Yet a splendid empire remained for the Abbassides. They carried their court from Damascus, where the memory of the late dynasty inconveniently survived its fall, to the banks of the Euphrates. There, Kûfa, too prone to be inflamed by Alyite intrigue against the new line of Caliphs, was finally abandoned as the seat of royalty. Another capital was founded by Abu Jáfar, the second of the Abbassides, at Baghdad, fifteen miles above Medâin, on the western bank of the Tigris. For many years, Alyites, Omeyyads, and Khârejites continued to be punished with equal rigour by the new dynasty, and much insecurity and bloodshed prevailed. But misrule and rebellion in the end gave place to rest and peace, and a century followed of unparalleled grandeur and prosperity. Splendour of Baghdad, the City of Peace.Baghdad, answering to its proud name of Dâr al Salâm, ‘The City of Peace,’ became for a time the capital of the world, the centre of luxury, the emporium of commerce, and the seat of learning.
Al Mâmûn. A.H. 198–218.
At the close of the second century of the Hegira, Al Mâmûn succeeded to the throne. His mother was a Persian lady; and he had imbibed from her, and the society in which he was reared at Merve, the principles of the Motázilites. Motázilite creed.This strange system, which had recently sprung up in the East, was grafted by the sectarians of Aly (Shîyites) on the transcendental philosophy of the Persians. It was, in fact, a new and altogether unlooked-for development, or rather perversion, of Islam. Heretofore, the sole ground of faith had been the Corân, and the Sunnat or deliverances preserved by tradition from the lips of Mahomet. Now, under the Divine Imâmate, or spiritual leadership vested in some member of the house of Aly, there might be other infallible sources of guidance from above. There arose, in fact, a new school of interpretation, one might almost say, a new dispensation. The Corân was treated allegorically; and such difficulties as beset the Orthodox, offended reason, or cramped the growth of society, were thus easily evaded.[607] In the system so evolved, the Prophet, had he revisited the earth, would hardly have recognised his own religion. This elastic development of the Faith, sublimated by the mysticism of Persia, and refined by the subtleties of Indian philosophy, was eagerly embraced by the natives of the Eastern provinces. And Al Mâmûn, who on his accession remained still for a time at Merve, fell deeply under its influence. Embraced by Al Mâmûn.So inclined was he to the house of Aly, that he gave a daughter of his own in marriage to one of that lineage, and he even adopted their green ensign;—hoping thus to unite the lines of Aly and Abbâs in one new dynasty. Although, on transferring his court to Baghdad, he abandoned the design,[608] Mâmûn still remained faithful to the rationalistic creed. He surrounded himself at the capital with the learned of all persuasions; and in company with them was used to hold discussions, at which such grave questions as those affecting man’s relations with the Deity, and the nature of the Godhead itself, were freely handled. In opposition to the Orthodox, he believed in the doctrine of Free-will. From the received teaching that the Corân is uncreated and eternal, he recoiled, as at variance with the unity of the Godhead; and, in the end, he proclaimed, with pains and penalties for dissent, that it was created. Thus, though a Free-thinker himself, Al Mâmûn, as often happens, denied the free right of judgment to others; and he persecuted cruelly, and on one or two occasions even to the death, those who ventured to differ with him. Comparative freedom and toleration under Motázilites.Still freedom of opinion and open discussion were, beyond comparison, more tolerated under the régime of the Motázilites than of the Orthodox.[609] For forty or fifty years, the tenets of the Rationalists prevailed under the Motázilite Caliphs at Baghdad. Then, there was a reaction back again to the ‘Orthodox’ faith; and now, all who questioned the eternity of the Corân, who ventured to magnify the claims of Aly, or to detract from those of his predecessors in the Caliphate—Abu Bekr, Omar, Othmân—became in their turn the objects of unrelenting persecution. In one important respect, however, the Motázilite Caliphs (and we might say the Shîya sect in general) have excelled the Orthodox; they are especially distinguished by greater forbearance towards the professors of other creeds. With the return of orthodoxy the reign of intolerance revived; and against both Jews and Christians, the so-called ‘Ordinances of Omar’ were enforced by an Orthodox court with new and degrading penalties.[610]
Golden Age of literature at Baghdad.
The reigns of Al Mâmûn and his immediate successors were the palmy days of Moslem learning. At the court of Baghdad there were munificently entertained, philosophers, physicians, and men of letters. Amongst them were many Jews and Christians, versed at once in the Arabic tongue, and in the language and literature of Greece. The monasteries of Syria, Asia Minor, and the Levant, were ransacked for manuscripts of the Greek philosophers, historians, and geometricians. These, with vast labour and erudition, were translated into the Arabic; and thus the learning of the West was made accessible to the Moslem world. Nor were their efforts confined to the reproduction of ancient works, but in some directions extended also to original research. An observatory, reared on the plain of Tadmor, furnished materials for the successful study of astronomy and geometry. In other walks of literature, we have books of travel and history, and, above all, of medicine; while much attention was paid to the less practical, but more popular, branches of astrology and alchemy. It was through the labours of these learned men that the nations of Europe, then shrouded in the darkness of the Middle Ages, became again acquainted with their own proper, but unused and forgotten, patrimony of Grecian science and philosophy.
Introduction of mercenaries and fall of the Caliphate.
But the Golden Age soon faded away. Provinces rebelled. Lieutenants assumed independence. Faction and tumult became the chronic state of the capital, and riotous attack was ever threatening the helpless Caliphs at their very door. The reason is not far to search for. A change had come over the military forces of the empire. From the very first, the Abbasside Caliphs had regarded the Arab tribes, the real backbone of the Caliphate, with a jealous and distrustful eye; and these, cast at last aside, and the stipendiary support of the Dewân withdrawn, were now rapidly returning to nomad life, or mingling with the settled population. Instead of trusting them, or playing off one tribe against another, as the Omeyyads did, the Caliphs of Baghdad, in an evil hour, introduced Turkish mercenaries from Central Asia; and, by-and-by, they committed the protection of their own persons to a body-guard of these. The servant soon came to be the master. The staff pierced the hand that leaned upon it. The Caliphate became the sport and plaything of the Turkish soldiery, and sank in impotency and contempt.
Politico-religious influences still surviving.
Islam had now run its course of growth and change. After this, we see no new phase development, spiritual, social, or political. The considerations and incentives peculiar to the Moslem faith, and those connected with the native tribes and families in which it took its birth, became for the most part faint and feeble with the lapse of time, or merged into the common motives which influence mankind. The Mahometan world, as it advanced in years, we find guided more and more by ordinary mundane causes. Nations rise and fall, as elsewhere they rise and fall. Rebellion and vicissitude alternate with prosperity and peace. Yet some of the principles and causes of action which I have sought to trace, though in later times less prominent, have never altogether ceased to operate. Of the four great powers which influenced the fortunes of the Moslem world during the first two centuries, only one, the Alyite, remains unimpaired. The Arab tribes ceased in the third century to be a distinct military force, the arbiter of Moslem dynasties, as well as the means by which the Faith was spread. Gorged with the prey of the world, they had already lost their early fire, when the fence set up by Omar between them and the conquered races having been broken down, the grand military organisation was swept away, and their place taken by mercenary levies. Henceforth we meet them no more as an independent force in the body politic. The Coreish, with the collapse of the Caliphate, have passed out of sight, excepting as a race of noble memories. The Abbassides are known no longer. But Alyite influence, unaffected by the lapse of time, is at some points stronger now even than it ever was. And although the Arabs, as a military institution, have long ago disappeared, we still trace their influence in the Khârejite, that is to say the spiritual and theocratic aspect of their creed.