The Book of Ingenious Devices, 850

Posted on April 14, 2022 by Ruth

Baghdad’s House of Wisdom produced a collection of all of the mechanical engineering devices known at that time. These devices were collected from China, India, Persia and Greece. We aren’t sure if the pictures in “The Book of Tricks” (or “Book of Ingenious Devices”) show us common devices, or rare ones, or even just theoretical ones.

The book was compiled by three brothers who were a major force in Baghdad’s scholarly community for many years. Their father was from Khorasan, some kind of robber on the Silk Road, but the governor of Khorasan befriended him and took his three sons Ahmed, Mohammed and Hasan into guardianship. They were given the finest Persian and Arabic education and are credited with writing twenty scholarly books, mostly now lost. Some of the books were written by only one of them, while others are credited generally to the brothers, the “Banu Musa.”

Kitab al-Hiyal, the book of mechanical tricks, may have survived due to its popularity and many copies. The devices are basically elaborate toys, not productive machinery, but they show the array of possibilities to automate with merely mechanical methods. While the book collects the mechanical tricks invented by the Greeks, some of them appear to have been improvements or original inventions by the Musa brothers.

They were interested in how physical forces could automate processes, often using air and water pressure. They described different kinds of valves: plug, float, tap, and conical (presumably the last was their invention). They explained how to automate a fountain so that it alternated in the jet’s shape and type.

Some basic mechanical devices make a first appearance, although in primitive form. There is a very simple crankshaft, although not complete in its design. One device has a simple worm-and-pinion gear. The Banu Musa describe, for the first time, the action of a clamshell bucket for reaching to the bottom of a lake or river and dredging mud or removing lost objects.

They have a few automated musical instruments. We’ve all seen the mechanism inside a music-box: a cylinder with pins to trigger different-toned bars in a tune as the cylinder turns. Their water-powered organ seems to have used this idea. It’s one of the few devices we still know today, in a time when so few things need mechanical “programming.” They also had a steam-powered automated flute.

Steam, the power of the future, was only noted in passing in the book. It’s used only for toys that build up pressure, then suddenly let off a whistle or blow something into the air, to surprise and amuse a rich man’s dinner guests.

The High Middle Ages in Europe was a time of rapid industrial invention and change. It’s hard to know how much influence this book had on Europe’s blue-collar inventors. It was certainly valuable for collecting and preserving the inventions of Greece and adding some from China. Later books on mechanical devices used the Banu Musa book as a first reference; eventually some of these drawings may have come into the hands of practical, ambitious men who wanted something more than toys.

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The Last Shi’ite Imams, 868-74

Posted on April 12, 2022 by Ruth

The tenth Imam, al-Hadi, lived through six Abbasid Caliphs. He moved with his young family to Samarra, where his sons grew up. They lived in a heavily military neighborhood, not by their choice, but this location gave his son the nickname “al-Askari,” where Ask means “soldier.” During Mutazz’s short reign, al-Hadi finally met his end when the Caliph ordered him to be poisoned, as all his forefathers had been. He was buried in the floor of his house in Samarra, where there is now a Shi’ite shrine.

Imam al-Hasan al-Askari, the eleventh Imam, was never allowed to leave Samarra. Medina continued to be the extended family’s home base, but the Shi’ite network reached out to other regions of the Muslim Empire. He and his deputies communicated by letters, and he advised them to be very careful about exposing themselves as Shi’ites in such a hostile time. Only a year or so passed before Caliph Mutazz imprisoned al-Askari and planned to execute him, but he himself died first.

Al-Askari’s son was born in secret in 869. He was probably named Muhammad, but that detail too is suppressed. So, too, are details about his mother’s identity, though Shi’ites say she was a Byzantine princess. Her name is given as Narjis Khatun; the second word is Old Turkish for “princess.” However, this is a later story; early narrations say the child’s mother was a Nubian, much like the wives of the last few Imams. Mother and child stayed indoors and were never introduced in public. The boy never went to the mosque, but learned his prayers in the basement of their house. Only a few of the closest deputies of al-Askari ever saw the child.

The reason for all this secrecy was that both the Shi’ites and the Abbasids believed there was a prophecy that singled out the twelfth descendant as special. This son is known as al-Mahdi, and he is “the Mahdi” of the Twelvers, the one who will return to the earth some day as conqueror. (Other Shi’a sects consider other descendants to be the Mahdi.) The Abbasids certainly would have imprisoned or killed the child.

In 874, al-Askari became very ill. It’s possible he was the only Imam to die of natural causes, but Shi’ites believe that he, too, was poisoned. His house was closely watched, and his death was witnessed by agents of Caliph Mu’tamid. When he was dead, his property was seized by the Caliph’s agents and they searched for a son. Apparently they could not find anyone of that description.

What became of the young Imam al-Mahdi is a matter of faith. The unbeliever’s guess would be that someone hid the child, who eventually lived out his life in obscurity. Shi’ites believe that first, he led a prayer for his father’s funeral even at the age of four, before he vanished. Then he went into hiding known as the Minor Occultation, while four top Shi’ites could communicate with him by letter. At the end of a long life, he notified them that he was going into the Major Occultation, something like Moses or Elijah going up to heaven without dying. Twelver Shi’ites believe he is still alive and awaiting his day to return and bring justice to the earth.

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Anarchy and the Siege of Baghdad, 861-870

Posted on April 12, 2022 by Ruth

The sons of the Turkish cabal who had held power under Mu’tasim were now back in power and planned to remain so. They needed a frontman to be the Caliph, but the individuals they chose didn’t live long. There were four Caliphs in just a few years.

Muntasir began to realize what he had done, conspiring with the Turks to share his father’s blood on their hands. He openly told his half-brothers that he deposed and sent them away because if he didn’t, Turks would kill them. He died six months after his accession, with poisoning rumors.

Next, the Turks chose a grandson of their old patron and named him al-Musta’in. Immediately there were riots in Samarra and Baghdad on behalf of Muntasir’s brothers. By the following year, when there was bad news from eastern wars, the people rioted again. They burned the houses of a few prominent Christians in Baghdad, and in both Baghdad and Samarra, mobs broke into the jails. To stop the riot in Samarra, one of the leading Turks ordered soldiers to set fire to that quarter of the city.

All this time, the Caliphs had been keeping huge salaried armies. Al-Tabari’s history reports that their annual salaries amounted to two years’ tax income for the Caliph. Obviously, that’s unsustainable, and the situation had been going on, getting worse. Now, with the tax-gathering and payment structure falling apart in anarchy, salaries went unpaid. It was clear that there was no payment forthcoming, so a mob of soldiers killed the vizier and looted his house.

Caliph Musta’in slipped away to Baghdad when the Turks around him began quarreling and plotting against him and each other. A few months later, Baghdad and Samarra were in open war. Both cities blocked any river traffic to the other, and Baghdad called in reinforcements from other parts of Iraq. Within a few months and at great cost, they built up walls, barracks, and catapults, readying for a siege. They even broke irrigation systems north of Baghdad to flood the land so that Turks coming from Samarra would be slowed.

The Turks did march from Samarra, and by then, they had decided to support Muntasir’s brothers, whom before they had rejected. Any port in a storm, anything for revenge. They were seven thousand strong, and they destroyed property as they came. Crops and houses were ruined and farmers fled. Other rebels joined them, so when they besieged Baghdad they may have been 12,000 strong. Many of Baghdad’s defenders were civilians with tar-covered reed-mat “armor” and buckets of rocks. At one point, though, Baghdad’s defenders routed the Turks and chased them into the Tigris River, but the Caliph’s commander did not follow them to finish it off, and the city remained under siege.

One defender in Baghdad, clearly a civilian, got the names of the Caliph Musta’in and would-be Caliph Mu’tazz mixed up. He was executed as a traitor. Nobody pointed out that these names are really very confusing. They will not be on the test.

The city was eventually starved out. By 866, Musta’in abdicated. He was supposed to retire to an estate, but…nope. Mutazz had him executed.

Caliph Mutazz ruled from Samarra over a divided realm, an Iraq destroyed by war, falling income, and mounting debt. He imprisoned, fired, or executed all rivals (some brothers, some Turks, some others). He appeared to be emerging from the Turkish shadow, but without money he just couldn’t do it. In his last year, the governor of Egypt declared independence—and stopped passing on taxes—and African slaves in southern Iraq mounted a large, long-lasting Kharijite rebellion. It was too much. Mutazz was deposed and killed in 869.

The Turkish lord Salih ibn Wasif appointed Mutazz’s cousin al-Muhtadi, who ruled for only six months. He was pious and abstemious so the people accepted him, but the realm was falling apart by now, and he was assassinated in 870 and replaced by his cousin Mu’tamid. Mu’tamid, however, ruled for 22 years, though personally he was sidelined by a more ambitious brother.

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Caliph Mutawwakil Reverses Course, 847-61

Posted on April 12, 2022 by Ruth

Prince Ja’far, the 26-year-old brother of the Caliph who had just died, was chosen by the inner circle of the late Caliph’s advisors. They chose a regnal name for him: al-Mutawwakil ala-llah, the Reliant on God. History knows him as Caliph Mutawwakil.

As a prince, Ja’far had been considered insignificant, and some of his brother’s inner circle had gone out of their way to bully him. They made fun of his clothes and said his hair was too long, they refused to hand over his allowance. Very “middle school lunchroom.” It didn’t seem to occur to them that giving him supreme power now might be a bad idea for them personally. During the first year of his reign, Mutawwakil moved like a chess player to remove each of them. Some were killed (like the vizier, killed in his own Iron Maiden), some were fined and banished. Since they were mostly from far away, he could easily appoint Baghdad insiders, from the old Abbasid-supporting families, to fill their places.

Mutawwakil’s coins bore his likeness, crude though it was, which was quite unusual for Caliphs. We see a man with a mustache and a forked beard, and around his head appears to be a beaded band holding on a headdress. This headdress, similar perhaps to the modern Saudi one, was also unusual for an Abbasid who normally wore a very tall qalansiya hat.

Mutawwakil chose to reverse course on a major issue: the theological dispute over the Quran. The dogmatic position that the Quran was created, not eternal, had come at the same time as his family’s dependence on Turkish soldiers. I don’ think these two changes weren’t logically connected since Turks were rarely interested in theology, but it all formed a power framework that had become unified. Mutawwakil had to get rid of his father’s Turkish commanders, in order to break with the ideological past. With that done, he announced that official doctrine would return to the non-rational, literal belief in what the hadiths of the Prophet said. He also began to prosecute Mu’tazilites, who had formerly held power.

Shi’ites were not part of the Mu’tazilite power structure, but they shared the same belief, so they were included in the sweep. The Caliph ordered the Shi’ite Imam al-Hadi to move from Medina to Samarra on the basis of allegations of rebellion. There, he kept close watch and sometimes made his life difficult. His governor in Medina leaned hard on the Shi’ites there, and as they could, they arrested leaders in the Shi’ite network. This network was partly political, partly theological and represented a serious rival to Abbasid power, even if they were not planning any rebellion.

Mutawwakil ordered the destruction of the tomb of Husayn at Karbala. Houses and even palaces had grown up around it; they too were destroyed. The land was reverted to farming, and anyone who tried to remain living there was imprisoned. (Eventually, a century later, Shi’ites built a new tomb over the same place.) Visiting any other Shi’ite tombs was forbidden.

Back when the Caliph was an insignificant 14-year-old prince, he had sired his first son with a slave girl. This son, Muntasir, was the primary heir, with two half-brothers Mutazz and Mu’ayyad as co-heirs over territories. But then the Caliph changed his mind and moved to swap Mutazz into Muntasir’s place, since he loved Mutazz’s mother more. Muntasir quarreled with his father about this and other things, then conspired with some of the Turkish soldiers to kill both the Caliph and the vizier.

In the end, the Turks got back at the man who thought he could oust them from power. From this point on, Turks were always in control of the Abbasid Caliphs. The Caliphs’ independent power dwindled until, a century later, they were puppets.

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Caliph Mamoun’s Heir: Caliph Mu’tasim, 833-42

Posted on April 11, 2022 by Ruth

Caliph Mamoun died pretty suddenly after a pleasant summer day of sitting on a river bank with his brother, chatting and eating some dates. All of a sudden, he had a fever. Other got sick too, but the Caliph died the next day. He had not made a clear provision for an heir, and his son Abbas was out on military campaign. As it happened, the brother who was sitting with him was a masterful man who really wanted to become Caliph. It may have been the last time that the Arab tradition of brother inheritance worked out peacefully; Abbas came home to find his uncle already ruling. He decided to just deal with it.

Caliph Mu’tasim had always been a hardy, active man who preferred sports and campaigns to study. While he was still a very young man, he started picking up cheap Turks on the slave market to create a personal guard. His brother encouraged him because it was very useful to have a growing personal army on hand, and when Mu’tasim became Caliph, he gathered even more Turkish guards.

Turks had already been coming to Baghdad, but this was the largest influx yet, and they walked right into officer positions in the army, displacing former generals. They were unreconstructed Turks; many did not speak Farsi or Arabic, and their Islam was worn lightly. Their arrival in Baghdad caused an unpleasant culture shock; the citizens claimed that the Turks were callous, knocking people down with their horses and trampling children. Those who had held power under his brother protested and tried to push back. Mu’tasim’s tie with his Turks was so strong that he decided to build a new capital a bit to the north, abandoning Baghdad to a governor and its booming commerce.

The new capital was called Samarra. He chose a plateau near the river, purchased from a Christian monastery, but the climate was too dry for any city to flourish. Within two years, the basic city was built, and dry plots of land around it handed out to his leading supporters, as his family had done in Baghdad. There were mosques, palaces, houses, parks, and even race courses. But commerce did not move north with his court. He now had a place where Turks could live in a more Turkish way, but he was also sidelined.

In 838, to nobody’s surprise, the old power based in Baghdad attempted a coup in favor of Abbas. But Mu’tasim’s power was already too strong, and he carried out a ferocious purge of his brother’s old supporters. (During his reign, purge execution methods favored originality. His vizier is credited with inventing the Iron Maiden, a box with spikes sticking inward.) Nephew Abbas was killed by dehydration (too much salt, wrapped him up in felt in the hot desert). Seventy plotters were killed in other creative ways, a few buried alive.

Mu’tasim’s method for regaining popularity was to start three wars. Two of the Turkish generals conquered small principalities in Azerbaijan, while Mu’tasim himself led an army into Byzantine territory. He achieved two significant goals: the capture of the city the Greeks called Ancyra, which became Ankara, and the thorough destruction of the Roman Emperor’s hometown, Amorion. A weakness in the wall–the governor just didn’t get around to fixing it when the Emperor had ordered it–permitted it to be broken in. High ranking citizens were held for ransom, women and children were auctioned off as slaves, and 6000 low-ranking citizens were later mass-murdered on a forced march that went wrong.

Forty-two of the high-ranking hostages later became martyrs of their faith. Those who held them refused ransom, demanding that they convert to Islam, and they died instead. Their Orthodox feast day is March 6, commemorating their execution.

Mu’tasim died in 842, and his son inherited rule as al-Wathiq (or, in some Western transliterations, Vathek, as in a lurid Orientalist novel of that name). He was a timid man who stayed in Samarra and allowed his father’s inner circle advisers to run things. Things began to go wrong for him quickly. In 846, there was an uprising in Baghdad because the common people were still feeling oppressed by the Caliph’s theological position. Mamoun, you recall, had taken the position that the Quran must be declared to be created, but most of the citizenry had been believing that it was eternal. This could be just a disagreement among friends, only it wasn’t. The governments of Mamoun, Mu’tasim and Wathiq harshly punished those who gave the wrong answer to this question, saying they were heretics and apostates.

Caliph al-Wathiq survived the uprising, but he died of natural causes in 847. The same inner circle was still in control, and they had to choose among the various sons, brothers and cousins: who could they promote now? Who looked pliable enough to let them have their way? They chose a non-entity named Jafar, and soon they were sorry…

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The Child Prodigy Imam, 811-835

Posted on March 28, 2022 by Ruth

When Imam Reza died while traveling with Caliph al-Mamun from Merv to Baghdad, it was unclear to some Shi’ites who was his successor. He had one son, and only one, who had been born when he was well over 40. The child’s mother was a freed slave from Nubia, that is Sudan; she is said to have been from the same family as Muhammad’s Egyptian wife. Since Reza’s mother had also been Sudanese, we should picture both Reza and his son with very dark skin, looking more African than Arab. The infant’s skin was so dark that some Shi’ites had at first challenged his paternity. This child had many names, but he is best known to history now as al-Jawad (Javad in Farsi-influenced sources).

Imam Reza had been teaching little Jawad since he was an infant and proclaimed him as the next Imam when he was only three. When Jawad was four or five, Reza was removed from their home in Medina by the Caliph’s men. After that, the child received regular letters from his father. Shi’ites believe that esoteric understanding of Allah had been handed down from father to son since the earliest days, and Reza had only a limited time to pass it all to this very young child.

Jawad proclaimed himself to be the 9th Imam when he was not yet eight years old. Shi’ites believe that he was gifted with supernatural knowledge not only beyond his years, but beyond his sight. He passed a number of challenges to his authority, impressing those around him until Caliph al-Mamun came to meet him, too. The Caliph insisted on having his daughter married to Jawad, although they were both children. He saw it as a new opportunity to heal the rift between the Abbasid and Alid branches; his grandchild would be of Ali’s family, too.

Jawad went back to Medina and continued the scholarly life of a Shi’ite Imam. He studied and taught not only Islamic law but types of science; many books are attributed to him and his companions. When he reached puberty, he married a slave girl, as had his father and grandfather. By the time he was brought back to Baghdad to accept the Caliph’s daughter as a full wife, he had a two-year-old son. He stayed in Baghdad until it was time for the Hajj, then he and the Caliph’s daughter went to Mecca, then home to Medina.

The Imams of this time sent out representatives to the cities of the empire, promoting their faith and staying in touch by letters. Shi’ite beliefs reached into Egypt during Jawad’s time. There was a major Shi’ite uprising in Qom, Iran, during these years.

When al-Mamun died, his brother Mu’tasim inherited the Caliphate over his son Abbas. As a way to quell Shi’ite uprisings, he ordered Imam Jawad and his royal wife to return to Baghdad. Before he left, Jawad introduced his oldest son al-Hadi to the Shi’ite leaders in Medina as the next Imam. Hadi was about seven years old, only a little older than Jawad had been.

True to form, Caliph Mu’tasim allowed Jawad to live for only a short time in Baghdad. After not quite a year had passed, there was a meeting of Islamic judges to decide for the Caliph how much of a thief’s hand should be cut off. That penalty had not been enforced for so long that nobody could remember. Various judges gave opinions about cutting at the wrist or farther up the arm, and then the Caliph insisted on Jawad giving an opinion. Very reluctantly, he gave the opinion that the Quran forbade the palm of a hand to be removed, since then the man could not prostrate in prayer. The Caliph chose this opinion, and the thief’s fingers alone were removed. But the other judges were so ashamed of being overruled that one finally urged the Caliph to get rid of Jawad.

Jawad was fed a poisonous meal at the home of a leading official, though some also suspected that his childless Abbasid wife might have been involved. He died within a day; he was 25 years old. Eight-year-old Hadi became the next Imam.

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Battle for the Northern Mediterranean, 831-915

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Ruth

Frankish law always had a problem with inheritance; there’s really no ideal way to manage the inheritance of land. As tribesmen who found themselves ruling a nation, at first they continued their tradition of dividing possessions among a man’s sons. The father had great latitude in who got what; he could design the division afresh in each generation, and he could leave portions of it to the Church. It was obviously fair, unless someone chose to leave his youngest son nothing but a cat (it happens).

However, the 9th and 10th centuries exposed the greatest weakness in this “fair” system. Large estates and kingdoms generally have an advantage; like large schools, they can put together more powerful teams and spend more money. Every time inheritance divided estates, the nation was weakened. At the death of Charlemagne, Frankia was a small empire. It included not only all of modern Germany and France, but also Austria, Switzerland, and most of Italy.

Charlemagne’s successor, Louis the Pious, tried to divide the empire among four sons from two wives, and it was a disaster. In 843, after a civil war,the three survivors signed the first Treaty of Verdun. Lothair was already king of Italy, Louis of Bavaria and Charles of Aquitaine (Atlantic coast). The treaty split up the remaining area in the middle, so that each was now king of either East Frankia, Middle Frankia, or West Frankia. Lothair was the Emperor, and his (not his brothers’) sons inherited the kingdoms. Lothair left his mark on the European map: “Lotharingia,” they called one of his territories, and it came into modern French as “Lorraine.” Still in dispute between France and Germany into the 20th century!

Through the next two centuries, this process happened repeatedly. The empire re-divided into kingdoms and duchies of Aquitaine, Frankia (Neustria), Austria, Bavaria, and Italy, with Lorraine and Provence also in the mix. Sometimes the rulers were brothers, and other times they were cousins. On the plus side, the dynasty stayed personally strong, because it was a never-ending selection process. The king who came out on top in each generation was tall, strong, intelligent and healthy, with good military sense. He was generally very able at driving out invaders. However, each one inherited a slightly different territory with shifting loyalties.

During this period, the Carolingians secured the Mediterranean region that the Romans called “Septimania” away from the Muslims. Septimania had been a “disputed territory” for a few centuries and by the time it was finally in the Frankish column for sure, many of its inhabitants were living in caves, afraid to till their burnt fields. They had to rebuild their civilization to some extent.  Septimania was always culturally different; it was more Celtic than the north, and it kept more pre-Christian Roman customs. During the Middle Ages, it became known as Provence and was ruled by a Count, with overlordship by the King of France.

Sicily was under chronic attack from the sea by Muslim invaders all through the 9th century. During the 10th century, Sicily became a Muslim-majority, Arabic-speaking island. Around this time, it becomes historically proper to call the Muslims of the Mediterranean islands “Saracens,” while the Muslims of Andalusia gradually became known as the “Moors.”

The Holy Roman Emperor’s responsibility included the coast of southern Italy, although parts of it were nominally controlled by Byzantium. Lothair’s son Louis II inherited Italy and the Holy Roman Emperorship, but somehow the division in this generation cut him out of other continental property. Louis had to split his time between fighting off Saracens along the Italian coast and battling his cousins and brothers. While Louis was fighting Saracens, his family redivided Middle Frankia without dealing him in. While Louis was fighting his family to get Provence, the Saracens took more of southern Italy.

The first Saracen foothold was at Bari, located exactly at the heel of the boot. Local dukes often called in Saracen allies against each other, giving the Muslims town after town. By the middle of the 800s, they were all over southern Italy and attacking Rome itself. Louis II finally turned the tide in 871 by retaking the town of Bari from the Muslims. After this, each generation of Carolingians made progress and by 915, one last huge alliance pushed out the last Muslims from the boot of Italy.

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Emperor Theophilus and the Arabs, 829-42

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Ruth

During this period, the Byzantine throne had been undergoing its usual turmoil of rebellions and assassinations. Two rising generals married daughters of the top general, then vaulted over him to become, one after the other, Emperors. The second one, curiously, was of the ethnic minority Atsinganoi, who maybe maybe were originally from Sind, and who probably were the ancestors of at least some Tsigany, that is, Gypsies. But he became the Emperor Michael in 820, crowned by the Patriarch of Constantinople, while Caliph al-Mamun was taking up power in Baghdad.

A rival Emperor Thomas (another general, crowned by the Patriarch of Antioch) had formed an alliance with al-Mamun and besieged Constantinople. Michael formed an alliance with the Khan of the Bulgars, a Turkic tribe that had come west in the 6th century. By now, Bulgaria was a settled, organized state that competed with Khazars and Avars, other early-arriving Turks. By turning the Bulgars from enemies to allies, Michael had the forces to turn the tables on his rival Emperor and defeat him in 823.

But this type of internal strife weakened the Eastern Roman forces, so that they lacked the ships to defend Cyprus from Arabs in 824. In the next years, Arabs expanded across the Mediterranean to Sicily. They besieged the great Greek city of Syracuse in 827.

Emperor Michael’s only son Theophilus became Emperor on his death in 829. He inherited war on two fronts, against the Arab invasions of Sicily and other Mediterranean ports, and against al-Mamun’s armies in Anatolia. Every Abbasid Caliph had made at least feints to take more territory, expanding the border between Syria and what they called Rum—now modern Turkey—by a few towns in each generation. In this border war, it was traditional for the Caliphs and Emperors to lead their armies personally.

Theophilus solidus coins

Emperor Theophilus lost some battles and won some; he recaptured Tarsus and had a triumphal procession back home in the capital. But the war didn’t continue to go his way, and soon he was suing for peace, offering 100,000 gold dinars to al-Mamun. After al-Mamun died in 833, the truce was negotiated with Caliph al-Mu’tasim (more about him soon).

But Theophilus chose to handle the expiration of the Bulgarian alliance in 836 by invading Bulgaria. The Bulgarians pushed back and reached far into the Byzantine homeland, seizing the cities of Adrianople and Philipopolis (now Plovdiv, still part of Bulgaria). It was a net loss to the Byzantines, who also soon gave Serbia independence.

Theophilus could not sit still for long. He attacked Mesopotamia, seeking to invade the Muslim heartlands. He captured and even destroyed some cities in Armenia. But the Caliph’s army retaliated with an invasion of Anatolia in 838. At the Battle of Anzen, Emperor Theophilus led his own troops against a smaller army led by a Persian prince. Byzantine soldiers panicked when Theophilus apparently went missing (leading a charge, elsewhere). Attacked by Turkish cavalry, they fled. The Emperor and his guard barely managed to escape.

With this victory, the Muslim army could push farther into Anatolia. Caliph Mu’tasim personally captured Ancyra, which became Ankara. His forces also captured and destroyed the city of Amorium, the birthplace of Emperor Michael. It was a prosperous walled city, but they ruined it completely, killing and enslaving all of the citizens. This was one of the greatest defeats the Eastern Roman Empire had suffered yet. With Theophilus’ defeat in his father’s hometown, the politicized doctrine of Iconoclasm collapsed.

Arab forces in the Mediterranean had taken Palermo in 831, setting up an Emirate of Sicily. They hadn’t fully captured Syracuse or other parts of the island, but next they gained a foothold on the mainland. They took the Greek colony of Crotone located on the “sole” of boot-shaped Italy. In 841 Venice, which was allied with Constantinople but mostly independent, sent a fleet of ships to assist the Byzantine attempt to drive out the Arabs, but they failed.

Notice that the Franks, allied to Rome, didn’t seem to take any interest in Sicily and the south of Italy at this point. But they soon did—-next.

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Caliph al-Mamoun’s Controversies

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Ruth

At first, Caliph al-Mamoun remained in Merv, at the border of Iran and Afghanistan, which had been his regional seat of power. Among the troubles going on in the west, the Shi’ite descendants of Ali rebelled in various places, starting in Kufa and spreading into Arabia. After all, if the Abbasid Revolution had aimed to put a member of the Prophet’s family in power, now that the rightful Caliph al-Amin had been murdered, why should the Abbasid branch keep its hold on power at all?

Al-Mamun’s Khurasani forces won literal battles against the Shi’ites, but it was not so easy to win “hearts and minds” as we say today. So Mamoun decided to bring the Shi’ite Imam from Medina to Merv to join his government.

Imam Reza was about 50 years old and left behind a five year old son in Medina. He went unwillingly, predicting that he would not come back. In Merv, under threat of death, Reza was forced to accept the role of Mamoun’s heir and the current title of Crown Prince. Reza agreed only to be an advisor, but in public he was made the heir and married to Mamoun’s daughter. Mamun’s other daughter was betrothed to five-year-old Javad back in Medina. Mamoun even ordered that the black Abbasid flag be swapped for a green Shi’ite flag.

To the rest of the Abbasids back in Baghdad, it was too much. They began their own revolt, supporting a younger brother of Harun al-Rashid. Al-Mamoun had to move to Baghdad to rule personally. During 818, he made the long journey across Iran and Iraq to arrive in Baghdad. Along the way, Mamoun’s vizier was assassinated, and in the next city—Tus, where Harun al-Rashid had died—Imam Reza died, too. There’s probably controversy about whether he was poisoned or not, but chances are he was. Reza was buried with great ceremony next to Harun al-Rashid, certainly not what his choice would have been.

The second great controversy promoted by Caliph al-Mamoun began as a scholarly debate about the Quran. Some held that the Quran had been in existence forever, like Allah himself. Not a word could be changed because the earthly copy was based on the heavenly original. But, others pointed out, this meant that the Quran must have a separate existence from Allah. Were there two eternal entities, Allah and the Quran? Didn’t that seem like believing in a second God? So, they reasoned, the Quran had been created by Allah at the time it was revealed to Muhammad. This doctrine was adopted by the Mu’tazilites, a faction that had already been in existence for many generations. They were influenced by Greek philosophers in the Academy at Alexandria.

Caliph al-Mamoun held with the belief that the Quran had been created, since it seemed like a purer montheism. As the Successor (Caliph) to the Prophet, he claimed the right to decide doctrine. Belief that the Quran was created became official state dogma. The Mu’tazilites received promotions.

There’s an interesting parallel in the Christian church of the same time. Constantinople was in the midst of their second wave of Iconclasm, the movement that declared religious images unholy. Iconoclasts literally broke images. Although the Bible has always had a prohibition against worshipping graven images, it seems likely that Iconoclasm of the 8th and 9th centuries was influenced by Islam. Many Christians now lived under Muslim rule, from Andalusia and North Africa through Egypt and Syria, and including now-forgotten monasteries and cathedrals all over Iraq and Iran. The Muslim insistence on not portraying Allah or his creation probably shaped Christian thought, the way any two cultures in close contact influence each other. I wonder if, in response, the image-smashing fanaticism of Christians in al-Mamoun’s time stimulated more consideration of extreme ideas about purifying Muslim monotheism even more.

Naturally, the theology was politicized. With Mu’tazilites in control, all officials who ruled under the Caliph’s authority were required to declare that the Quran had been created. This doctrinal point became a litmus test for all hiring and appointments, and even for ransoming prisoners of war. Therefore the opposing view became the anti-Mamoun doctrine. Mamoun’s extended family and their friends, pushed out of power and wealth, clung to their belief that the Quran had never not existed. They pointed out that if the Quran had been created, it could be amended. That would lead to liberalism and chaos. As long as they were out of power, they could only speak their views in relative secret.

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Harun al-Rashid’s Sons: Civil War, 811-813

Posted on March 27, 2022 by Ruth

Caliph Harun al-Rashid died in 809. He left his kingdom to his two sons, al-Amin and al-Mamoun. Al-Amin’s mother was his cousin Zubayda, so overall his rank was higher, but al-Mamun was older and usually portrayed as more experienced. Al-Amin inherited power in Baghdad, but al-Mamoun was supposed to rule the east. Al-Mamoun’s mother was a Khurasani, so he spoke some form of Farsi as well as Arabic. The two brothers had been made to sign a treaty stating that they would support each other’s roles and, moreover, that al-Mamoun would be al-Amin’s heir.

But within two years, al-Amin was taking steps to make his own small son his heir, while al-Mamoun was gathering eastern military forces to take over the western provinces, too. Civil war broke out. For a year, from August 812 to September 813, al-Mamoun’s general Tahir ibn Husayn besieged the round city of Baghdad. Militias supporting one or the other of the brothers fought each other in city neighborhoods, and as always happens in war, there was anarchy and some militia leaders took advantage of whatever they could take. Parts of the still-new city were destroyed in the fighting.

The war ended with al-Amin’s surrender on September 25, 813. He agreed to surrender himself to one of Mamoun’s captains that he knew and trusted, while his ruling regalia would be surrendered to Tahir ibn Husayn. The regalia turn out to be personal items passed down from the Prophet’s time: his staff, mantle and signet ring.

But Tahir ibn Husayn intercepted Amin’s surrender to his friend. The friend came to remove al-Amin from the city by boat, and Tahir ordered his men to capsize the boat when the deposed Caliph was on board. Al-Amin was arrested, then murdered, by Persian soldiers.

Al-Mamoun spent the next six years trying to pacify the storm he had unleashed. Baghdad and Damascus were roughly central to the vast geography of the Muslim Empire, but he had difficulty at first in achieving solid power in these old capitals. By the time he was in control of the central lands of Egypt, Syria, Arabia and Iraq, as well as Iran and Afghanistan, parts of North Africa had set up their own governments. Tunisia remained independent of Abbasid rule after this.

Al-Mamoun’s power came entirely from the east. During the early centuries of Muslim rule, Turks were gradually moving westward out of Central Asia. Eventually, of course, after a thousand years the Turks would settle in the eastern part of Europe and completely dominate the Muslim world. But at this time, they mostly came west as mercenaries to supplement Khurasani forces.

Al-Mamoun’s easterners displaced the formerly powerful families who had supported his father and grandfather. Their take-over of the western provinces was often blunt and brutal. In Baghdad, the old ruling families (apart from al-Mamoun’s closest relatives) lost their estates and powerful positions to Khurasanis and Turks. In Egypt, the new governor removed Arabs from the army and replaced them with Turks.

You can imagine what this did to unity in the Muslim lands. It was the first time that outsiders speaking a different language had been imposed on Arabs. In Egypt, it was normal for Arabic-speakers to rule over Coptic-speakers, and use of Arabic language was spreading. But now among the Muslim rulers, speakers of Turkish and Farsi were giving order to Arabs. In Baghdad, the Caliph’s close advisers were all from the far east and viewed the Aramaic-speaking Iraqis as foreigners.

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