[786-892 A.D.]
Charlemagne, having heard much of the power of the Baghdad sovereigns, determined to enter into relations with them, and despatched one Jewish deputy and two Franks to Irak with presents for the commander of the faithful. Harun, who feared an alliance between the Frankish king and the Omayyads of Spain, responded with alacrity to this advance, and sent ambassadors with splendid presents to Charlemagne in return. Not only in Europe, but in China and among the Hindus and the Tatars, the Arab potentates were looked upon as the richest princes in the world, and exaggerated ideas prevailed as to their power.
Indeed at a casual glance it might seem that centralisation had drawn into unity all their various provinces, and that a long and prosperous future lay before the nation; but to an observant eye the signs of approaching decadence were already apparent. In the material order of things, that a sovereign should have supreme rights over the property of his subjects necessarily destroys all impulse towards emulation and progress among the latter. A people so governed is bound to die out in discouragement and decay. Under the earlier caliphs no injustice or spoliation was to be feared; but when the brutal and astute Turks took the reins of power, the law of the Koran, by which supreme authority centred in one individual, the representative of God on earth, was certain to work irreparable harm. In the moral and religious order the same unfortunate conditions prevailed. Gifted minds, irresistibly drawn towards science while still bound by the letter of Mohammed’s books, had need of a deliverer who should free them from the yoke of principles too rigid for the times. Al-Mamun, and after him Mutasim and Wathik, attempted some modification of doctrines formed for primitive times, but their efforts were set at naught by the blind obstinacy of the doctors of the Moslem faith. The Koran now being established as the direct word of God, its laws were held to be beyond appeal, and all the prerogatives of absolute despotism were still accorded to monarchy even against the judgment of those in whom it was vested. If the later Abbasid princes had been men of high attainments and solid virtue, they would doubtless have wielded their unrestricted power entirely for the good of the people, and the golden age might again have been ushered in; but unfortunately during the second half of the ninth century we see on the throne only crowned and sceptred slaves. The contempt they inspired broke the springs of government; anarchy reached its height, and numerous factions, long suppressed, took up arms once more and spread abroad disorder and dread.
The Alids had several times renewed their pretensions to the throne. Once Al-Mamun was on the point of abdicating in their favour, thus recognising the justice of their claims; but a revolt was immediately raised in Baghdad by the house of Abbas and its partisans, which forced Al-Mamun to relinquish the idea of dispossessing his whole family. Though their ambition was not yet fulfilled, the Alids were emboldened by the caliph’s attitude toward them, and henceforth lost no chance of profiting by the divisions that necessarily arose in a state possessing no definite law of succession.
Under Harun and Al-Mamun the Arabian empire in the East attained its greatest degree of splendour; we shall now observe its gradual dissolution.
From the reign of Wathik (846) onwards, we see the caliphate becoming the sport and prey of anarchy, and Baghdad fell under the yoke of a series of cruel or implacable despots. Mutawakkil, whose reign ushered in the new order of things, was guilty of atrocities that surpass those of Nero. He took vengeance on a vizir who had offended him by causing him to be thrown into a furnace lined with points of steel; and fearing that a plot was being formed against him, he invited to a festival all the important officers of his court and had them massacred by his soldiery. The horror which his cruelties inspired armed against him the hand of his own son, Muntasir, who himself died of sorrow and remorse within a year of his accession to the throne (862).
Mustain, grandson of Mutasim, was chosen to succeed him, to the exclusion of four brothers, two of whom, Mutazz and Mutamid, subsequently came to the throne. Mustain reigned little longer than three years, and was replaced by Mutazz, whom a faction raised to the caliphate in 866. A second faction deposed him in 869 and a son of Wathik, Muhtadi Billah by name, was proclaimed caliph. This prince’s projects of reform aroused hatred in many quarters, and he was murdered in his own palace. After him Mutamid enjoyed the exceptionally long reign of twenty-two years (870-892), thanks to the ability and devotion of his brother, Muwaffak, who frustrated all attempts at revolt. Most of the perpetual disorders from which the country suffered were caused by the Turks whom Mutasim had raised to the position of body-guard. In permanent garrison at Baghdad, and in close proximity to the person of the sovereign, these slaves had from the first been guilty of such excesses that Mutasim was obliged to leave the capital and retire to the little village of Samara. Their number and influence had constantly increased during the reign of Wathik, and at the time of his death they had become such a power in the state that they had no difficulty in placing Mutawakkil on the throne.
The danger that can arise from the establishment of alien bodies, organised to be the instrument of the will of a sovereign who is himself the first victim, is plainly apparent. With interests distinct from those of the native Arabs, and subject to no control save that of the caliph himself, these unruly Turks made brute force the agent by which they obtained their desires. They became accomplices of the parricide Muntasir out of revenge for some slight suffered at his father’s hands, and forced him to exclude his brothers and appoint Mustain to the throne. A delay in the distribution of their pay was sufficient to excite a revolt, and oblige the caliph to sign his abdication. Muhtadi met with a still sorrier fate for having desired to subject his redoubtable body-guard to some sort of discipline; and Muwaffak’s only means of diverting them from dangerous enterprises at home was to employ them on distant missions.
An Arab Chief