The Great Arab Conquests (65 page)
Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
A later passage provides a favourable verdict on the second caliph, Umar (634-44): ‘the second king who arises from Ishmael will be a lover of Israel. He restores their breaches and the breaches of the Temple, he hews Mount Moriah, makes it level and builds a mosque there on the Temple rock.’ It was not all good news, however, and the author, like many Christian sources of the period, complains about Muslim surveying of the land for the purpose of taxation. ‘They will measure the land with ropes as it is said, and he shall divide the land for a price.’
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The author was also scandalized by Muslim burial practices and their treatment of cemeteries: ‘And they will make cemeteries into a pasturing place for flocks; and when one of them dies, they will bury him whatever place they find and later plough the grave and sow thereon,’ an observation that tallies with what we know of the casual attitude of the early Muslims to the disposal of their dead.
24
The author was also scandalized by Muslim burial practices and their treatment of cemeteries: ‘And they will make cemeteries into a pasturing place for flocks; and when one of them dies, they will bury him whatever place they find and later plough the grave and sow thereon,’ an observation that tallies with what we know of the casual attitude of the early Muslims to the disposal of their dead.
The Jews probably looked on the coming of the Muslims with more favour than any other group among the conquered people, but it is clear that they also suffered from the grim effects of warfare and disorder.
Iranian views of the Muslim conquests are much less well preserved because Zoroastrianism perished much more completely than Christianity and there were no monasteries to preserve ancient works. We have one surviving Pahlavi poem, probably dating from the ninth century, in which we can see something of the attitudes of supporters of the old religion at a time when conversion to Islam was gathering pace and fire-temples were being closed. Like the pseudo-Methodius, this is an apocalyptic work, prophesying that deliverance will come when a descendant of the ancient monarchs of Iran will appear from India.
When will it be that a courier will come from India to say that the Shāh Vahrām from the family of Kays [the ancient, largely mythical ruling dynasty of Iran] has come, having a thousand elephants, with an elephant keeper on each of their heads, who bears the raised standard? In the manner of the Chosroes they bear it before the army. To the generals a messenger is needed, a skilled interpreter. When he comes he will tell in India what we have seen from the hands of the Tajiks [Arabs] in one multitude. The Dēn [Zoroastrian religion] was ruined and the King of Kings slain like a dog. They eat the bread. They have taken away sovereignty from the Chosroes. Not by skill and valour but in mockery and scorn they have taken it. By force they take from men wives and sweet possessions, parks and gardens. Taxes they have imposed, they have distributed them upon the heads. They have demanded again the principal, a heavy impost. Consider how much evil those wicked ones [the Arabs] have cast upon this world, than which ill there is none worse. The world passes from us. We shall bring that Shāh Vahrām worker of mighty deeds to wreak vengeance on the Arabs . . . their mosques we will cast down, we will set up fires, their idol-temples we will dig down and purify away from the world so that the spawn of the wicked one will vanish from this world. Finished in peace and joy.
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Another view of the Arab conquests can be found in Firdawsi’s
Shahnāmah
. Firdawsi (d.
c
. 1020)
26
came from Tus in Khurasan. He came from a family of
dehqān
s, gentlemen-landowners. It was in these circles that devotion to the ancient traditions of Iran were kept alive and the achievements of the pre-Islamic kings were celebrated. Firdawsi was devoted to Iran, its language and its culture. In contrast to the author of the anonymous Pahlavi poem, who was clearly hoping for a revival of Zoroastrianism, Firdawsi was certainly a Muslim, but he rarely lets his faith appear in his writing. He seems to have had no difficulty in accepting the Zoroastrian faith of his heroes and a continuity between their God and Allāh.
Shahnāmah
. Firdawsi (d.
c
. 1020)
26
came from Tus in Khurasan. He came from a family of
dehqān
s, gentlemen-landowners. It was in these circles that devotion to the ancient traditions of Iran were kept alive and the achievements of the pre-Islamic kings were celebrated. Firdawsi was devoted to Iran, its language and its culture. In contrast to the author of the anonymous Pahlavi poem, who was clearly hoping for a revival of Zoroastrianism, Firdawsi was certainly a Muslim, but he rarely lets his faith appear in his writing. He seems to have had no difficulty in accepting the Zoroastrian faith of his heroes and a continuity between their God and Allāh.
Mention has already been made of the verse letter that the Persian general Rustam is alleged to have written to his brother on the eve of the fatal battle of Qādisiya, when Persian rule in Iraq was destroyed and he himself killed. From internal evidence it is clear that the letter is not an authentic document inserted into the text but was composed when the poet was writing this section of his great work, probably in the first decade of the eleventh century. One part of the letter
27
is essentially a prophecy expressing Rustam’s vision of the consequences of the Muslim conquest, and it is extremely interesting in showing how an aristocratic Persian of the period saw the coming of the Muslims. He does not explicitly condemn Islam or the Arabs, but he paints a sorrowful view of the consequences of the conquest for traditional Iranian culture and values. The disruption of the old social order caused by the coming of Islam leads to the decay of public and personal morality.
27
is essentially a prophecy expressing Rustam’s vision of the consequences of the Muslim conquest, and it is extremely interesting in showing how an aristocratic Persian of the period saw the coming of the Muslims. He does not explicitly condemn Islam or the Arabs, but he paints a sorrowful view of the consequences of the conquest for traditional Iranian culture and values. The disruption of the old social order caused by the coming of Islam leads to the decay of public and personal morality.
He begins the section with a general lament:
But when the pulpit’s equal to the throne
And Abū Bakr and Umar’s names are known
Our long travails will be as naught, and all
The glory we have known will fade and fall.
He then comments on the general drabness of Muslim rulers compared with the splendour of the old courts of the King of Kings. It is interesting to see how his comments on the austerity of Muslim dress are the mirror image of those Arabic narratives of the conquests which glory in their virtuous poverty and contrast it with Persian luxury.
They’ll dress in black,
t
their headdresses will be made
Of twisted lengths of silk or black brocade
There’ll be no golden boots or banners then
Our crowns and thrones will not be seen again.
It will be an era of injustice and oppression and the collapse of the old social order:
Some will rejoice while others live in fear
Justice and charity will disappear
Strangers will rule us then and with their might
They’ll plunder us and turn our days to night
They will not care for just or righteous men
Deceit and fraudulence will flourish then.
Warriors will go on foot, while puffed-up pride
And empty boasts will arm themselves and ride;
The peasantry will suffer from neglect
Lineage and skill will garner no respect
Men will be mutual thieves and have no shame
The traditional Persian ruling class will be replaced by men of low social status and different nationalities:
A misbegotten slave will rule the earth
Greatness and lineage will have no worth,
No one will keep his word, and men will find
The tongue as filled with evil as the mind.
Then Persians, Turks and Arabs, side by side,
Will live together mingled far and wide -
The three will blur as it they were the same
Their languages will be a trivial game.
Moral standards will decay and this will go along with the decay of court culture.
Men will conceal their wealth, but when they’ve died,
Their foes will pillage everything they hide.
Men will pretend they’re holy or they’re wise,
To make a livelihood by telling lies.
Sorrow and anguish, bitterness and pain
Will be as happiness was in the reign
Of Bahrām Gūr
u
- mankind’s accustomed fate:
There’ll be no feasts, no festivals of state,
No pleasures, no musicians, none of these:
But there’ll be lies, and traps and treacheries.
Sour milk will be our food, coarse cloth our dress,
And greed for money will breed bitterness
Between generations: men will cheat
Each other as they calmly counterfeit
Religious faith. The winter and the spring
Will pass mankind unmarked,
v
no one will bring
The wine to celebrate such moments then;
Instead they’ll spill the blood of fellow men.
It is a powerful picture of political and moral decay and the loss of old aristocratic values. The breaking down of class distinctions and the mixing of different races are all part of this destruction of traditional values. In contrast with the views of the Christians, there is no indication that the disasters of the Muslim conquest were part of God’s punishment of sin. It was rather a disaster decreed by fate. It is, of course, put in the mouth of the general who knows that he will be defeated and killed and that the order he is supporting will disappear, but it is hard to imagine that his bleak view of the effects of the coming of Muslim rule does not reflect the opinions of many of the Iranian aristocrats of the centuries that followed the conquests.
The Arabs, of course, never conquered China but they did capture a number of Chinese prisoners of war in the campaign that led to the battle of Talas between the Chinese and Muslim armies in 751. Among these was one Tu Huan, who was taken to Iraq and remained there as a prisoner before being allowed to return home in 762. His account of the Muslims is short but extremely interesting, showing how the Muslim world at the end of the period of the great conquests, appeared to someone from a completely different culture.
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28
The capital is called Kūfa [Ya-chü-lo]. The Arab king is called
mumen
[that is, Amīr al-Mu’minīn, Commander of the Faithful]. Both men and women are handsome and tall, their clothing is bright and clean, and their manners are elegant. When a woman goes out in public, she must cover her face irrespective of her lofty or lowly social position. They perform ritual prayers five times a day. They eat meat, fast and regard the butchering of animals as meritorious. They wear silver belts around the waist from which they suspend silver daggers. They prohibit the drinking of wine and forbid music. When people squabble among themselves, they do not come to blows. There is also a ceremonial hall [the mosque] which accommodates tens of thousands of people. Every seven days the king comes out to perform religious services; he mounts a high pulpit and preaches law to the multitudes. He says, ‘Human life is very difficult, the path of righteousness is not easy, and adultery is wrong. To rob or steal, in the slightest way to deceive people with words, to make oneself secure by endangering others, to cheat the poor or oppress the lowly - there is no greater sin than one of these. All who are killed in battle against the enemies of Islam will achieve paradise. Kill the enemies and you will receive happiness beyond measure.’The entire land has been transformed; the people follow the tenets of Islam like a river its channel, the law is applied only with leniency and the dead are interred only with frugality. Whether inside the walls of a great city or only inside a village gate, the people lack nothing of what the earth produces. Their country is the hub of the universe where myriad goods are abundant and inexpensive, where rich brocades, pearls and money fill the shops while camels, horses, donkeys and mules fill the streets and alleys. They cut sugar cane to build cottages resembling Chinese carriages. Whenever there is a holiday the nobility are presented with more vessels of glass and bowls of brass than can be counted. The white rice and white flour are not different from those of China. Their fruits include the peach and also thousand-year dates. Their rape turnips, as big as a peck, are round and their taste is very delicious, while their other vegetables are like those of other countries. Their grapes are as large as hen’s eggs. The most highly esteemed of their fragrant oils are two, one called jasmine and the other called myrrh. Chinese artisans have made the first looms for weaving silk fabrics and are the first gold and silversmiths and painters.
The account shows a mature Muslim society, which accords with the picture we know from other sources. The picture dates from the early years of the Abbasid caliphate immediately before the foundation of Baghdad, which was begun in 762, the year Tu Huan was allowed to return home. We know from Arabic sources that the caliph Mansūr was famous for his eloquent sermons in the mosques, and it is interesting to see the emphasis our Chinese observer puts on condemning oppression and injustice on one hand and stressing
jihād
and the rewards of paradise on the other. We are shown a puritanical society where the veiling of women and the prohibition, at least in public, of alcohol and music are clearly evident. It is also a prosperous society, and one in which the prosperity is widely shared across the different social classes and in both town and village. It is understandable that many of the people conquered by the Arabs would have wanted to be part of this thriving community. Kūfa was, of course, a Muslim new town and a place where one would expect to find Muslim norms strongly adhered to. At the same time it is striking that there is no mention of non-Muslims, who must still have been in a majority, even in Iraq, an area where conversion to Islam was fairly rapid.
jihād
and the rewards of paradise on the other. We are shown a puritanical society where the veiling of women and the prohibition, at least in public, of alcohol and music are clearly evident. It is also a prosperous society, and one in which the prosperity is widely shared across the different social classes and in both town and village. It is understandable that many of the people conquered by the Arabs would have wanted to be part of this thriving community. Kūfa was, of course, a Muslim new town and a place where one would expect to find Muslim norms strongly adhered to. At the same time it is striking that there is no mention of non-Muslims, who must still have been in a majority, even in Iraq, an area where conversion to Islam was fairly rapid.
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