A BRIEF

H I S T O RY

OF ISLAM

By

H T T P :// W W W . I S L A M I C I T Y . C O M
THE MESSAGE:

In or about the year 570 the child who would be named Muhammad
and who would become the Prophet of one of the world's great
religions, Islam, was born into a family belonging to a clan of
Quraysh, the ruling tribe of Mecca, a city in the Hijaz region of
northwestern Arabia.

Originally the site of the Ka'bah, a shrine of ancient origins, Mecca

had with the decline of southern Arabia (see Chapter l) become an
important center of sixth-century trade with such powers as the
Sassanians, Byzantines, and Ethiopians. As a result the city was
dominated by powerful merchant families among whom the men of
Quraysh were preeminent.

Muhammad's father, 'Abd Allah ibn'Abd al-Muttalib, died before the

boy was born; his mother, Aminah, died when he was six. The
orphan was consigned to the care of his grandfather, the head of
the clan of Hashim. After the death of his grandfather, Muhammad
was raised by his uncle, Abu Talib. As was customary, Muhammad
as a child was sent to live for a year or two with a Bedouin family.
This custom, followed until recently by noble families of Mecca,
Medina, Tayif, and other towns of the Hijaz, had important
implications for Muhammad. In addition to enduring the hardships of
desert life, he acquired a taste for the rich language so loved by the
Arabs, whose speech was their proudest art, and learned the
patience and forbearance of the herdsmen, whose life of solitude he
first shared and then came to understand and appreciate.
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About the year 590, Muhammad, then in his twenties, entered the
service of a widow named Khadijah as a merchant actively engaged
with trading caravans to the north. Sometime later Muhammad
married Khadijah, by whom he had two sons - who did not survive -
and four daughters.

During this period of his life Muhammad traveled widely. Then, in

his forties he began to retire to meditate in a cave on Mount Hira
outside of Mecca, where the first of the great events of Islam took
place. One day, as he sat in the cave, he heard a voice, later
identified as that of the Angel Gabriel, which ordered him to:

Recite: In the name of thy Lord who created, Created man from a
clot of blood.

Three times Muhammad pleaded his inability to do so, but each

time the command was repeated. Finally, Muhammad recited the
words of what are now the first five verses of the 96th surah or
chapter of the Quran - words which proclaim God the Creator of
man and the Source of all knowledge.

At first Muhammad divulged his experience only to his wife and his
immediate circle. But as more revelations enjoined him to proclaim
the oneness of God universally, his following grew, at first among
the poor and the slaves, but later also among the most prominent
men of Mecca. The revelations he received at this time and those
he did so later are all incorporated in the Quran, the Scripture of
Islam.

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 Photo: The sun rises over Jabal al-Rahmah, the
Mount of Mercy, where Muhammad in his farewell
sermon told the assembled Muslims, "I have
delivered God's message to you and left you with a
clear command: the Book of God and the practice of His Prophet. If
you hold fast to this you will never go astray."

Not everyone accepted God's message transmitted through

Muhammad. Even within his own clan there were those who
rejected his teachings, and many merchants actively opposed the
message. The opposition, however, merely served to sharpen
Muhammad's sense of mission and his understanding of exactly
how Islam differed from paganism. The belief in the unity of God
was paramount in Islam; from this all else followed. The verses of
the Quran stress God's uniqueness, warn those who deny it of
impending punishment, and proclaim His unbounded compassion to
those who submit to His will. They affirm the Last Judgment, when
God, the Judge, will weigh in the balance the faith and works of
each man, rewarding the faithful and punishing the transgressor.
Because the Quran rejected polytheism and emphasized man's
moral responsibility, in powerful images, it presented a grave
challenge to the worldly Meccans.

THE HIJRAH:

After Muhammad had preached publicly for more than a decade,

the opposition to him reached such a high pitch that, fearful for their
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safety, he sent some of his adherents to Ethiopia, where the
Christian ruler extended protection to them, the memory of which
has been cherished by Muslims ever since. But in Mecca the
persecution worsened. Muhammad's followers were harassed,
abused, and even tortured. At last, therefore, Muhammad sent
seventy of his followers off to the northern town of Yathrib, which
was later to be renamed Medina ("The City"). Later, in the early fall
of 622, he learned of a plot to murder him and, with his closest
friend, Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, set off to join the emigrants.

In Mecca the plotters arrived at Muhammad's home to find that his

cousin, 'Ali, had taken his place in bed. Enraged, the Meccans set a
price on Muhammad's head and set off in pursuit. Muhammad and
Abu Bakr, however, had taken refuge in a cave where, as they hid
from their pursuers, a spider spun its web across the cave's mouth.
When they saw that the web was unbroken, the Meccans passed
by and Muhammad and Abu Bakr went on to Medina, where they
were joyously welcomed by a throng of Medinans as well as the
Meccans who had gone ahead to prepare the way.

This was the Hijrah - anglicized as Hegira - usually, but

inaccurately, translated as "Flight" - from which the Muslim era is
dated. In fact, the Hijrah was not a flight but a carefully planned
migration which marks not only a break in history - the beginning of
the Islamic era- but also, for Muhammad and the Muslims, a new
way of life. Henceforth, the organizational principle of the
community was not to be mere blood kinship, but the greater
brotherhood of all Muslims. The men who accompanied

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Muhammad on the Hijrah were called the Muhajirun - "those that
made the Hijrah" or the "Emigrants" - while those in Medina who
became Muslims were called the Ansar or "Helpers."

Muhammad was well acquainted with the situation in Medina.

Earlier, before the Hijrah, the city had sent envoys to Mecca asking
Muhammad to mediate a dispute between two powerful tribes.
What the envoys saw and heard had impressed them and they had
invited Muhammad to settle in Medina. After the Hijrah,
Muhammad's exceptional qualities so impressed the Medinans that
the rival tribes and their allies temporarily closed ranks as, on
March 15, 624, Muhammad and his supporters moved against the
pagans of Mecca.

Photo: A colonnade of lofty arches surrounds the

courtyard at the Prophet's Mosque in Medina, after
Mecca the second holiest city of Islam.

The first battle, which took place near Badr, now a

small town southwest of Medina, had several
important effects. In the first place, the Muslim
forces, outnumbered three to one, routed the Meccans. Secondly,
the discipline displayed by the Muslims brought home to the
Meccans, perhaps for the first time, the abilities of the man they had
driven from their city. Thirdly, one of the allied tribes which had
pledged support to the Muslims in the Battle of Badr, but had then
proved lukewarm when the fighting started, was expelled from
Medina one month after the battle. Those who claimed to be allies
of the Muslims, but tacitly opposed them, were thus served warning:
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membership in the community imposed the obligation of total
support.

A year later the Meccans struck back. Assembling an army of three

thousand men, they met the Muslims at Uhud, a ridge outside
Medina. After an initial success the Muslims were driven back and
the Prophet himself was wounded. As the Muslims were not
completely defeated, the Meccans, with an army of ten thousand,
attacked Medina again two years later but with quite different
results. At the Battle of the Trench, also known as the Battle of the
Confederates, the Muslims scored a signal victory by introducing a
new defense. On the side of Medina from which attack was
expected they dug a trench too deep for the Meccan cavalry to
clear without exposing itself to the archers posted behind
earthworks on the Medina side. After an inconclusive siege, the
Meccans were forced to retire. Thereafter Medina was entirely in
the hands of the Muslims.

The Constitution of Medina - under which the clans accepting

Muhammad as the Prophet of God formed an alliance, or federation
- dates from this period. It showed that the political consciousness
of the Muslim community had reached an important point; its
members defined themselves as a community separate from all
others. The Constitution also defined the role of non-Muslims in the
community. Jews, for example, were part of the community; they
were dhimmis, that is, protected people, as long as they conformed
to its laws. This established a precedent for the treatment of subject
peoples during the later conquests. Christians and Jews, upon

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payment of a yearly tax, were allowed religious freedom and, while
maintaining their status as non-Muslims, were associate members
of the Muslim state. This status did not apply to polytheists, who
could not be tolerated within a community that worshipped the One
God.

Photo: The Ka'bah, spiritual axis of the Muslim world,

stands in the courtyard of Mecca's Sacred Mosque.

Ibn Ishaq, one of the earliest biographers of the

Prophet, says it was at about this time that Muhammad
sent letters to the rulers of the earth - the King of
Persia, the Emperor of Byzantium, the Negus of
Abyssinia, and the Governor of Egypt among others - inviting them
to submit to Islam. Nothing more fully illustrates the confidence of
the small community, as its military power, despite the battle of the
Trench, was still negligible. But its confidence was not misplaced.
Muhammad so effectively built up a series of alliances among the
tribes his early years with the Bedouins must have stood him in
good stead here- that by 628 he and fifteen hundred followers were
able to demand access to the Ka'bah during negotiations with the
Meccans. This was a milestone in the history of the Muslims. Just a
short time before, Muhammad had to leave the city of his birth in
fear of his life. Now he was being treated by his former enemies as
a leader in his own right. A year later, in 629, he reentered and, in
effect, conquered Mecca without bloodshed and in a spirit of
tolerance which established an ideal for future conquests. He also
destroyed the idols in the Ka'bah, to put an end forever to pagan

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practices there. At the same time Muhammad won the allegiance of
'Amr ibn al-'As, the future conqueror of Egypt, and Khalid ibn al-
Walid, the future "Sword of God," both of whom embraced Islam
and joined Muhammad. Their conversion was especially noteworthy
because these men had been among Muhammad's bitterest
opponents only a short time before.

In one sense Muhammad's return to Mecca was the climax of his

mission. In 632, just three years later, he was suddenly taken ill and
on June 8 of that year, with his third wife 'Aishah in attendance, the
Messenger of God "died with the heat of noon."

Photo: Devout Muslims from all over the world gather

for the pilgrimage to Mecca, for nearly fourteen
centuries one of the most impressive religious
gatherings in the world.

The death of Muhammad was a profound loss. To his

followers this simple man from Mecca was far more
than a beloved friend, far more than a gifted
administrator, far more than the revered leader who had forged a
new state from clusters of warring tribes. Muhammad was also the
exemplar of the teachings he had brought them from God: the
teachings of the Quran, which, for centuries, have guided the
thought and action, the faith and conduct, of innumerable men and
women, and which ushered in a distinctive era in the history of
mankind. His death, nevertheless, had little effect on the dynamic
society he had created in Arabia, and no effect at all on his central
mission: to transmit the Quran to the world. As Abu Bakr put it:
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"Whoever worshipped Muhammad, let him know that Muhammad is
dead, but whoever worshipped God, let him know that God lives
and dies not."

THE RIGHTLY GUIDED CALIPHS:

With the death of Muhammad, the Muslim community was faced

with the problem of succession. Who would be its leader? There
were four persons obviously marked for leadership: Abu Bakr al-
Siddiq, who had not only accompanied Muhammad to Medina ten
years before, but had been appointed to take the place of the
Prophet as leader of public prayer during Muhammad's last illness;
'Umar ibn al-Khattab, an able and trusted Companion of the
Prophet; 'Uthman ibn 'Affan, a respected early convert; and 'Ali ibn
Abi Talib, Muhammad's cousin and son-in-law. To avoid contention
among various groups, 'Umar suddenly grasped Abu Bakr's hand,
the traditional sign of recognition of a new leader. Soon everyone
concurred and before dusk Abu Bakr had been recognized as the
khalifah of Muhammad. Khalifah- anglicized as caliph - is a word
meaning "successor" but also suggesting what his historical role
would be: to govern according to the Quran and the practice of the
Prophet.

Abu Bakr's caliphate was short but important. An exemplary leader,

he lived simply, assiduously fulfilled his religious obligations, and
was accessible and sympathetic to his people. But he also stood
firm when, in the wake of the Prophet's death, some tribes
renounced Islam; in what was a major accomplishment, Abu Bakr
swiftly disciplined them. Later, he consolidated the support of the
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tribes within the Arabian Peninsula and subsequently funnelled their
energies against the powerful empires of the East: the Sassanians
in Persia and the Byzantines in Syria, Palestine, and Egypt. In
short, he demonstrated the viability of the Muslim state.

The second caliph, 'Umar- appointed by Abu Bakr in a written

testament - continued to demonstrate that viability. Adopting the title
Amir al-Muminin, "Commander of the Believers," 'Umar extended
Islam's temporal rule over Syria, Egypt, Iraq, and Persia in what
from a purely military standpoint were astonishing victories. Within
four years after the death of the Prophet the Muslim state had
extended its sway over all of Syria and had, at a famous battle
fought during a sandstorm near the River Yarmuk, blunted the
power of the Byzantines - whose ruler Heraclius had shortly before
disdainfully rejected the letter from the unknown Prophet of Arabia.

Even more astonishingly, the Muslim state administered the

conquered territories with a tolerance almost unheard of in that age.
At Damascus, for example, the Muslim leader Khalid ibn al-Walid
signed a treaty which read as follows:

This is what Khalid ibn al-Walid would grant to the inhabitants of

Damascus if he enters therein: he promises to give them security
for their lives, property and churches. Their city wall shall not be
demolished, neither shall any Muslim be quartered in their houses.
Thereunto we give them the pact of Allah and the protection of His
Prophet, the caliphs and the believers. So long as they pay the poll
tax, nothing but good shall befall them.

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This tolerance was typical of Islam. A year after Yarmuk, 'Umar, in
the military camp of al-Jabiyah on the Golan Heights, received word
that the Byzantines were ready to surrender Jerusalem and rode
there to accept the surrender in person. According to one account,
he entered the city alone and clad in a simple cloak, astounding a
populace accustomed to the sumptuous garb and court ceremonials
of the Byzantines and Persians. He astounded them still further
when he set their fears at rest by negotiating a generous treaty in
which he told them:

In the name of God ... you have complete security for your churches
which shall not be occupied by the Muslims or destroyed.

This policy was to prove successful everywhere. In Syria, for

example, many Christians who had been involved in bitter
theological disputes with Byzantine authorities- and persecuted for
it- welcomed the coming of Islam as an end to tyranny. And in
Egypt, which 'Amr ibn al-'As took from the Byzantines after a daring
march across the Sinai Peninsula, the Coptic Christians not only
welcomed the Arabs, but enthusiastically assisted them.

This pattern was repeated throughout the Byzantine Empire.

Conflict among Greek Orthodox, Syrian Monophysites, Copts, and
Nestorian Christians contributed to the failure of the Byzantines -
always regarded as intruders - to develop popular support, while the
tolerance which Muslims showed toward Christians and Jews
removed the primary cause for opposing them.

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'Umar adopted this attitude in administrative matters as well.
Although he assigned Muslim governors to the new provinces,
existing Byzantine and Persian administrations were retained
wherever possible. For fifty years, in fact, Greek remained the
chancery language of Syria, Egypt, and Palestine, while Pahlavi,
the chancery language of the Sassanians, continued to be used in
Mesopotamia and Persia.

'Umar, who served as caliph for ten years, ended his rule with a
significant victory over the Persian Empire. The struggle with the
Sassanid realm had opened in 687 at al-Qadisiyah, near Ctesiphon
in Iraq, where Muslim cavalry had successfully coped with
elephants used by the Persians as a kind of primitive tank. Now
with the Battle of Nihavand, called the "Conquest of Conquests,"
'Umar sealed the fate of Persia; henceforth it was to be one of the
most important provinces in the Muslim Empire.

His caliphate was a high point in early Islamic history. He was noted
for his justice, social ideals, administration, and statesmanship. His
innovations left all enduring imprint on social welfare, taxation, and
the financial and administrative fabric of the growing empire.

After the death of 'Umar an advisory council composed of

Companions of the Prophet selected as the third caliph 'Uthman,
during whose rule the first serious strains on Islamic unity would
appear. 'Uthman achieved much during his reign. He pushed
forward with the pacification of Persia, continued to defend the
Muslim state against the Byzantines, added what is now Libya to
the empire, and subjugated most of Armenia. 'Uthman also, through
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his cousin Mu'awiyah ibn Abi Sufyan, the governor of Syria,
established an Arab navy which fought a series of important
engagements with the Byzantines.

Of much greater importance to Islam, however, was 'Uthman's

compilation of the text of the Quran as revealed to the Prophet.
Realizing that the original message from God might be inadvertently
distorted by textual variants, he appointed a committee to collect
the canonical verses and destroy the variant recensions. The result
was the text that is accepted to this day throughout the Muslim
world.

Photo: This eighth century manuscript from

Mecca or Medina is one of the two oldest known
existing copies of the Quran.

These successes, however, were qualified by serious administrative

weaknesses. 'Uthman was accused of favoritism to members of his
family - the clan of Umayyah. Negotiations over such grievances
were opened by representatives from Egypt but soon collapsed and
'Uthman was killed - an act that caused a rift in the community of
Islam that has never entirely been closed.

This rift widened almost as soon as 'Ali, cousin and son-in-law of

the Prophet, was chosen to be the fourth caliph. At issue,
essentially, was the legitimacy of 'Ali's caliphate. 'Uthman's relatives
- in particular Mu'awiyah, the powerful governor of Syria, where
'Ali's election had not been recognized - believed 'Ali's caliphate
was invalid because his election had been supported by those
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responsible for 'Uthman's unavenged death. The conflict came to a
climax in 657 at Siffin, near the Euphrates, and eventually resulted
in a major division between the Sunnis or Sunnites and the Shi'is
(also called Shi'ites or Shi'ah), the "Partisans" of 'Ali- a division that
was to color the subsequent history of Islam.

Actually the Sunnis and the Shi'is are agreed upon almost all the
essentials of Islam. Both believe in the Quran and the Prophet, both
follow the same principles of religion and both observe the same
rituals. However, there is one prominent difference, which is
essentially political rather than religious, and concerns the choice of
the caliph or successor of Muhammad.

The majority of Muslims support the elective principle which led to

the choice of Abu Bakr as the first caliph. This group is known as
ahl alsunnah wa-l-jama'ah, "the people of custom and community,"
or Sunnis, who consider the caliph to be Muhammad's successor
only in his capacity as ruler of the community. The main body of the
Shi'is, on the other hand, believes that the caliphate - which they
call the imamate or "leadership" - is nonelective. The caliphate, they
say, must remain within the family of the Prophet - with 'Ali the first
valid caliph. And while Sunnis consider the caliph a guardian of the
shari'ah, the religious law, the Shi'is see the imam as a trustee
inheriting and interpreting the Prophet's spiritual knowledge.

After the battle of Siffin, 'Ali - whose chief strength was in Iraq, with
his capital at Kufa - began to lose the support of many of his more
uncompromising followers and in 661 he was murdered by a former
supporter. His son Hasan was proclaimed caliph at Kufa but soon
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afterward deferred to Muiawiyah, who had already been proclaimed
caliph in Jerusalem in the previous year and who now was
recognized and accepted as caliph in all the Muslim territories - thus
inaugurating the Umayyad dynasty which would rule for the next
ninety years.

The division between the Sunnis and the Shi'is continued to

develop, however, and was widened in 680 when 'Ali's son Husayn
tried to win the caliphate from the Umayyads and, with his followers,
was killed at Karbala in Iraq. His death is still mourned each year by
the Shi'is.

THE UMAYYADS:

The shift in power to Damascus, the Umayyad capital city, was to

have profound effects on the development of Islamic history. For
one thing, it was a tacit recognition of the end of an era. The first
four caliphs had been without exception Companions of the Prophet
- pious, sincere men who had lived no differently from their
neighbors and who preserved the simple habits of their ancestors
despite the massive influx of wealth from the conquered territories.
Even 'Uthman, whose policies had such a divisive effect, was
essentially dedicated more to the concerns of the next world than of
this. With the shift to Damascus much was changed.

In the early days of Islam, the extension of Islamic rule had been
based on an uncomplicated desire to spread the Word of God.
Although the Muslims used force when they met resistance they did
not compel their enemies to accept Islam. On the contrary, the
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Muslims permitted Christians and Jews to practice their own faith
and numerous conversions to Islam were the result of exposure to a
faith that was simple and inspiring.

Photo: Medieval Muslims regarded the Great

Mosque built by the Umayyads in Damascus as
one of the wonders of the world.

With the advent of the Umayyads, how ever,

secular concerns and the problems inherent in
the administration of what, by then, was a large empire began to
dominate the attention of the caliphs, often at the expense of
religious concerns - a development that disturbed many devout
Muslims. This is not to say that religious values were ignored; on
the contrary, they grew in strength for centuries. But they were not
always at the forefront and from the time of Mu'awiyah the caliph's
role as "Defender of the Faith" increasingly required him to devote
attention to the purely secular concerns which dominate so much of
every nation's history.

Muiawiyah was an able administrator, and even his critics concede

that he possessed to a high degree the much-valued quality of hilm
- a quality which may be defined as "civilized restraint" and which
he himself once described in these words:

I apply not my sword where my lash suffices, nor my lash where my

tongue is enough. And even if there be one hair binding me to my
fellowmen, I do not let it break: when they pull I loosen, and if they
loosen I pull.
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Nevertheless, Mu'awiyah was never able to reconcile the opposition
to his rule nor solve the conflict with the Shi'is. These problems
were not unmanageable while Mu'awiyah was alive, but after he
died in 680 the partisans of 'Ali resumed a complicated but
persistent struggle that plagued the Umayyads at home for most of
the next seventy years and in time spread into North Africa and
Spain.

Photo: Facing al-Gharbiyah, the western

minaret, a muezzin at the Umayyad Mosque
calls believers to prayer.

The Umayyads, however, did manage to

achieve a degree of stability, particularly after
'Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan succeeded to the
caliphate in 685. Like the Umayyads who
preceded him, 'Abd al-Malik was forced to
devote a substantial part of his reign to political problems. But he
also introduced much needed reforms. He directed the cleaning and
reopening of the canals that irrigated the Tigris-Euphrates Valley - a
key to the prosperity of Mesopotamia since the time of the
Sumerians - introduced the use of the Indian water buffalo in the
riverine marshes, and minted a standard coinage which replaced
the Byzantine and Sassanid coins, until then the sole currencies in
circulation. 'Abd al-Malik's organization of government agencies
was also important; it established a model for the later elaborate
bureaucracies of the 'Abbasids and their successor states. There
were specific agencies charged with keeping pay records; others

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concerned themselves with the collection of taxes. 'Abd al-Malik
established a system of postal routes to expedite his
communications throughout the far flung empire. Most important of
all, he introduced Arabic as the language of administration,
replacing Greek and Pahlavi.

Under 'Abd al-Malik, the Umayyads expanded Islamic power still

further. To the east they extended their influence into Transoxania,
an area north of the Oxus River in today's Soviet Union, and went
on to reach the borders of China. To the west, they took North
Africa, in a continuation of the campaign led by 'Uqbah ibn Nafi'
who founded the city of Kairouan - in what is now Tunisia - and from
there rode all the way to the shores of the Atlantic Ocean.

These territorial acquisitions brought the Arabs into contact with

previously unknown ethnic groups who embraced Islam and would
later influence the course of Islamic history. The Berbers of North
Africa, for example, who resisted Arab rule but willingly embraced
Islam, later joined Musa ibn Nusayr and his general, Tariq ibn
Ziyad, when they crossed the Strait of Gibraltar to Spain. The
Berbers later also launched reform movements in North Africa
which greatly influenced the Islamic civilization. In the East,
Umayyad rule in Transoxania brought the Arabs into contact with
the Turks who, like the Berbers, embraced Islam and, in the course
of time, became its staunch defenders. Umayyad expansion also
reached the ancient civilization of India, whose literature and
science greatly enriched Islamic culture.

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 Photo: The minaret of the Great Mosque at Kairouan
in Tunisia became the prototype for the majority of
North African minarets.

In Europe, meanwhile, the Arabs had passed into

Spain, defeated the Visigoths, and by 713 had reached
Narbonne in France. In the next decades, raiding
parties continually made forays into France and in 732 reached as
far as the Loire Valley, only 170 miles from Paris. There, at the
Battle of Tours, or Poitiers, the Arabs were finally turned back by
Charles Martel.

One of the Umayyad caliphs who attained greatness was 'Umar ibn
'Abd al-'Aziz, a man very different from his predecessors. Although
a member of the Umayyad family, 'Umar had been born and raised
in Medina, where his early contact with devout men had given him a
concern for spiritual as well as political values. The criticisms that
religious men in Medina and elsewhere had voiced of Umayyad
policy - particularly the pursuit of worldly goals - were not lost on
'Umar who, reversing the policy of his predecessors, discontinued
the levy of a poll tax on converts.

This move reduced state income substantially, but as there was

clear precedent in the practice of the great 'Umar ibn al-Khattab, the
second caliph, and as 'Umar ibn 'Abd al-'Aziz was determined to
bring government policy more in line with the practice of the
Prophet, even enemies of his regime had nothing but praise for this
pious man.

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The last great Umayyad caliph was Hisham, the fourth son of 'Abd
al-Malik to succeed to the caliphate. His reign was long - from 724
to 743 - and during it the Arab empire reached its greatest extent.
But neither he nor the four caliphs who succeeded him were the
statesmen the times demanded when, in 747, revolutionaries in
Khorasan unfurled the black flag of rebellion that would bring the
Umayyad Dynasty to an end.

Although the Umayyads favored their own region of Syria, their rule
was not without accomplishments. Some of the most beautiful
existing buildings in the Muslim world were constructed at their
instigation - buildings such as the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus,
the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, and the lovely country palaces
in the deserts of Syria, Jordan, and Iraq. They also organized a
bureaucracy able to cope with the complex problems of a vast and
diverse empire, and made Arabic the language of government. The
Umayyads, furthermore, encouraged such writers as 'Abd Allah ibn
al-Muqaffa' and 'Abd al-Hamid ibn Yahya al-Katib, whose clear,
expository Arabic prose has rarely been surpassed.

Photo: The shrine of the Dome of the Rock in

Jerusalem, built in an area revered by Muslims,
Christians and Jews alike covers the rock from which
Muhammad is believed to have ascended to heaven
with the Angel Gabriel.

For all that, the Umayyads, during the ninety years of

their leadership, rarely shook off their empire's reputation as a mulk
- that is, a worldly kingdom - and in the last years of the dynasty
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their opponents formed a secret organization devoted to pressing
the claims to the caliphate put forward by a descendant of al-'Abbas
ibn 'Abd al-Muttalib, an uncle of the Prophet. By skillful preparation,
this organization rallied to its cause many mutually hostile groups in
Khorasan and Iraq and proclaimed Abu al-'Abbas caliph. Marwan
ibn Muhammad, the last Umayyad caliph, was defeated and the
Syrians, still loyal to the Umayyads, were put to rout. Only one man
of importance escaped the disaster - 'Abd al-Rahman ibn
Mu'awiyah al-Dakhil, a young prince who with a loyal servant fled to
Spain and in 756 set up an Umayyad Dynasty there.

ISLAM IN
SPAIN:

By the time 'Abd al-Rahman reached Spain, the Arabs from North
Africa were already entrenched on the Iberian Peninsula and had
begun to write one of the most glorious chapters in Islamic history.

After their forays into France were blunted by Charles Martel, the
Muslims in Spain had begun to focus their whole attention on what
they called al-Andalus, southern Spain (Andalusia), and to build
there a civilization far superior to anything Spain had ever known.
Reigning with wisdom and justice, they treated Christians and Jews
with tolerance, with the result that many embraced Islam. They also
improved trade and agriculture, patronized the arts, made valuable
contributions to science, and established Cordoba as the most
sophisticated city in Europe.

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By the tenth century, Cordoba could boast of a population of some
500,000, compared to about 38,000 in Paris. According to the
chronicles of the day, the city had 700 mosques, some 60,000
palaces, and 70 libraries - one reportedly housing 500,000
manuscripts and employing a staff of researchers, illuminators, and
book binders. Cordoba also had some 900 public baths, Europe's
first street lights and, five miles outside the city, the caliphal
residence, Madinat al-Zahra. A complex of marble, stucco, ivory,
and onyx, Madinat al-Zahra took forty years to build, cost close to
one-third of Cordoba's revenue, and was, until destroyed in the
eleventh century, one of the wonders of the age. Its restoration,
begun in the early years of this century, is still under way.

Photo: A forest of eight hundred and fifty pillars

connected by Moorish arches lines the great
mosque of Cordoba.

By the eleventh century, however, a small pocket

of Christian resistance had begun to grow, and
under Alfonso VI Christian forces retook Toledo. It
was the beginning of the period the Christians
called the Reconquest, and it underlined a serious problem that
marred this refined, graceful, and charming era: the inability of the
numerous rulers of Islamic Spain to maintain their unity. This so
weakened them that when the various Christian kingdoms began to
pose a serious threat, the Muslim rulers in Spain had to ask the
Almoravids, a North African Berber dynasty, to come to their aid.
The Almoravids came and crushed the Christian uprising, but

Page 23 of 73
eventually seized control themselves. In 1147, the Almoravids were
in turn defeated by another coalition of Berber tribes, the Almohads.

Although such internal conflict was by no means uncommon- the

Christian kingdoms also warred incessantly among themselves- it
did divert Muslim strength at a time when the Christians were
beginning to negotiate strong alliances, form powerful armies, and
launch the campaigns that would later bring an end to Arab rule.

The Arabs did not surrender easily; al-Andalus was their land too.
But, bit by bit, they had to retreat, first from northern Spain, then
from central Spain. By the thirteenth century their once extensive
domains were reduced to a few scattered kingdoms deep in the
mountains of Andalusia - where, for some two hundred years
longer, they would not only survive but flourish.

It is both odd and poignant that it was then, in the last two centuries
of their rule, that the Arabs created that extravagantly lovely
kingdom for which they are most famous: Granada. It seems as if,
in their slow retreat to the south, they suddenly realized that they
were, as Washington Irving wrote, a people without a country, and
set about building a memorial: the Alhambra, the citadel above
Granada that one writer has called "the glory and the wonder of the
civilized world."

The Alhambra was begun in 1238 by Muhammad ibn al-Ahmar

who, to buy safety for his people when King Ferdinand of Aragon
laid siege to Granada, once rode to Ferdinand's tent and humbly
offered to become the king's vassal in return for peace.
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 Photo: Pool in the Patio de los Arrayanes reflects
the grandeur of the incomparable Alhambra.

It was a necessary move, but also difficult -

particularly when Ferdinand called on him to
implement the agreement by providing troops to
help the Christians against Muslims in the siege of Seville in 1248.
True to his pledge, Ibn al-Ahmar complied and Seville fell to the
Christians. But returning to Granada, where cheering crowds hailed
him as a victor, he disclosed his turmoil in that short, sad reply that
he inscribed over and over on the walls of the Alhambra: "There is
no victor but God."

Over the years, what started as a fortress slowly evolved under Ibn
al-Ahmar's successors into a remarkable series of delicately lovely
buildings, quiet courtyards, limpid pools, and hidden gardens. Later,
after Ibn al-Ahmar's death, Granada itself was rebuilt and became,
as one Arab visitor wrote, "as a silver vase filled with emeralds."

Meanwhile, outside Granada, the Christian kings waited. In

relentless succession they had retaken Toledo, Cordoba, and
Seville. Only Granada survived. Then, in 1482, in a trivial quarrel,
the Muslim kingdom split into two hostile factions and,
simultaneously, two strong Christian sovereigns, Ferdinand and
Isabella, married and merged their kingdoms. As a result, Granada
fell ten years later. On January 2, 1492 - the year they sent
Columbus to America - Ferdinand and Isabella hoisted the banner
of Christian Spain above the Alhambra and Boabdil, the last Muslim
king, rode weeping into exile with the bitter envoi from his aged
Page 25 of 73
mother, "Weep like a woman for the city you would not defend like a
man!"

Photo: A Moorish-built tower soars above Guadalquivir

River in Seville.

In describing the fate of Islam in Spain, Irving

suggested that the Muslims were then swiftly and
thoroughly wiped out. Never, he wrote, was the
annihilation of a people more complete. In fact, by
emigration to North Africa and elsewhere, many Muslims carried
remnants of the Spanish era with them and were thus able to make
important contributions to the material and cultural life of their
adopted lands.

Much of the emigration, however, came later. At first, most Muslims

simply stayed in Spain; cut off from their original roots by time and
distance they quite simply had no other place to go. Until the
Inquisition, furthermore, conditions in Spain were not intolerable.
The Christians permitted Muslims to work, serve in the army, own
land, and even practice their religion - all concessions to the
importance of Muslims in Spain's still prosperous economy. But
then, in the period of the Inquisition, all the rights of the Muslims
were withdrawn, their lives became difficult, and more began to
emigrate. Finally, in the early seventeenth century, most of the
survivors were forcibly expelled.

THE 'ABBASIDS:

Page 26 of 73
In the Middle East, during these centuries, the 'Abbasids, after their
victory over the Umayyads, had transformed the Umayyads' Arab
empire into a multinational Muslim empire. They moved the capital
of the empire from Syria to Iraq, where they built a new capital,
Baghdad, from which, during the next five centuries, they would
influence many of the main events of Islamic history.

In the early period of 'Abbasid rule, al-Mansur, the second caliph of

the dynasty, continued the reorganization of the administration of
the empire along the lines that had been laid down by his Umayyad
predecessor, 'Abd al-Malik. Much of the 'Abbasid administration, for
example, was left in the hands of well-educated Persian civil
servants, many of whom came from families that had traditionally
served the Sassanid kings. The important office of wazir or vizier,
chief counselor, may well have developed from Sassanid models.
The vizier was much more than an advisor; indeed, when the caliph
was weak, a capable vizier became the most powerful man in the
empire.

Photo: Astride the Tigris, present day Baghdad stands in

the vicinity of the 'Abbasid capital, a fabulous city of
mosques, mansions and libraries.

The creation of the office of the vizier was only one of

the innovations the 'Abbasids brought to statecraft. Another was the
development of the Umayyad postal system into an efficient
intelligence service; postmasters in outlying provinces were the
eyes and ears of the government and regular reports were filed with
the central government on everything from the state of the harvest
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to the doings of dissident sects. Under the 'Abbasids too a whole
literature was created for the use and training of the clerical classes
that had come into being. Since all government business was by
now transacted in Arabic, manuals of correct usage were written for
the instruction of non-Arabic speakers who had found government
employment. There was also a vast literature on the correct
deportment of princes, as well as anthologies of witty sayings and
anecdotes with which to enliven one's epistolary style.

Photo: The Great Mosque of the Umayyads in

Damascus dates from the early eighth century and
numerous works of rebuilding have not changed its
fundamental character.

In some ways the 'Abbasids were more fortunate

than the Umayyads. When, for example, al-Mansur
died in 775 after a reign of twenty years, his son, al-Mahdi, inherited
a full treasury and an empire that was more devoted to trade than
war.

The developments in trade, indeed, are among the achievements of

the 'Abbasids that are too often overlooked. Because Islamic rule
unified much of the Eastern world, thus abolishing many
boundaries, trade was freer, safer, and more extensive than it had
been since the time of Alexander the Great. Muslim traders,
consequently, established trading posts as far away as India, the
Philippines, Malaya, the East Indies, and China.

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 Photo: Golden domes and gold topped minarets
highlight the mosque of al-Kazimayn in Baghdad,
built in the early sixteenth century.

From the eighth to the eleventh centuries this

trade was largely concerned with finding and
importing basic necessities- grain, metals, and
wood. To obtain them, of course, the Muslims had to export too,
often using the imports from one region as exports to another:
pearls from the Gulf, livestock from the Arabian Peninsula
(particularly Arabian horses and camels), and - one of the chief
products - cloth. The Muslims also traded medicines, an offshoot of
'Abbasid advances in medical science, as well as paper and sugar.

Photo: The mosque of Bibi Khanum named

for Tamerlane's favorite wife, was once the most
imposing building of Samarkand.

This expansion of commercial activity led to other

developments too. One was a system of
banking and exchange so sophisticated that
a letter of credit issued in Baghdad could be
honored in Samarkand in Central Asia or Kairouan in North Africa.
The demands on trade also generated development of crafts. From
Baghdad's large urban population, for example, came craftsmen of
every conceivable sort: metalworkers, leatherworkers, bookbinders,
papermakers, jewelers, weavers, druggists, bakers, and many
more. As they grew in importance to the economy these craftsmen
eventually organized themselves into mutual-benefit societies which
Page 29 of 73
in some ways were similar to later Western guilds and which offered
many social services: lodging travelers, engaging in pious works
such as caring for orphans, and endowing schools. Because of this
growth in commerce the 'Abbasids also developed a system by
which a muhtasib, an inspector made sure that proper weights and
measures were given and that dishonest practices of all sorts were
avoided.

THE GOLDEN AGE:

The early 'Abbasids were also fortunate in the caliber of their

caliphs, especially after Harun al-Rashid came to the caliphate in
786. His reign is now the most famous in the annals of the
'Abbasids - partly because of the fictional role given him in The
Thousand and One Nights (portions of which probably date from his
reign), but also because his reign and those of his immediate
successors marked the high point of the 'Abbasid period. As the
Arab chronicles put it, Harun al-Rashid ruled when the world was
young, a felicitous description of what in later times has come to be
called the Golden Age of Islam.

The Golden Age was a period of unrivaled intellectual activity in all

fields: science, technology, and (as a result of intensive study of the
Islamic faith) literature - particularly biography, history, and
linguistics. Scholars, for example, in collecting and reexamining the
hadith, or "traditions" - the sayings and actions of the Prophet -
compiled immense biographical detail about the Prophet and other
information, historic and linguistic, about the Prophet's era. This led
to such memorable works as Sirat Rasul Allah, the "Life of the
Page 30 of 73
Messenger of God," by Ibn Ishaq, later revised by Ibn Hisham; one
of the earliest Arabic historical works, it was a key source of
information about the Prophet's life and also a model for other
important works of history such as al-Tabari's Annals of the
Apostles and the Kings and his massive commentary on the Quran.

Photo: Persian miniature depicts students with a

teacher of astronomy - one of the sciences to
which scholars of the Golden Age made great
contributions.

'Abbasid writers also developed new a genres of

literature such as adab, the embodiment of
sensible counsel, sometimes in the form of animal
fables; a typical example is Kalilah wa-Dimnah,
translated by Ibn al-Muqaffa' from a Pahlavi version of an Indian
work. Writers of this period also studied tribal traditions and wrote
the first systematic Arabic grammars.

During the Golden Age Muslim scholars also made important and
original contributions to mathematics, astronomy, medicine, and
chemistry. They collected and corrected previous astronomical
data, built the world's first observatory, and developed the
astrolabe, an instrument that was once called "a mathematical
jewel." In medicine they experimented with diet, drugs, surgery, and
anatomy, and in chemistry, an outgrowth of alchemy, isolated and
studied a wide variety of minerals and compounds.

Page 31 of 73
Important advances in agriculture were also made in the Golden
Age. The 'Abbasids preserved and improved the ancient network of
wells, underground canals, and waterwheels, introduced new
breeds of livestock, hastened the spread of cotton, and, from the
Chinese, learned the art of making paper, a key to the revival of
learning in Europe in the Middle Ages.

The Golden Age also, little by little, transformed the diet of medieval
Europe by introducing such plants as plums, artichokes, apricots,
cauliflower, celery, fennel, squash, pumpkins, and eggplant, as well
as rice, sorghum, new strains of wheat, the date palm, and
sugarcane.

Photo: Muslim scientists developed the

astrolabe, an instrument used long before the
invention of the sextant to observe the position
of celestial bodies.

Many of the advances in science, literature, and

trade which took place during the Golden Age of the 'Abbasids and
which would provide the impetus for the European Renaissance
reached their flowering during the caliphate of al-Mamun, son of
Harun al-Rashid and perhaps the greatest of all the 'Abbasids. But
politically the signs of decay were already becoming evident. The
province of Ifriqiyah - North Africa west of Libya and east of
Morocco - had fallen away from 'Abbasid control during the reign of
Harun al-Rashid, and under al-Mamun other provinces soon broke
loose also. When, for example, al-Mamun marched from Khorasan
to Baghdad, he left a trusted general named Tahir ibn al-Husayn in
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charge of the eastern province. Tahir asserted his independence of
the central government by omitting mention of the caliph's name in
the mosque on Friday and by striking his own coins - acts which
became the standard ways of expressing political independence.
From 821 onward Tahir and his descendants ruled Khorasan as an
independent state, with the tacit consent of the 'Abbasids.

Al-Mamun died in 833, in the town of Tarsus, and was succeeded

by his brother, al-Mu'tasim, under whose rule the symptoms of
decline that had manifested themselves earlier grew steadily worse.
As he could no longer rely on the loyalty of his army, al-Mu'tasim
recruited an army of Turks from Transoxania and Turkestan. It was
a necessary step, but its outcome was dominance of the caliphate
by its own praetorian guard. In the years following 861, the Turks
made and unmade rulers at will, a trend that accelerated the decline
of the central authority. Although the religious authority of the
'Abbasid caliphate remained unchallenged, the next four centuries
saw political power dispersed among a large number of
independent states: Tahirids, Saffarids, Samanids, Buwayhids,
Ziyarids, and Ghaznavids in the east; Hamdanids in Syria and
northern Mesopotamia; and Tulunids, Ikhshidids, and Fatimids in
Egypt.

Photo: Books of fables, often illustrated, served a

dual purpose to instruct and to entertain.

Some of these states made important

contributions to Islamic culture. Under the
Samanids, the Persian language, written in the
Page 33 of 73
Arabic alphabet, first reached the level of a literary language and
poets like Rudaki, Daqiqi, and Firdausi flourished. The Ghaznavids
patronized al-Biruni, one of the greatest and most original scholars
of medival Islam, and the Hamdanids, a purely Arab dynasty,
patronized such poets as al-Mutanabbi and philosophers like the
great al-Farabi, whose work kept the flame of Arab culture alive in a
difficult period. But in historical terms, only the Fatimids rivaled the
preceding dynasties.

THE
FATIMIDS:

The most stable of the successor dynasties founded in the ninth

and tenth centuries was that of the Fatimids, a branch of Shi'is. The
Fatimids won their first success in North Africa, where they
established a rival caliphate at Raqqadah near Kairouan and, in
952, embarked on a period of expansion that within a few years
took them to Egypt.

Photo: Founded in 970, the mosque of al-Azhar in

Cairo is one of the earliest and finest examples of the
Egyptian style in Islamic architecture.

For a time the Fatimids aspired to be rulers of the

whole Islamic world, and their achievements were
impressive. At their peak they ruled North Africa, the Red Sea
coast, Yemen, Palestine, and parts of Syria. The Fatimids built the
Mosque of al-Azhar in Cairo - from which developed al-Azhar
University, now the oldest university in the world and perhaps the
Page 34 of 73
most influential Islamic school of higher learning. Fatimid merchants
traded with Afghanistan and China and tried to divert some of
Baghdad's Arabian Gulf shipping to the Red Sea.

But the Fatimids' dreams of gaining control of the Islamic heartland

came to nothing, partly because many other independent states
refused to support them and partly because they, like the 'Abbasids
in Baghdad, lost effective control of their own mercenaries. Such
developments weakened the Fatimids, but thanks to a family of
viziers of Armenian origin they were able to endure until the
Ayyubid succession in the second half of the twelfth century - even
in the face of the eleventh-century invasion by the Seljuk Turks.

THE SELJUK TURKS:

Although individual Turkish generals had already gained

considerable, and at times decisive, power in Mesopotamia and
Egypt during the tenth and eleventh centuries, the coming of the
Seljuks signaled the first large-scale penetration of the Turkish
elements into the Middle East. Descended from a tribal chief named
Seljuk, whose homeland lay beyond the Oxus River near the Aral
Sea, the Seljuks not only developed a highly effective fighting force
but also, through their close contacts with Persian court life in
Khorasan and Transoxania, attracted a body of able administrators.
Extending from Central Asia to the Byzantine marches in Asia
Minor, the Seljuk state under its first three sultans- Tughril Beg, Alp-
Arslan, and Malikshah- established a highly cohesive, well-
administered Sunni state under the nominal authority of the
'Abbasid caliphs at Baghdad.
Page 35 of 73
One of the administrators, the Persian Nizam-al-Mulk, became one
of the greatest statesmen of medieval Islam. For twenty years,
especially during the rule of Sultan Malikshah, he was the true
custodian of the Seljuk state. In addition to having administrative
abilities, he was an accomplished stylist whose book on statecraft,
Siyasat-Namah, is a valuable source for the political thought of the
time. In it he stresses the responsibilities of the ruler: for example, if
a man is killed because a bridge is in disrepair, it is the fault of the
ruler, for he should make it his business to apprise himself of the
smallest negligences of his underlings. Nizam-al-Mulk, furthermore,
was a devout and orthodox Muslim who established a system of
madrasahs or theological seminaries (called nizamiyah after the
first element of his name) to provide students with free education in
the religious sciences of Islam, as well as in the most advanced
scientific and philosophical thought of the time. The famous
theologian al-Ghazali whose greatest work, the Revival of the
Sciences of Religion, was a triumph of Sunni theology taught for a
time at the nizamiyah schools at Baghdad and at Nishapur. Nizam-
al-Mulk was the patron of the poet and astronomer 'Umar al-
Khayyam (Omar Khayyam), whose verses, as translated by Edward
FitzGerald in the nineteenth century, have become as familiar to
English readers as the sonnets of Shakespeare.

After the death of Malikshah in 1092, internal conflict among the

young heirs led to the fragmentation of the Seljuks' central authority
into smaller Seljuk states led by various members of the family, and
still smaller units led by regional chieftains, no one of whom was

Page 36 of 73
able to unite the Muslim world as still another force appeared in the
Middle East: the Crusaders.

The most imposing of the many fortresses built by the Crusaders

the elegant Krak des Chevaliers in Syria (top) held out against the
Muslims for over a century and a half. The Crusader castle at Sidon
in Lebanon (below) was abandoned after the final defeat of the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

THE CRUSADERS:

To Arab historians, the Crusaders were a minor irritant, their

invasion one more barbarian incursion, not nearly as serious a
threat as the Mongols were to prove in the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries.

The First Crusade began in 1095 after the Byzantines - threatened

by Seljuk power- appealed to Pope Urban II for military aid. Pope
Urban, hoping to divert the Christian kings and princes from their
struggles with each other, and perhaps also seeing an opportunity
to reunite the Eastern and Western churches, called for a "Truce of
God" among the rulers of Europe and urged them to take the Holy
Land from the Muslims.

Photo: The most impossing of the many fortresses

built by the crusaders, the elegant krak des
Chevailers in Syria held out against the Muslims
for over a century and a half.

Page 37 of 73
Considered dispassionately, the venture was impossible. The
volunteers - a mixed assemblage of kings, nobles, mercenaries,
and adventurers - had to cross thousands of miles of unfamiliar and
hostile country and conquer lands of whose strength they had no
conception. Yet so great was their fervor that in 1099 they took
Jerusalem, establishing along the way principalities in Antioch,
Edessa, and Tripoli. Although unable to fend off the Crusaders at
first - even offering the Crusaders access to Jerusalem if they would
come as pilgrims rather than invaders - the Muslims eventually
began to mount effective counterattacks. They recaptured Aleppo
and besieged Edessa, thus bringing on the unsuccessful Second
Crusade.

In the meantime the Crusaders - or Franks, the Arabs called them -

had extended their reach to the borders of Egypt, where the
Fatimids had fallen after two hundred years. There they faced a
young man called Salah al-Din (Saladin) who had founded still
another new dynasty, the Ayyubids, and who was destined to blunt
the thrust of the Crusaders' attack. In 1187 Saladin
counterattacked, eventually recapturing Jerusalem. The Europeans
mounted a series of further crusading expeditions against the
Muslims over the next hundred years or so, but the Crusaders
never again recovered the initiative. Confined to the coast, they
ruled small areas until their final defeat at the hands of the Egyptian
Mamluks at the end of the thirteenth century.

Page 38 of 73
 Photo: The Crusader castle at Sidon in Lebanon
was abandoned after the final defeat of the
Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Although the Crusades achieved no lasting

results in terms of military conquest, they were important in the
development of trade, and their long-range effects on Western
society - on everything from feudalism to fashion - are inestimable.
Ironically, they also put an end to the centuries-old rivalry between
the Arabs and Byzantines. By occupying Constantinople, the capital
of their Christian allies, in the Fourth Crusade, the Crusaders
achieved what the Arabs had been trying to do from the early days
of Islam. Although the Byzantine Empire continued until 1453, when
Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Turks, it never recovered its
former power after the Fourth Crusade, and subsisted only in the
half-light of history during its remaining years.

For the West, however, the Crusaders' greatest achievement was

the opening of the eastern Mediterranean to European shipping.
The Venetians and Genoese established trading colonies in Egypt,
and luxury goods of the East found their way to European markets.
In the history of the Middle Ages, this was far more important than
ephemeral conquests. Control of the Eastern trade became a
constantly recurring theme in later relations between the European
countries and the East, and in the nineteenth century was to lead to
widespread Western intervention.

THE MONGOLS AND THE MAMLUKS:

Page 39 of 73
In the thirteenth century still another threat to the Muslim world
appeared in the land beyond the Oxus: the Mongols. Led by
Genghis Khan, a confederation of nomadic tribes which had already
conquered China now attacked the Muslims. In 1220 they took
Samarkand and Bukhara. By mid-century they had taken Russia,
Central Europe, northern Iran, and the Caucuses, and in 1258,
under Hulagu Khan, they invaded Baghdad and put an end to the
remnants of the once-glorious 'Abbasid Empire. The ancient
systems of irrigation were destroyed and the devastation was so
extensive that agricultural recovery, even in the twentieth century, is
still incomplete. Because a minor scion of the dynasty took refuge
with the Mamluks in Egypt, the 'Abbasid caliphate continued in
name into the sixteenth century. In effect, however, it expired with
the Mongols and the capture of Baghdad. From Iraq the Mongols
pressed forward into Syria and then toward Egypt where, for the
first time, they faced adversaries who refused to quail before their
vaunted power. These were the Mamluks, soldier-slaves from the
Turkish steppe area north of the Black and Caspian Seas with a
later infusion of Circassians from the region of the Caucuses
Mountains.

The Mamluks had been recruited by the Ayyubids and then, like the
Turkish mercenaries of the 'Abbasid caliphs, had usurped power
from their enfeebled masters. Unlike their predecessors, however,
they were able to maintain their power, and they retained control of
Egypt until the Ottoman conquest in 1517. Militarily formidable, they
were also the first power to defeat the Mongols in open combat
when, in 1260, the Mongols moved against Palestine and Egypt.
Page 40 of 73
Alerted by a chain of signal fires stretching from Iraq to Egypt, the
Mamluks were able to marshal their forces in time to meet, and
crush, the Mongols at 'Ayn Jalut near Nazareth in Palestine.

Photo: The Mamluks, originally a class of soldier

slaves, seized power in Egypt in the thirteenth
century and stood fast against the Mongols.

In the meantime, the Mongols, like so many of the

peoples who had come into contact with Islam, had
begun to embrace it. At the dawn of the fourteenth
century, Ghazan Khan Mahmud officially adopted
Islam as the religion of the state, and for a time peace descended
on the eastern portion of the Mongol empire. During this period the
Mongols built mosques and schools and patronized scholarship of
all sorts. But then, in 1380, a new Turko-Mongol confederation was
hammered together by another world conqueror: Tamerlane, who
claimed descent from Genghis Khan. Under Tamerlane, the Mongol
forces swept down on Central Asia, India, Iran, Iraq, and Syria,
occupying Aleppo and Damascus and threatening - but not
defeating - the Mamluks. Once again, however, the Muslims
survived their invaders. Tamerlane died on his way to conquer
China, and his empire melted away.

Politically and economically, the Mongol invasions were disastrous.

Some regions never fully recovered and the Muslim empire, already
weakened by internal pressures, never fully regained its previous
power. The Mongol invasions, in fact, were a major cause of the
subsequent decline that set in throughout the heartland of the Arab
Page 41 of 73
East. In their sweep through the Islamic world the Mongols killed or
deported numerous scholars and scientists and destroyed libraries
with their irreplaceable works. The result was to wipe out much of
the priceless cultural, scientific, and technological legacy that
Muslim scholars had been preserving and enlarging for some five
hundred years.

THE
LEGACY:

The foundation of this legacy was the astonishing achievements of

Muslim scholars, scientists, craftsmen, and traders during the two
hundred years or so that are called the Golden Age. During this
period, from 750 to 950, the territory of the Muslim Empire
encompassed present-day Iran, Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Palestine, North
Africa, Spain, and parts of Turkey and drew to Baghdad peoples of
all those lands in an unparalleled cross-fertilization of once isolated
intellectual traditions.

Geographical unity, however, was but one factor. Another was the
development of Arabic, by the ninth century, into the language of
international scholarship as well as the language of the Divine
Truth. This was one of the most significant events in the history of
ideas.

A third important factor was the establishment in Baghdad of a

paper mill. The introduction of paper, replacing parchment and
papyrus, was a pivotal advance which had effects on education and
scholarship as far reaching as the invention of printing in the
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fifteenth century. It made it possible to put books within the reach of
everyone.

Unlike the Byzantines, with their suspicion of classical science and

philosophy, the Muslims were enjoined by the Prophet to "seek
learning as far as China" - as, eventually, they did. In the eighth
century, however, they had a more convenient source: the works of
Greek scientists stored in libraries in Constantinople and other
centers of the Byzantine empire. In the ninth century the Caliph al-
Mamun, son of the famous Harun al-Rashid, began to tap that
invaluable source. With the approval of the Byzantine emperor, he
dispatched scholars to select and bring back to Baghdad Greek
scientific manuscripts for translation into Arabic at Bayt al-Hikmah,
"the House of Wisdom."

Bayt al-Hikmah was a remarkable assemblage of scholar-

translators who undertook a Herculean task: to translate into Arabic
all of what had survived of the philosophical and scientific tradition
of the ancient world and incorporate it into the conceptual
framework of Islam.

As the early scholars in the Islamic world agreed with Aristotle that
mathematics was the basis of all science, the scholars of the House
of Wisdom first focused on mathematics. Ishaq ibn Hunayn and
Thabit ibn Qurrah, for example, prepared a critical edition of Euclid's
Elements, while other scholars translated a commentary on Euclid
originally written by a mathematician and inventor from Egypt, and
still others translated at least eleven major works by Archimedes,
including a treatise on the construction of a water clock. Other
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translations included a book On mathematical theory by
Nichomachus of Gerasa, and works by mathematicians like
Theodosius of Tripoli, Apollonius Pergacus, Theon, and Menelaus,
all basic to the great age of Islamic mathematical speculation that
followed.

The first great advance on the inherited mathematical tradition was

the introduction of "Arabic" numerals, which actually originated in
India and which simplified calculation of all sorts and made possible
the development of algebra. Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwaraznli
seems to have been the first to explore their use systematically, and
wrote the famous Kitab al-Jabr wa-l-Muqabalah, the first book on
algebra, a name derived from the second word in his title. One of
the basic meanings of jabr in Arabic is "bonesetting," and al-
Khwarazmi used it as a graphic description of one of the two
operations he uses for the solution of quadratic equations.

The scholars at Bayt al-Hikmah also contributed to geometry, a

study recommended by Ibn Khaldun, the great North African
historian, because "it enlightens the intelligence of the man who
cultivates it and gives him the habit of thinking exactly." The men
most responsible for encouraging the study of geometry were the
sons of Musa ibn Shakir, al-Mamurl's court astronomer. Called
Banu Musa - "the sons of Musa" - these three men, Muhammad,
Ahmad, and al-Hasan, devoted their lives and fortunes to the quest
for knowledge. They not only sponsored translations of Greek
works, but wrote a series of important original studies of their own,
one bearing the impressive title The Measurement of the Sphere,

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Trisection of the Angle, and Determination of Two Mean
Proportionals to Form a Single Division between Two Given
Quantities.

The Banu Musa also contributed works on celestial mechanics and

the atom, helped with such practical projects as canal construction,
and in addition recruited one of the greatest of the ninth-century
scholars, Thabit ibn Qurrah.

During a trip to Byzantium in search of manuscripts, Muhammad ibn

Musa happened to meet Thabit ibn Qurrah, then a money changer
but also a scholar in Syriac, Greek, and Arabic. Impressed by
Thabit's learning, Muhammad personally presented him to the
caliph, who was in turn so impressed that he appointed Thabit court
astrologer. As Thabit's knowledge of Greek and Syriac was
unrivaled, he contributed enormously to the translation of Greek
scientific writing and also produced some seventy original works - in
mathematics, astronomy, astrology, ethics, mechanics, music,
medicine, physics, philosophy, and the construction of scientific
instruments.

Although the House of Wisdom originally concentrated on

mathematics, it did not exclude other subjects. One of its most
famous scholars was Hunayn ibn Ishaq, Ishaq's father - known to
the West as Joanitius - who eventually translated the entire canon
of Greek medical works into Arabic, including the Hippocratic oath.
Later a director of the House of Wisdom, Hunayn also wrote at least
twenty-nine original treatises of his own on medical topics, and a
collection of ten essays on ophthalmology which covered, in
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systematic fashion, the anatomy and physiology of the eye and the
treatment of various diseases which afflict vision. The first known
medical work to include anatomical drawings, the book was
translated into Latin and for centuries was the authoritative
treatment of the subject in both Western and Eastern universities.

Others prominent in Islamic medicine were Yuhanna ibn

Masawayh, a specialist in gynecology and the famous Abu Bakr
Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi - known to the West as Rhazes.
According to a bibliography of his writings al-Razi wrote 184 works,
including a huge compendium of his experiments, observations,
and diagnoses with the title al-Hawi, "The All-Encompassing."

A fountainhead of medical wisdom during the Islamic era, al-Razi,

according to one contemporary account, was also a fine teacher
and a compassionate physician, who brought rations to the poor
and provided nursing for them. He was also a man devoted to
common sense, as the titles of two of his works suggest. The
Reason Why Some Persons and the Common People Leave a
Physician Even If He Is Clever, and A Clever Physician Does Not
Have the Power to Heal All Diseases, for That is Not within the
Realm of Possibility.

The scholars at the House of Wisdom, unlike their modern

counterparts, did not "specialize." Al-Razi, for example, was a
philosopher and a mathematician as well as a physician and al-
Kindi, the first Muslim philosopher to use Aristotelian logic to
support Islamic dogma, also wrote on logic, philosophy, geometry,
calculation, arithmetic, music, and astronomy. Among his works
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were such titles as An Introduction to the Art of Music, The Reason
Why Rain Rarely Falls in Certain Places, The Cause of Vertigo, and
Crossbreeding the Dove.

Another major figure in the Islamic Golden Age was al-Farabi, who
wrestled with many of the same philosophical problems as al-Kindi
and wrote The Perfect City, which illustrates to what degree Islam
had assimilated Greek ideas and then impressed them with its own
indelible stamp. This work proposed that the ideal city be founded
on moral and religious principles from which would flow the physical
infrastructure. The Muslim legacy included advances in technology
too. Ibn al-Haytham, for example, wrote The Book of Optics, in
which he gives a detailed treatment of the anatomy of the eye,
correctly deducing that the eye receives light from the object
perceived and laying the foundation for modern photography. In the
tenth century he proposed a plan to dam the Nile. It was by no
means theoretical speculation; many of the dams, reservoirs, and
aqueducts constructed at this time throughout the Islamic world still
survive.

Photo: At Hama in Syria, antique wooden wheels

still lift the waters of the Orontes to gardens,
baths, and cooling fountains.

Muslim engineers also perfected the waterwheel and constructed

elaborate underground water channels called qanats. Requiring a
high degree of engineering skill, qanats were built some fifty feet
underground with a very slight inclination over long distances to tap

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underground water and were provided with manholes so that they
could be cleaned and repaired.

Agricultural advances are also part of the Muslim legacy. Important

books were written on soil analysis, water, and what kinds of crops
were suited to what soil. Because there was considerable interest in
new varieties - for nutritive and medicinal purposes - many new
plants were introduced: sorghum, for example, which had recently
been discovered in Africa.

The introduction of numerous varieties of fruits and vegetables and

other plants to the West via the Islamic empire was, however,
largely the result of the vast expansion of trade during the Golden
Age. This trade was vital; in the central lands of the 'Abbasid empire
natural resources such as metals and wood were scarce, and
increases in urban populations had outstripped the capacity of the
agricultural system to support them. The 'Abbasids, therefore, were
forced to develop extensive and complicated patterns of trade. To
obtain food, for example, Baghdad had to import wheat from Syria
and Egypt, rice from the Fayyum in Egypt, southern Morocco, and
Spain, and olive oil from Tunisia. Called "a forest of olive trees,"
Tunisia exported so much olive oil that its port of Sfax was called
"the port of oil."

To obtain scarce metals the 'Abbasids had to turn elsewhere. They

imported the technologically advanced "ondanique" steel from India,
for example, and then processed it at such famous centers of
weapons manufacture as Damascus and Toledo, both of which
cities won fame for their blades. The 'Abbasids also imported iron
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from Europe, tin from the British Isles and Malaya, and silver from
northern Iran, Afghanistan, and the Caucuses. For gold, once the
vast quantities in the treasuries of the conquered countries were
exhausted, they turned to several sources. One was the gold mines
of the Hijaz which were reopened around 750, reworked for about
four hundred years, and then, in 1931, explored again by Karl
Twitchell, who was searching for minerals in that area on behalf of
King 'Abd al-'Aziz of Saudi Arabia.

For these necessities the 'Abbasid traders exchanged a wide

variety of products: pearls, livestock, paper, sugar, and (a specialty
of the Islamic world) luxurious cloth. The traditional cloths were
wool and linen - the latter an Egyptian specialty since ancient times
- but cotton, which was introduced into upper Iraq about the time of
the Prophet, later spread with Islam around the Mediterranean, to
Syria, North Africa, Spain, Sicily, Cyprus, and Crete.

The cloth trade produced a number of auxiliary exports: gold and

silver thread for embroidery, gum from the Sudan for glazing, and
needles, looms, and dyestuffs. Closely connected with the trade in
dyestuffs was the trade in medicines, an offshoot of 'Abbasid
advances in medicine and the spread of hospitals in all major
Islamic cities. As scientific research and translation of medical texts
from India and possibly even China expanded the earlier
pharmacopoeia, ingredients for medicines were brought from all
over the known world and also reexported.

Because the religious, political, and military achievements of the

Islamic period loom so large in the history of the world, the
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extraordinary cultural, scientific, technological, and commercial
achievements are frequently obscured or overlooked. Yet these
advances were, in fact, of enduring significance to mankind as a
whole. The destruction by the Mongols of many of these
achievements and of much of what the Muslims had accomplished
by the end of the Golden Age was a tragic loss for the world as a
whole.

Architectural monuments spanning a thousand years bear witness

to the spread of Islam.

Photo: Jerusalem's Dome of the Rock, built in 691-692.

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Photo: Purity of line characterizes the late twelfth century Kutubiyah
Mosque of the Berbers in Marrakesh.

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Photo: Water courses and fountains make an oasis of the Alhambra
palace built at Granada in the fourteenth century Here incredibly
light and elegant elements of Islamic decoration find their highest
realization.

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Photo: Sixteenth century Sultan Selim Mosque at Edirne is the
apogee of Ottoman Turkish architecture, soaring space enclosed
with a massive dome.

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Photo: Persia's greatest contribution to ornament, gloriously colored
enameled tile, faces the dome and stalactite portal of Shaykh Lutf
Allah Mosque, built in the early 1600s on Isfahan's vast royal plaza.

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Photo: The peak of Mogul architecture and possibly the most
famous work of all times and cultures is the dazzling Taj Mahal
mausoleum built at Agra in 1629.

THE
OTTOMANS:

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During the second Mongol invasion, Tamerlane had met and very
nearly annihilated another rising power: the Ottomans. Under a
minor chieftain named Othman, groups of Turkish-speaking peoples
in Anatolia were united in the Ottoman confederation which, by the
second half of the fourteenth century, had conquered much of
present-day Greece and Turkey and was threatening
Constantinople.

The Ottoman state was born on the frontier between Islam and the
Byzantine Empire. Turkish tribes, driven from their homeland in the
steppes of Central Asia by the Mongols, had embraced Islam and
settled in Anatolia on the battle lines of the Islamic world, where
they formed the Ottoman confederation. They were called ghazis,
warriors for the faith, and their highest ambition was to die in battle
for their adopted religion.

In addition to their military abilities the Turks seem to have been

endowed with a special talent for organization. Towards the end of
the Ottoman Empire, this talent fossilized into bureaucracy - and a
moribund bureaucracy at that. But at the beginning, when its
institutions were responsive to the needs of the people and the
state, the Ottoman Empire was a model of administrative efficiency.
This, together with a series of brilliant sultans - culminating in the
redoubtable Suleiman the Magnificent - established the foundations
of an empire that at its height was comparable to that of the
Romans.

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The first important step in the establishment of this empire was
taken in 1326 when the Ottoman leader Orhan captured the town of
Bursa, south of the Sea of Marmara, and made it his capital.

It was probably during the reign of Orhan that the famous institution
of the Janissaries, a word derived from the Turkish yeni cheri ("new
troops"), was formed. An elite corps of slave soldiers conscripted
from the subject population of the empire, they were carefully
selected on the basis of physique and intelligence, educated,
trained, introduced to Islam, and formed into one of the most
formidable military corps ever known. At a later period the
Janissaries became so powerful that they made and unmade
sultans at their will, and membership in the corps was a sure road
to advancement.

Photo: The mosque at Kyustendi in Bulgaria was

founded during Ottoman rule.

Orhan's successor, Murad I, who launched naval

attacks upon the Aegean coasts of Europe,
established himself on the European shores of the
Bosporus, and crushed a Balkan coalition. The
next Ottoman leader was Bayazid I, who besieged
Constantinople and routed the armies dispatched
by an alarmed Europe to raise the siege.

It was at this point in history that Tamerlane and his Mongols

advanced into Anatolia and very nearly crushed the Ottomans
forever. They recovered, however, and later, under the leadership
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of a new sultan, Murad II, besieged Constantinople for the second
time. They were repulsed, but by 1444 they had advanced into
Greece and Albania, leaving Constantinople isolated though
unconquered. Murad II was succeeded by Mehmed (Muhammad) II,
called "The Conqueror" because on May 29, 1453, after his artillery
finally breached Constantinople's massive walls, the city fell.

After the fall of Constantinople, and during the sixteenth century,

the Ottoman system evolved the centralized administrative
framework by which the sultans maintained effective control over
the extraordinarily diverse peoples in the vast empire.

An important part of this framework was the millet system -

essentially a division of the empire into a communal system based
upon religious affiliation. Each millet was relatively autonomous,
was ruled by its own religious leader, and retained its own laws and
customs. The religious leader, in turn, was responsible to the sultan
or his representatives for such details as the payment of taxes.
There were also, however, organizations which united the diverse
peoples. Particularly important were the guilds of artisans which
often cut across the divisions of religion and location.

There was also a territorial organization of the empire, at the upper

levels of which was a unit called the muqata'ah under the control of
a noble or administrator who could keep some portion of the state
revenues derived from it. The amount varied with the importance of
the individual noble or administrator, and he could use it as he saw
fit. Such rights were also given to some administrators or governors

Page 58 of 73
in place of, or in addition to, salaries, thus insuring a regular
collection of revenues and reducing record keeping.

The Ottoman Empire reached its peak in size and splendor under
the sultan called Suleiman the Magnificent, who ruled from 1520 to
1566 and was known to the Turks as Suleiman the Law-Giver. But
from the middle of the sixteenth century on the empire began to
decline. This process got under way as the office of the Grand
Vizier gradually assumed more power and indifferent sultans began
to neglect administration. Another factor was that the Janissaries
became too strong for the sultans to control The sultans were
further weakened when it became customary to bring them up and
educate them in isolation and without the skills necessary to rule
effectively.

Some sultans later regained power through political maneuvering

and by playing off factions against one another, but as a result
administration was paralyzed. When Europe found a new route to
India - thus eliminating the traditional transshipment of goods
through the Arab regions of the empire, revenues began to fall,
triggering inflation, corruption, administrative inefficiency, and
fragmentation of authority.

Temporary reforms under various sultans, and the still formidable, if

weakened, military prowess of the Ottomans helped maintain their
empire. As late as 1683, for example, they besieged Vienna.
Nevertheless, the decline continued. Because of the increasingly
disruptive part played by the Janissaries, the empire, in a series of
eighteenth-century wars, slowly lost territory. Because of
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administrative paralysis, local governors became increasingly
independent and, eventually, revolts broke out. Even the various
reform movements were balked, and with the invasion of Egypt in
1798 by France it became obvious that the once powerful empire
was weakening.

In 1824 Mahmud II finally broke the power of the Janissaries,

brought in German advisers to restructure the army, and launched a
modernization program. He also brought the semi-autonomous
rulers in various provinces under control, with the exception of the
defiant and able Muhammad 'Ali in Egypt. On the death of Mahmud,
his sons continued his efforts with a series of reforms called the
tanzimat. Some of these were no more than efforts to placate
European powers - which by then had great influence on the
empire's policies - but others, in education and law, were important.
Again, however, the effects were temporary and the empire
continued to lose territory through rebellion or foreign intervention.

By the early years of the twentieth century the Ottoman Empire was
clearly in decline and was referred to as the "Sick Man of Europe."
There were, however, some positive accomplishments in this
period, such as the Hijaz Railway. Building the railway was
undertaken in 1900 by Sultan Abdul-Hamid, as a pan-Islamic
project. Completed in 1908, it permitted thousands of Muslims to
make the pilgrimage in relative comfort and safety. It also helped to
give the Ottoman government more effective control over its
territories in western Arabia.

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 Photo: The Hijaz Railway, completed by the Turks
in 1908, linked Damascus with Medina, eight
hundred miles to the south.

During the early twentieth century too, a group

called the Young Turks forced the restoration of the
constitution (which had been suspended by Abdul-Hamid),
eventually deposed the sultan, and again attempted to modernize
the Ottoman state. The Turkish defeat in the First World War (in
which the Ottoman Empire sided with Germany and the Central
Powers) finally discredited the Young Turks, however, and paved
the way for the success of a new nationalist movement under the
leadership of an army officer named Mustafa Kemal, later known as
Ataturk or "Father of the Turks." The nationalist government under
Ataturk, dedicated to leading Turkey in the direction of secularism
and Westernization, abolished the sultanate, declared a republic,
and eventually (in 1924) abolished the caliphate as well.

THE COMING OF THE WEST:

The Western world had for centuries been gradually penetrating

most of the areas that had once been part of the Muslim empire,
and in the latter part of the nineteenth century, in the vacuum left by
the long decay and decline of the Ottoman Empire, European
powers came to dominate the Middle East.

Among the first Europeans to gain a foothold in the Middle East

were the Venetians who, as early as the thirteenth century, had
established trading posts in what are now Lebanon, Syria, and
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Egypt, and who controlled much of the shipping between Arab and
European ports. Then, in 1497, five years after Ferdinand and
Isabella ended Islamic rule in Spain, Vasco da Gama led a fleet of
four Portuguese ships around Africa and in 1498 found a new sea
route to India from Europe. Dutch, British, and French frigates and
merchantmen followed and began establishing trading outposts
along the shores of the Indian Ocean, eventually undercutting both
Venetian shipping and the Mediterranean trade on which the Middle
East had thrived for millennia.

The process of European penetration was gradual and complex; but

there were, nevertheless, clearly identifiable turning points. In the
sixteenth century, for example, the Ottoman Empire voluntarily
granted a series of concessions called the "Capitulations" to
European powers - concessions which gave the Europeans decided
advantages in foreign trade in the empire. Another turning point was
the invasion of Egypt in 1798 by Napoleon Bonaparte. Hoping to cut
Britain's lines to India and cripple its maritime and economic power,
Napoleon crushed the Mamluks (who governed Egypt under
Ottoman suzerainty) and briefly occupied the country. By defeating
Egypt, then still part of the Ottoman Empire, Napoleon exposed the
inner weaknesses, both military and administrative, of the sultans,
shattered the myth of Ottoman power, and inaugurated more than
150 years of direct political intervention by the West.

Europe's worldwide nineteenth-century search for raw materials,

markets, military bases, and colonies eventually touched most of
what had been the Arab empire. In 1820 Great Britain imposed a

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pact on Arab tribes on the coast of the Arabian Gulf; in the 1830s
France occupied Algeria; in 1839 Britain occupied Aden, at the
strategic entrance to the Red Sea; and in 1869 Ferdinand de
Lesseps, with the backing of the French emperor, completed what
would become, and still is, one of the key shipping arteries of the
world, the Suez Canal.

Western culture spread with Western economic and political control.

In Lebanon missionaries from several countries founded a network
of schools and universities. By introducing modern Western ideas
these fostered the growth of Arab nationalism, contributed to the
revival of Arabic literature, and provided a powerful impulse toward
modernization. In addition to education, contact with the West led to
improvements in medical care and the introduction of Western
techniques in agriculture, commerce, and industry. For the most
part, however, Western domination tended to benefit the nations of
Europe at the expense of the Arab world. Although the Suez Canal,
for example, has been of immense value to Egypt, the profits for
nearly a century went to European shareholders in the company
that managed the canal. Western and Western stimulated efforts to
modernize parts of the Middle East, moreover, often led Middle
Eastern rulers to incur debts which led to European financial control
and then to European political domination. It was such a series of
steps that ended with France occupying Tunisia in 1881 and Britain
taking control of Egypt in 1882. Later, in emulation, Italy in 1911
seized Libya.

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Resistance to European penetration took several forms. In the
cities, Arab intellectuals debated whether modernization or a return
to their roots would be the more effective path to the removal of
foreign dominance and, consequently, to independence. Elsewhere,
Muslim leaders such as the Mahdi in the Sudan and 'Abd al-Qadir
al-Jazairi in Algeria took direct action. These struggles were later
romanticized and distorted in a wave of books and films on, for
example, Gordon of Khartoum and the French Foreign Legion. Still
other intellectuals, such as the Egyptian Muhammad 'Abduh and his
Syrian disciple Rashid Rida, undertook to reform the Muslim
educational system and to restate Islamic values in terms of
modern concepts - needs deeply felt by most Muslim thinkers of the
nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Western penetration also drew the Middle East into the First World
War, when the Ottoman Empire sided with (Germany, and Great
Britain, in response, encouraged and supported the Arab Revolt
against the Turks. By promising aid - and ultimate independence
from the Ottomans - Great Britain encouraged the Arabs to launch a
daring guerrilla campaign against Turkish forces, a campaign widely
publicized in press coverage of T. E. Lawrence ("Lawrence of
Arabia") and in Lawrence's own writings.

By diverting Turkish strength and blocking the Turkish-German

route to the Red Sea and India, the Arab Revolt contributed
substantially to the Allied victory, but it did not result in full
independence for the Arab lands. Instead, France and Great Britain
secretly agreed to partition most of the Arab provinces of the

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Ottoman Empire between them and eventually obtained mandates
from the League of Nations: Britain over Iraq, Palestine, and
Transjordan; France over Syria and Lebanon. The mandates were
inconsistent with British promises to the Arabs and, furthermore,
contrary to the recommendations of President Wilson's King-Crane
Commission, a group sent to the Middle East in 1919 specifically to
ascertain the wishes of the Arab peoples.

The mandates, however, were granted, thus extending Western

control of the Middle East and also setting the stage for one of the
most tragic and intractable conflicts of modern times: the conflict
over Palestine which has, since 1948, ignited four wars, sent
masses of Palestinian Arabs into exile, contributed to the energy
crisis of 1973, and, from 1975 on, fueled the civil war in Lebanon.

The conflict over Palestine actually goes back to 1896, when

Theodor Herzl published a pamphlet called Der Judenstaat ("The
Jewish State"), in which he advocated British-backed Jewish
colonization in Argentina or Palestine - with the hope of eventually
creating a sovereign Jewish state. Herzl's writings and personal
advocacy led to the formal development of Zionism, a political
movement dedicated to the creation of such a state, and eventually
focusing on Palestine. The Zionist claim to Palestine was mainly
based on the fact that there had been periods of Hebrew rule in
Canaan and the land west of the Jordan River between 1300 B.C.
and A.D. 70.

The Arabs considered this claim to be without substance. Palestine,

they pointed out, had been part of the Islamic world almost
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continually for twelve centuries; from 636 to the First World War. In
1917, however, Lord Balfour, the British Foreign Secretary, issued
the Baltour Declaration, which promised British support for the
establishment of a "national home for the Jewish people" in
Palestine providing that "nothing shall he done which may prejudice
the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities" - a
reference to the Arabs, who then were 92 percent of the population.
The declaration was interpreted by key Zionist leaders as support
for a sovereign Jewish state, but this interpretation has been
disputed. Both Winston Churchill and Lord Balfour himself later said
publicly that "a national home" meant a cultural or religious center,
a view that America's King-Crane Commission independently
presented. Establishment of a national home did not imply a Jewish
state, the commission said.

In the wake of the Balfour Declaration, and during the British

mandate, Jewish immigration increased. So, in proportion did
sporadic strife between Arabs and Jews. Immigration nevertheless
continued and in the 1930s - with the rise of Adolf Hitler - and after
World War II, Jewish immigration increased still further. As British
efforts to control it generated widespread disapproval in the West
and stimulated underground warfare by militant Zionist units against
British forces, Britain eventually placed the problem in the hands of
the United Nations, which in 1947 voted to partition Palestine into
Jewish and Arab States.

Fighting then flared up in Palestine. Six months later, when Britain

withdrew and formation of the State of Israel was proclaimed, the

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Arabs went to war against the newly declared nation. As Jewish
forces were victorious - and as stories spread that some 250 Arab
civilians had been massacred in a village called Deir Yassin -
thousands of Palestinians fled, among the first of today's 3.4 million
refugees and exiles. Eventually the United Nations negotiated a
truce, but fighting became endemic and war broke out again in
1956, 1967, and 1973. The 1967 war triggered underground
warfare by Palestinian militants, whose attacks were primarily
aimed at Israel, but also included strikes in Europe and hijackings
on international air routes.

In order to settle the conflict, numerous United Nations Resolutions

have been passed calling for peace, the return of the refugees to
their homes, Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories, and the
establishment of permanent boundaries. Several Western nations
have attempted mediation, a Palestinian spokesman has argued
the matter before the General Assembly of the UN, and in 1977
President Sadat of Egypt traveled to Jerusalem and appeared
before the Israeli parliament in an unprecedented peace initiative.
President Carter of the United States brought the leaders of Egypt
and Israel together in the United States and himself traveled to the
Middle East in an attempt to persuade at least these two countries
to conclude a peace treaty, and in March 1979 Egypt and Israel
signed a treaty to which the United States was also a signatory.
Although it led to an improvement in Egyptian-Israeli relations which
resulted in Israeli evacuation of some occupied Egyptian territory
and the opening of the Suez Canal to Israeli ships, however, this
separate peace treaty did nothing to bring about withdrawal of
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Israeli occupation forces from East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and
the Golan Heights of Syria and left untouched the root cause of the
entire problem- that is, the status of the Palestinians. The
immediate net result of the treaty, in fact, was a general increase in
tension in the Middle East which manifested itself in an apparent
increase in Israeli intransigence in the occupied territories and the
isolation of Egypt from the rest of the Arab world, including those
countries on which it has been most heavily dependent for
economic and political backing and which were opposed to the
separate treaty because it failed to achieve a permanent and
comprehensive peace.

REVIVAL IN THE ARAB EAST:

Elsewhere in the Arab world, meanwhile, the last vestiges of

European political dominance were being eliminated. Egypt, for
example, after ousting in 1952 a royal dynasty going back to the
1800s and installing Gamal Abdel Nasser as president, forced the
British to relinquish control of the Suez Canal and withdraw from the
country. Algeria, ten years later, won its independence from France
after six years of bitter warfare. Even earlier, Iraq, Syria, and
Lebanon had broken their ties with Britain and France.

This tumultuous period also saw an increase in the influence of the

United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East. Neither
power had played a major role in the early phases of penetration,
but this changed as they developed conflicting interests with regard
to the Arab-Israeli dispute, the construction of the Aswan Dam in
Egypt, the rise of a number of radical governments in the area, and
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the emergence of the Arab world as a pivotal supplier of oil to the
world.

In the same period, the Arab countries themselves, voluntarily and

pragmatically, continued to adopt Western techniques, forms, and
to some extent concepts. Most Arab countries, for example, have
embraced the concept of the sovereign nation-state and Western
patterns of political administration: parliaments, political parties, and
constitutions. Many, too, have adopted Western legal codes, have
accepted international and regional organizations and international
courts as means of dealing with other nations, and have organized
and equipped their armed forces along Western lines. In recent
years, most Arab countries have also adopted the modern industrial
economy as a national goal and introduced modern techniques of
agriculture and modern methods of transport and mass
communications, and invested vast sums in education. Even in
recreation and amusement, Western influences are strong.

If Western influences are important in the Middle East, however,

they are by no means paramount. Western forms have been
adapted as much as they have been adopted, and healthy hybrid
forms and concepts abound. More importantly, traditional values
are still deeply cherished and promoted. In sum, modernization has
not been entirely synonymous with Westernization. By the end of
the 1970s the Arabs, having assumed control of their own destinies,
had emerged as full and independent participants in the affairs of
the world. In the forefront was Saudi Arabia, the heartland of Islam,

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and the site of the momentous events which initiated Islamic history
fourteen centuries ago.

In the sixteenth century three Muslim empires are at or close to the

pinnacle of their power and brilliance: the Ottomans under Suleiman
the Magnificent, Safavid Persia under Shah Abbas the Great, and
Mogul India under Akbar the Great. The Ottoman Turks have
conquered and maintain effective control over diverse peoples in a
vast empire stretching from Persia almost to the gates of Vienna
and along the north coast of Africa to Algiers. In the Arabian
Peninsula the Ottomans penetrate to al-Hasa on the Arabian Gulf
and to Mocha on the Red Sea. However, the sharifs of Mecca and
Medina are virtually independent. Throughout this period the
Ottomans contest control of the Arabian Gulf and the Red Sea with
the Portuguese, who establish themselves in Bahrain, Muscat, and
Hormuz and assist Ethiopia in repulsing the Turks from the coast of
East Africa.

Islam numbers many millions of adherents outside the Middle

Eastern countries:

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Photo: Sunset silhouettes a minaret in Sarajevo, a city of some
eighty mosques that bear witness to the long Islamic heritage of
Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Photo: The Mopti Mosque in the West African Republic of Mali.

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Photo: A Taiwanese religious teacher.

Photo: A mosque in Washington, D.C., a landmark for millions of

Muslims in North America

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Photo: One of the largest mosques of the Far East is in Bandar Seri
Bagawan, capital of the Sultanate of Brunei in Southeast Asia.

Acknowledgements:
These pages were incorporated from "ARAMCO and Its World: Arabia And The
Middle East", Edited by Ismail I. Nawwab, Peter C. Speers & Paul F. Hoye, Islam
and Islamic History Section, published in 1980 by Arabian American Oil Company,
Washington D.C.

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