ARABS AND ISLAM

THE COMING OF ISLAM

THE ARABS CONQUER

FROM SPAIN TO MONGOLIA

BAGHDAD AND HARUN-AL- RASHID

from

Glimpses of World History,

by

Jawaharlal Nehru

*****************************************************

We have considered the history of many countries and the ups and downs of many kingdoms and empires. But Arabia has not yet come into our story, except as a country which sent out mariners and traders to distant parts of the world. Look at the map. To the west is Egypt; to the north Syria and Iraq, and a little to the east of this Persia or Iran; a little farther to the north-west are Asia Minor and Constantinople. Greece is not far; and India also is just across the sea on the other side. Except for China and the Far East, Arabia was very centrally situated so far as the old civilizations were concerned. Great cities rose on the Tigris and Euphrates in Iraq, Alexandria in Egypt, Damascus in Syria, and Antioch in Asia Minor. The Arab was a traveler and a trader, and he must have gone to these cities frequently enough. But still Arabia plays no notable part in history. There does not seem to be as high a degree of civilization there as in neighbouring countries.

It neither attempted to conquer other countries, nor was it easy to subdue it. Arabia is a desert country, and deserts and mountains breed hard people who love their freedom and are not easily subdued. It was not a rich country and there was little in it to attract foreign conquerors and imperialists.

There were just two little towns-Mecca and Yethrib by the sea. For the rest there were dwellings in the desert, and the people of the country were largely Bedouins or Baddus-the “dwellers of the desert” .Their constant companions were their swift camels and their beautiful horses, and even the ass was a faithful friend valued for its remarkable powers of endurance .To be compared to the donkey or the ass was a compliment, and not a term of reproach, as in other countries. For life is hard in a desert country, and strength and endurance are even more precious qualities there than elsewhere.

They were proud and sensitive, these men of the desert, and quarrelsome. They lived in their clans and their families and quarreled with other clans and families . Once a year they made peace with each other and journeyed to Mecca on pilgrimage to their many gods whose images were kept there. Above all , they worshipped a huge black stone-the Kaaba.

It was a nomadic and patriarchal life-the kind of life led by the primitive tribes in Central Asia or elsewhere, before they settled down to city life and civilization. The great empires which rose up round Arabia often included Arabia in their dominions, but this was more nominal than real. It was no easy to subdue or govern nomadic desert tribes.

Once, as you may perhaps remember, a little Arab State rose in Palmyra in Syria, and it had its brief period of glory in the third century after Christ. But even this was outside Arabia proper. So the Bedouins lived their desert lives, generation after generation and Arab ships went out to trade and Arabia went on with little change. Some people became Christians and some became Jews but mostly they remained worshippers of the 360 idols and the Black Stone in Mecca.

It is strange that this Arab race, cut off from what was happening elsewhere, should suddenly wake up and show such tremendous energy as to startle and upset the world. The story of the Arabs, and of how they spread rapidly over Asia, Europe and Africa, and of the high culture and civilization which they developed, is one of the wonders of history.

Islam was the new force or idea which woke up the Arabs and filled them with self-confidence and energy. This was a religion started by a new prophet, Mohammed, who was born in Mecca in 570 AC. He was in no hurry to start this religion. He lived a quiet life, liked and trusted by his fellow-citizens. Indeed, he was known as “Al-Amin”-the Trusty.

But when he started preaching his new religion, and especially when he preached against the idols at Mecca, there was a loud outcry against him, and ultimately he was driven out of Mecca, barely escaping with his life. Above all he laid stress on the claim that there was only one God, and that he, Mohammed, was the Prophet of God.

Driven away by his own people from Mecca, he sought refuge with some friends and helpers in Yethrib. This flight from Mecca is called the Hijrat in Arabic, and the Muslim calendar begins from this date-622AC.

This Hegira calendar is a lunar calendar-that is, it is calculated according to the moon. It is therefore five or six days shorter than the solar year which we usually observe, and the Hegira month do not stick to the same seasons of the year. Thus the same month may be in winter this year and in the middle of summer after some years.

Islam may be said to begin with the flight – the Hijrat – in 622 AC, although in a sense it had begun a little earlier. The city of Yethrib welcomed Mohammad and, in honour of his coming the name of the city itself was changed to “Madinat-un-Nabi”-the city of the Prophet –or, just shortly, Medina, or Medina, as it is known now. The people of Medina who helped Mohammad were called Ansar-the helpers. Descendants of these “helpers” were proud of this title, and even to this day they use it.

Before we start Islam’s and the Arab’s career of conquest, let us have one brief look around. We have just seen that Rome had collapsed. The old Graeco-Roman civilization had ended, and the whole social structure which it had build up had been upset. The northern European tribes and clans were now coming into some prominence. Trying to learn something from, Rome they were really building up an entirely new type if civilization. But this was just the beginning of it, and there was little of it visible. Thus the old had gone and the new had not taken its place; so there was darkness in Europe. At the eastern end of it, it is true; there was the Eastern Roman Empire, which still flourished. The city of Constantinople was even then a great and splendid city-the greatest in Europe. Games and circuses took place in its amphitheatres, and there was a great deal of pomp and show. But still the empire was weakening. There were continuous wars with the Sassanida of Persia. Khusrau the Second of Persia had indeed taken away from Constantinople, but was then defeated by Heraclius the Greek emperor there. Later,Khusrau was murdered by his own son,Kavadh.

So you will notice that both Europe in the West and Persia in the East were in a bad way. Add to this the quarrels of the Christian sects, which had no end. A very corrupt and quarrelsome Christianity flourished in the west as well as in Africa. In Persia, the Zoroastrian religion was part of the state and was forced on the people. So the average person in Europe or Africa or Persia was disillusioned with the existing religion. Just about this time, early in the seventh century, great plagues swept all over Europe, killing millions of people.

In India, Harsha- Vardhana ruled, and Hiuen Tsang paid his visit about this time. During Harsha’s reign India was a strong Power, but soon after, northern India grew divided and weak. Farthest east ,in China, the great Tang dynasty had just begun its career.

In 627AC Tai Tsung, one of the their greatest emperors, came to the throne, and during his time the Chinese Empire extended right up to the Caspian Sea in the west. Most of the countries of central Asia acknowledged his suzerainty and paid tripute to him. Probably there was no centralized government of the whole of this vast empire.

This was the state of the Asiatic and European world when Islam was born. China was strong and powerful, but it was far; India was strong enough for a period at least, but we shall see that there was no conflict with India for a long time to come; Europe and Africa were weak and exhausted.

Within seven years of the flight, Mohammad returned to Mecca as its master. Even before this he sent out from Medina a summons to the kings and rulers of the world to acknowledge the one God and his Prophet. Heraclius, the Constantinople Emperor, got it while he was still engaged in his campaign against the Persian in Syria; the Persian King got it; and it is said that even Tai Tsung got it in China. They must have wondered, these kings and rulers who this unknown person was who dared to command them! From the sending of these messages, we can form some idea of the supreme confidence in himself and his mission which he must have had. And this confidence and faith he managed to give to his people, and with this to inspire and console them, this desert people of no great consequence managed to conquer half the known world.

Confidence and faith in themselves were a great thing. Islam also gave them a message of brotherhood-of the equality of all those who were Muslims. A measure of democracy was thus placed before the people. Compared to the corrupt Christianity of the day, this message of brotherhood must have had a great appeal, not only for the Arabs but also for the inhabitants of many countries where they went.

Mohammad died in 632 AC., ten years after the Hijrat. He had succeeded in making a nation out of the many warring tribes of Arabia and in firing them with enthusiasm for a cause. He was succeeded by

Abu Bakr, a member of his family, a Khalifa or Caliph or chief. This succession used to be by a kind of informal election at a public meeting. Two years later Abu Bakr died, and was succeeded by Omar, who was Khalifa for ten years.

Abu Bakr and Omar were great men who laid the foundation of Arabian and Islamic greatness. As Khalifas they were both religious heads and political chiefs-King and Pope in one. In spite of their high position and the growing power of their state, they stuck to the simplicity of their ways and refused to countenance luxury and pomp. The democracy of Islam was a living thing for them. But their own officers and emirs took to skills and luxury soon enough, and many stories are told of Abu Bakr and Omar rebuking and punishing these officers and even weeping at this extravagance. They felt that their strength lay in their simple and hard living, and that if they took to the luxury of the Persian or Constantinople Courts, the Arabs would be corrupted and would fall.

Even in these short dozen years, during which Abu Bakr and Omar ruled, the Arabs defeated both the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid King of Persia. Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews and Christians, was occupied by the Arabs , and the whole of Syria and Iraq and Persia became part of the Arabian Empire.

THE ARABS CONQUER FROM SPAIN TO MONGOLIA

Like the founders of some other religious, Mohammad was a rebel against many of the existing social customs. The religion he preached, by its simplicity and directness and its flavour of democracy and equality, appealed to the masses in the neighbouring countries who had been ground down long enough by autocratic kings and equally autocratic and domineering priests. They were tired of the old order and were ripe for a change. Islam offered them this change, and it was a welcome change, for it bettered them in many ways and put an end to many old abuses. Islam did not bring any great social revolution in its train which might have put an end to large extent to the exploitation of the masses. But it did lessen this exploitation so far as the Muslims were concerned, and made them feel that they belonged to one great brotherhood.

So the Arabs marched from conquest to conquest. Often enough they won without fighting. Within twenty-five years of the death of their Prophet, the Arabs conquered the whole of Persia and Syria and Armenia and a bit of Central Asia on the one side; and Egypt had fallen to them with the greatest ease, as Egypt had suffered most from the exploitation of the Roman Empire and from the rivalry of Christian sects. There is the story that the Arabs burnt the famous library of Alexandria, but this is now believed to be false. The Arabs were too fond of books to behave in this barbarous manner. It is probable however, that the Emperor Theodosius of Constantinople about whom I have told you something already, was guilty of this destruction, or part of it. A part of the library had been destroyed long before, during a siege at the time of Julius Caesar. Theodosius did not approve of old pagan Greek books dealing with the old Greek mythologies and philosophies. He was much too devout a Christian. It is said that he used these books as fuel with which to heat his baths.

The Arabs went on advancing both in t he East and the West. In the east, Herat and Kabul and Balkh fell, and they reached the Indus river and Sindh. But beyond this they did not go into India, and for several hundred years their relations with the Indian rulers were of the friendliest. In the West they marched on and on. It is said that their general Okba, went right across northern Africa till he reached the Atlantic Ocean, on the western coast of what is now known as Morocco. He was rather disappointed at this obstacle, and he rode as far as he could into the sea and then expressed his sorrow to the Almighty that there was no more land in that direction for him to conquer in His name!

From Morocco and Africa, the Arabs crossed the narrow sea into Spain and Europe-the pillars of Hercules, as these narrow straits were called by the old Greeks. The Arab general who crossed into Europe landed at Gibraltar, and this name itself is a reminder of him. His name was Tariq, and Gibratlar is really Jabal-ut-Tariq, the rock of Tariq.

Spain was conquered rapidly, and the Arabs then poured into southern France. So, in about 100 years from the death of Mohammad, the Arab Empire spread from the south of France and Spain right across northern Africa to Suez and across Arabia and Persia and Central Asia to the borders of Mongolia. India was out of it except for Sindh. Europe was being attacked by the Arabs from two sides –directly at Constantinople, and in France, via Africa. The Arabs in the south of France were small in numbers and they were very far from their homeland. Thus they could not get much help from Arabia, which was then conquering Central Asia, but still these Arabs in France frightened the people of Western Europe, and a great coalition was formed to fight them. Charles Martel was the leader of the coalition and in 732 AC he defeated them at the battle of Tours in France. This defeat saved Europe from the Arabs.” On the plains of Tours,” a historian has said,” the Arabs lost the empire of the world when almost in their grasp.” There can be no doubt that if the Arabs had won at Tours, European history would have been tremendously changed. There was no one else to stop them in Europe and they could have marched right across to Constantinople and put an end to the Eastern Roman Empire and the other states on the way. Instead of all manner of there changes might have taken place. But this is just a flight of imagination .as it happened, the Arabs were stopped in France.

For many hundreds of years afterwards, however, they remained and ruled in Spain.

From Spain to Mongolia the Arabs triumphed and these nomads from the deserts became the proud rulers of a mighty empire. Saracens they were called, perhaps from Sahra and nashin-the dwellers of the desert. But the dwellers of the desert took soon enough to luxury and city life and palaces grew up in their cities. In spite of their triumphs in distant countries, they could not get rid of their old habit of quarrelling among themselves. Of course, there was something worth quarrelling about now, for the headship of Africa meant the control of a great empire. So there were frequent quarrels for the place of the Khalifa. There were petty quarrels, family quarrels, leading to civil war. these quarrels resulted in a big division in Islam and two sects were formed-the Sunnis and Shiahs- which still exist.

Trouble came soon after the regimes of the first two great Khalifas-Abu Bakr and Omar. Ali,the husband of Fathima who was the daughter of Mohammad, was Khalifa for a short while. But there was continuous conflict. Ali was murdered, and some time later his son Hussain, with his family, were massacred on the plain of Karbala.It is this tragedy of Karbala that is mourned year after year in the month of Moharram by the Muslims, and especially the Shiahs.

The Khalifa now becomes an absolute king. There is nothing of democracy or election left about him. He was just like any other absolute monarch of his day. In theory he continued to be the religious head also, the Commander of the Faithful. But some of these rulers actually insulted Islam, of which they were supposed to be the chief protectors.

For about 100 years the Khalifas belonged to a branch of Mohammad’s family, known as the Ommeyades. Damascus was made their capital and this old city became very beautiful, with its palaces, mosques, fountains and kiosks. The water-supply Of Damascus was famous. During this period the Arabs developed a special style of architecture which has come to be known as Saracenic architecture. There is not much of ornamentation in this. It is simple and imposing and beautiful. The idea behind this architecture was the graceful palm of Arabia and Syria. The arches and doming of palm groves.

This architecture came to India also, but here it was influenced by Indian ideas and a mixed style was evolved. Some of the finest examples of Saracenic architecture are still in Spain.

Wealth and empire brought luxury and the games and arts of luxury, Horse-racing was a favorite amusement of the Arabs, so also were polo and hunting and chess. There was quite a fashionable craze for music and especially for singing, and the capital was full of singers with their trains and hangers-on.

Another great but very unfortunate change gradually took place. This was in the position of women. Among the Arabs women did not observer any purdah.

They were not secluded and hidden away. They moved about in public, went to mosques and lectures, and even delivered lectures. But success made the Arabs imitate more and more the customs of the two old empires on either side of them-the Eastern Roman and the Persian. They had defeated the former and put an end to the latter, but they themselves succumbed to many an evil habit of these empires. It is said that it was due especially to the influence of Constantinople and Persia that the seclusion of women began among the Arabs. Gradually the harem system begins, and men and women meet each other less and less socially. Unhappily this seclusion of women became a feature of Islamic society, and India also learnt it from them when the Muslims came here. It amazes me to think that some people put up with this barbarity still. Whenever I think of the women in purdah,cut off from the outside world, I invariably think of a person or a zoo! How can a nation go ahead if half of its population is kept hidden away in a kind of prison?

Fortunately, India is rapidly tearing the purdah away. Even Muslims society has largely rid itself of this terrible burden .In Turkey, Kamal Pasha has put an end to it completely, and in Egypt it is going fast.

One thing more and I shall finish this letter. The Arabs, especially at the beginning of their awakening, were full of enthusiasm for their faith. Yet they were a tolerant people and there are numerous instances of this toleration in religion. In Jerusalem the Khalifa Omar made a point of it. In Spain there was a large Christian population which had the fullest liberty of conscience. In India the Arabs never ruled except in sindh, by but there were frequent contacts, and the relations were friendly. Indeed, the most noticeable thing about this period of history is the contrast between the toleration of the Muslim Arab and the intolerance of the Christian in Europe.

BAGHDAD AND HARUN-AL- RASHID

Let us continue the story of the Arabs before reverting to other countries.

For nearly 100 years, as I told you in my last letter, the Caliphs belonged to the Ommeyable branch of the Prophet Mohammad’s family. They ruled from Damascus, and during their rule the Muslim Arabs carried the standard of Islam far and wide. While the Arabs conquered in distant lands, they quarreled at home and there was frequent civil war. Ultimately the Ommeyades were overthrown by another branch of Mohammad’s family, descended from his uncle Abbas, and hence called the Abbasides. The Abbasides came as avengers of the cruelties of the victory was won. They hunted out all the Ommeyades they could find and killed them in a barbarous way.

This was the beginning in 750 Ac of the long reign of the Abbaside Caliphs. It was not a very happy or auspicious beginning, and yet the Abbaside period is a bright enough periods in Arab history. But there were great changes now from the days of the Ommeyades. The civil war in Arabia shook up the whole of the Arab

Governor was an Ommeyade, and he refused to recognize the Abbaside Caliph. North Africa, or the viceroyalty of Ifrikia as it was called, also became more or less independent soon afterwards. And Egypt did likewise, and indeed went so far to proclaim another Caliph. Egypt was near enough to time. But Afrikia was not interfered with, and as for Spain, it was much too far any action. So we see that the Arab Empire split up on the accession of the Abbasides. The Caliph was no longer the head of the whole Muslim world; he was not now the commander of all the Faithful. Islam was not longer united, and the Arabs in Spain and the Abbsides disliked each other so much that each often welcomed the misfortunes of the other.

In spite of all this, the Abbaside Caliphs were great sovereigns and their empire was a great empire, as empires go. The old faith and energy which conquered mountains and spread like a prairie fire were no more in evidence. There was no simplicity and little of democracy left, and the Commander of the Faithful was little different from the Persian King of kings, who had been defeated by the earlier Arabs, or the emperor at Constantinople. In the Arabs of the time of Mohammad the Prophet, there was a strange life and strength which were very different from the strength of king’s armies. They stood out in the world of their time, and armies and princes crumpled up before their irresistible march. The masses were weary of these princes, and the Arabs seemed to bring to them the promise of change for the better and of social revolution.

All this was changed now. The men of the desert lived in palaces now, and instead of dates had the most gorgeous foods. They were comfortable enough, so why should they bother about change and social revolution? They tried to rival the old empires in splendour and they adopted many an evil custom of theirs. One of these, as I told you, was the seclusion of women.

The capital now went from Damascus to Baghdad in Iraq. This change of capital itself was significant, for Baghdad used to be the summer retreat of the Persian kings. And as Baghdad was farther away from Europe than Damascus, henceforth the Abbasides looked more towards Asia than to Europe. There were to be still many attempts to capture Constantinople, and there were many wars with European nations, but most of these wars were defensive. The dates of conquest seem to have ended, and the Abbaside Caliphs tried to consolidate such of the empire as was left to them. This was great enough even without Spain and Africa.

Baghdad! Do you not remember it? And Harun- al-Rashid and Shaherazade and the wonderful stories contained in the Arabian Nights. It was a vast city of palaces and republic officers and schools and colleges, and great shops, and parks and gardens. The merchants carried on a vast trade with the East and West. Crowds of Government officials kept in continuous touch with the distant parts of the Empire, and the governments. An efficient postal system connected all the corners the Empire to the capital. Hospitals abounded. Visitors came to Baghdad from all over the world, especially learned men and students and artists, for it was known that the Caliph welcomed all who were learned or who were skillful in the arts.

The Caliphs himself lived in great luxury surrounded by slaves, and his women-folk had taken to the harem. The Abbaside Empire was at the height of its outward glory during the reign of Harun-al-Rashid from 786 to 809 Ac. Embassies came to Harun from the Emperor of those days, except for Arab Spain, in all the arts of government, in trade, and in the development of learning.

The Abbaside period is especially interesting for us because of the new interest in science which it started .Science, as you know, is a very big thing in the modern world, and we owe a great deal to it. Science does not simply sit down and pray for things to happen, but seeks to find out why things happen. It experiments and tries again and again, and sometimes fails and sometimes succeeds-and so bit by bit adds to human knowledge. This modern world of ours is very different from the ancient world or the middle Ages. This great difference is largely due to science, for the modern world has been made by science.

Among the ancients we do not find the scientific method in Egypt or China or India. We find just a bit of it in old Greece. In Rome again it was absent. But the Arabs had this scientific spirit of inquiry, and so they may be considered the fathers of modern science. In some subjects, like medicine and mathematics, they learnt much from India. Indian scholars and mathematicians came in large numbers to Baghdad. Many Arab students went to Takshashila in North India, which was still a great university, specializing in medicine. Sanskrit books on medical and other subjects were especially translated into Arabic. Many things-for example, paper-making-the Arabs learnt from China. But on the basis of the knowledge gained from others they made their own researches and made several important discoveries. They made the first telescope and the mariner’s compass. In medicine, Arab physicians and surgeons were famous all over Europe.

Baghdad was, of course, the great centre of all these intellectual activities. In the West, Cordoba, the capital of Arab Spain, was another centre. There were many other university centers in the Arab world, where the life of the intellect flourished-there was Cairo or al-Qahira, “the Victorious”, Basra and Kufa. But over all these famous cities towered Baghdad “the capital of Islam, the eye of Iraq, the seat of empire, and the centre of beauty, culture and arts”, as an Arab historian describes it. It had a population of over 2,000,000 and thus was far bigger than modern Calcutta or Bombay.

It many interest you to know that the habit of wearing socks and stockings is said to have begun in Baghdad among the rich. They were called “mozas”, and the Hindustani word for them must be derived from this. So also the French “chemise”, which comes from “kamis”, a shirt. Both the kamis and the moza went from the Arabs to the Byzantines in Constantinople and from there to Europe.

The Arabs had always been great travelers. They continued their long journeys across the seas and established colonies in Africa, on the shores of India, in Malaysia and even in China. One of their famous travelers was Alberuni, who came to India and left, like Hiuen Tsang, a record of his travels.

The Arabs were also historians, and we know a great deal about them from their own books and histories. And all of us know what fine stories and romances they could write. Thousands and thousands of people have never heard of the Abbaside Khalifas and of their empire, but they know of Baghdad of the Alif Laila wa Laila, the “Thousand and one Nights”, the city of mystery and romance. The empire of the imagination is often more real and more lasting than the empire of fact.

Soon after the death of Harun-al-Rahid trouble came to the Arab Empire. There were disorders, and different parts of the empire fell away, the provincial governors becoming hereditary rulers. The caliphs became more and more powerless, till a time came when a caliph ruled over the city of Baghdad only and a few villages around it. A caliph was even dragged out of his palace by his own soldiery and killed. Then for a while some strong men rose who ruled from Baghdad and the made the caliph a dependant of theirs.

Meanwhile the unity of Islam was a thing of the distant past. Separate kingdoms arose everywhere from Egypt to Khorasan in Central Asia. And from farther east still the nomad tribes moved west. The old Turks of Central Asia became Muslims and came and took possessions of Baghdad. They are known as the Seljuq Turks. They defeated the Byzantine army of Constantinople utterly, much to the surprise of Europe. For Europe had thought that the Arabs and Muslims had spent their strength and were getting weaker and weaker. It was true that the Arabs had declined greatly, but the Seljuq Turks now came on the scene to upload the banner of Islam and to challenge Europe with it.

This challenge was soon taken up, as we shall see, and the Christians nations of Europe organized crusades to fight the Muslims and reconquer Jerusalem, their holy city. For over 100 years Christianity and Islam fought for mastery in Syria and Palestine and Asia Minor and exhausted each other, and soaked every inch of the soil almost of these countries with human blood. And the flourishing cities of these parts lost their trade and greatness, and the smiling fields were often converted into a wilderness.

So they fought each other .But even before their fighting was over, across Asia in Mongolia there arose Chengiz Khan, the Mongol Shaker of the Earth, as he was called, who was indeed going to shake Asia and Europe. He and his descendants finally put an end to Baghdad and its empire. By the time the Mongols had finished with the great and famous city of Baghdad, it was almost a heap of dust and ashes and most of its 2,000,000 inhabitants were dead. This was in 1258 AC.

Baghdad is now again a flourishing city and is the capital of the state of Iraq. But it is only a shadow of its former self; for it never recovered from the death and desolation which the Mongols brought.

(May 21, 1932)