Middle East - Anthony Ham [25]
The most romanticised group of Arabs is no doubt the Bedouin (Bedu in Arabic). While not an ethnic group, they are the archetypal Arabs – the camel-herding nomads who roam all over the deserts and semideserts in search of food for their cattle. From among their ranks came the warriors who spread Islam to North Africa and Persia 14 centuries ago. Today, the Bedouin are found mainly in Jordan, Iraq, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula and the Gulf States. For a modern take on Bedouin life, see the boxed text, Click here.
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The Court of the Caliphs, by Hugh Kennedy, is the definitive account of Abbasid Baghdad in its prime, blending careful scholarship and Arab sources with a lively and compelling style.
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After Haroun ar-Rashid’s death, the cycle that had already scarred Islam’s early years – a strong, enlightened ruler giving way upon his death to anarchy and squandering many of the hard-won territorial and cultural gains of his reign – was repeated. The empire was effectively divided between two of his sons and, predictably, civil war ensued. In 813, one son, Al-Maamun, emerged triumphant and reigned as caliph for the next 20 years. But Al-Maamun’s hold on power remained insecure and he felt compelled to surround himself with Turkish mercenaries.
By the middle of the 10th century, the Abbasid caliphs were the prisoners of their Turkish guards, who spawned a dynasty of their own, known as the Seljuks (1038–1194). The Seljuks extended their reach throughout Persia, Central Asia, Afghanistan and Anatolia, where the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum made its capital at Konya. The resulting pressure on the Byzantine Empire was intense enough to cause the emperor and the Greek Orthodox Church to swallow their pride and appeal to the rival Roman Catholic Church for help.
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The Umayyads were descended from a branch of the Quraysh, the Prophet’s tribe, known more for expediency than piety. Mu’awiyah’s father was one of the last people in Mecca to embrace Islam and had long been Mohammed’s chief opponent in the city.
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What happened next would plant the seeds for a clash of civilisations, whose bitterness would reverberate throughout the region long after the swords of Islam and Christianity had been sheathed.
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BAGHDAD THE BEAUTIFUL
When Haroun ar-Rashid came to power, Baghdad, on the western bank of the Tigris, had only been in existence for 24 years. By the time he died, it had become one of the world’s pre-eminent cities.
Haroun ar-Rashid tried to rename the city Medinat as-Salaam (City of Peace). Although the name never caught on, everything else that Haroun ar-Rashid and his immediate successors did was an unqualified success. Baghdad was remade into a city of expansive pleasure gardens, vast libraries and distinguished seats of learning, where the arts, medicine, literature and sciences all flourished. It was soon the richest city in the world. The crossroads of important trade routes to the east and west, it rapidly supplanted Damascus as the seat of power in the Islamic world, which stretched from Spain to India. Al-Maamun, Haroun’s son and successor, founded the Beit al-Hikmah (House of Wisdom), a Baghdad-based academy dedicated to translating Greek and Roman works of science and philosophy into Arabic. It was only through these translations that most of the classical literature we know today was saved for posterity.
Although the city would later be much reduced by wars, civil and otherwise, and be sacked by the Mongols, the name of Baghdad has never lost its allure. It’s a reminder of the time when this was the most beautiful and intellectually creative city on earth.
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THE CRUSADES & THEIR AFTERMATH
With the Muslim armies gathering at the gates of Europe, and already occupying large swathes of Iberia, Pope Urban II in 1095 called for a Western Christian military expedition – a ‘Crusade’ – to liberate the holy places of Jerusalem in response to