incarnation of Deity. These caliphs claimed to be the descendants of Ali and of Fatima. Their dynasty was extinguished by Saladin in 1171.
THE CALIPHS OF CORDOVA.—In Spain the caliphs of Cordova allowed to the Christians freedom of worship and their own laws and judges. The mingling of the conquerors with the conquered gave rise to a mixed Mozarabic population. The Franks conquered the country as far as the Ebro (812). Under Mohammed I. (852), the Saracen governors of the provinces sought to make themselves independent; but the most brilliant period of the caliphate of Cordova followed, under Abderrahman III. (912-961). In the eleventh century there was anarchy, produced by the African guard of the caliphs, which played a part like that of the Turkish guard at Bagdad, and by reason of the rebellion of the governors. In 1031 the last descendant of the Omayyads was deposed, and in 1060 the very title of caliph vanished. The caliphate gave place to numerous petty Moslem kingdoms. The African Mussulmans came to their help, and thus gave the name of Moors to the Spanish Mohammedans. Their language and culture, however, remained Arabic. The Arabian conquests had moved like a deluge to the Indus, to the borders of Asia Minor, and to the Pyrenees. In Syria they were not generally resisted by the people. Egypt, for the same reason, was an easy conquest. It took the Moslems sixty years to conquer Africa. In three years nearly all Spain was theirs; and it was not until seven hundred years after this time that they were utterly driven out of that country.
THE MOSLEM GOVERNMENT—The Moslem civilization rested on the Koran. Grammar, lexicography, theology, and law stood connected at first with the study and understanding of the Sacred Book. The Caliph was the fountain of authority. There was a fixed system of taxation, the poll-tax and land-tax being imposed only on non-Moslem subjects. All Moslems received a yearly pension, a definite sum determined by their rank. The empire was divided into provinces, each governed by a Prefect, who was a petty sovereign, subject only to the Caliph. The Generals were appointed by the caliph, by the prefects, or by the Vizier, who was the prime minister. The Judges (cadis) were appointed by the same officers. There was a court of appeal over which the caliph presided. There were inspectors of the markets, who were also censors of morals. The Imam had for his function to recite the public prayers in the mosque. The leader of the yearly pilgrimage to Mecca was an officer of the highest dignity.
THEOLOGY: LAW: LITERATURE.—The Mohammedans entered into discussions of theology, which gave rise to differences, and to schools and sects. The nature of the Deity, predestination, the future life, were subjects of profound and subtle inquiry. More than once, pantheistic doctrine was broached by speculative minds, such as Avicenna and Averrhoes. In Persia, Súfism, a form of mysticism, made great progress. It extolled the unselfish love of God, and a contemplative and ascetic life. Law was studied; and on the basis of the Koran, and of reasonings upon it, systems of jurisprudence were created. Science and Literature kept pace with legal studies. Poetry flourished through the whole period of the Eastern caliphate. There were, also, Persian poets who hold an important place in the history of literature, of whom Firdousi (about 940 to 1020) and Saadi (who died in 1291) are the most eminent. Under the Abbassides in Syria, through Christian scholars and by translations, the Arabians became acquainted with the Greek authors. They cultivated geography. The Moslems were students of astronomy, and carried the study of mathematics, which they learned from the Greeks and Hindus, very far. But they apparently felt no interest in the poets, orators, and historians of antiquity. In the study of Aristotle, and in metaphysical philosophy, they were proficients. Medicine, also, they cultivated with success. They delved in Alchemy in the search for the transmutation of metals.
COMMERCE AND THE ARTS.—The Moslems engaged actively in commerce. They acquired much skill in various branches of mechanical art. The weapons of Damascus and of Toledo, the silks of Granada, the saddles of Cordova, the muslins, silks, and carpets of the Moslem dominions in the East, were highly prized in Christian countries. They manufactured paper. Forbidden to represent the human form in painting and sculpture, their distinction in the fine arts is confined to architecture. Peculiar to them is the Arabesque ornamentation found in their edifices: the idea of the arch was borrowed from the Byzantine style. One of their most famous monuments is the mosque at Cordova. The ruins of the Alhambra, in Spain, a palace and a fortress, illustrate the richness and elegance of the Saracenic style of building.
THE ARABIAN MIND.—Neither in architecture, nor in any other department, were the Arabs in a marked degree original. They invented nothing. They were quick to learn, and to assimilate what they learned. They were apt interpreters and critics, but they produced no works marked by creative genius. Many of the scholars at the court of the caliphs were Christians and Jews. Yet Bagdad, Samarcand, Cairo, Grenada, Cordova, were centers of intellectual activity and of learning when the nations of Western Europe had not escaped from the barbarism resulting from the Teutonic invasions.
LITERATURE.—Lives of Mohammed by MUIR, SPRENGER (German), Irving: Encycl. Brit., Art. Mohammedanism; Kuenen, National Religions and Universal Religions; Nöldeke, Gesch. d. Quorans (1860); Muir, The Corân (1878); R. B. Smith, Mohammed and Mohammedanism (1875); Stobart, Islam and its Founder; Ockley, History of the Saracens (sixth edition, 1857); FREEMAN, History and Conquests of the Saracens (1870).