3. Ancient Rus and the Great Steppe, Gumilev
II. The Muslim super-ethnos,
[NOTE: I may have impending outside obligations, so I want to move forward briskly with this book before I may become too involved.] Don’t forget the footnotes at the bottom.
What I always question is the logistics of all these wars. Who is supplying these huge armies and their yearly campaigns? This is never in the history books. The one place that I wrote about was in the wars with cavalry, like the Mongols and other steppe people. The war horses had to be fresh for battle so they were not ridden nor used for transport. That meant there had to be multiple horses for each warrior. Then the food and supplies. How about the fodder for the horses? Who made 1,000’s of arrows for these bowmen, and made them straight and true????
7. EMERGENCE OF THE ARABS.
The Arabian Peninsula was long ago inhabited by ethnic groups, which spoke in dialects of the ancient Semitic language, but in the epoch of our interest (V-VI centuries) they did not represent any integrity: neither ethnic, nor social, nor cultural, let alone political[1]. That is why they did not have a self-name; they did not know the word "Arab"[2]. Apparently, they were fragments of ancient ethnic groups that had lived through cycles of historical existence and had passed into homeostasis, i.e. into equilibrium with the natural landscapes of the country they inhabited.
The passionary impulse of the late fifth-early sixth century caused an intensive process of ethnogenesis, which resulted in the integration of relict ethnic groups. It manifested itself in fierce inter-tribal wars, such as the war of the Benu-Asad against the Benu-Kind, the development of poetry and the adoption of different religious systems from Byzantium and Iran. The ancient veneration of the stars as deities survived only among the Bedouins of Central Arabia; in the oases of the Hijras and Yemen, Christianity of different directions and Judaism spread.
It is clear that the greatest success of foreign systems of worldview had passionarians, rather than the inert people of the harmonious level, in which the impulses of passionarity and survival instinct are equal. But there were also such passionarians who were not interested in philosophical problems. They were engaged in acquisitiveness: either in trade, or robbing caravans, or military service in Byzantium (Hasanids) and Iran (Lakhmids). Greed is as much a modus-vivendi as fanaticism.
The incubation period of Arab ethnogenesis lasted about 100 years. By the beginning of the seventh century, the level of passionary tension had grown so much that original consortia, able to clothe themselves in social forms and create confessional dogmas, began to appear. Such a consortium was Islam, preached in Mecca by Muhammad, an illiterate camel driver, who sincerely believed that he was conveying the words of Allah. It was his sincerity, unselfishness, and passionate conviction that attracted some truth-seeking Arabs (muhajirs) to Muhammad's side, but they also incurred the hatred of others, notably Abu Sufyan, who headed the rich and influential family of the Umayyah, and many poets and Bedouins. However, Muhammad and the Ansars who joined him prevailed, forced the Meccans and Bedouins to convert to Islam, and established a state that embraced the whole peninsula. Thus, the consortium grew first into a sub-ethnos, and then into an ethnos.
The fact is that the conversion of the Meccans and Bedouins was hypocritical. The Bedouins renounced Islam as soon as they learned of the Prophet's death - in 632. They were subdued by the first caliph - Abu Bakr, Muhammad's father-in-law. But the Meccans managed to benefit from the formation of the state, occupying important and lucrative positions in it. They fought the Greeks and Persians hand in hand with the Muslim fanatics led by Caliph Omar. The joint wars of faith and booty formed an ethnic group called the "Arabs." [3]. They were all Muslims, some sincerely, others hypocritically. In 656 the "hypocrites" and fanatics started a war among themselves [4]. The "hypocrites" won in 661, preserving Islam, which continued to cement the Arab ethnos transformed by it under the green banner of the Umayyads.
The most violent opponents of the dynasty were the Arabs themselves, either as supporters of the descendants of the legitimate caliph Ali, or as opponents of the monarchical principle, the fanatics of Islam. The former were called the Shi'ites and stood under a white banner; the latter were called the Kharijites; they had a red banner.
Despite the existence of many parties and the diversity of currents of thought, the Arab tribes integrated into a single ethnos. When the Qaisites, the tribal association of the northern Arabs, and the Kelbites, the southern Arabs, had to fight against the Persians and Greeks, in Iran or Syria, they put aside their former quarrels and helped each other to exterminate the infidels. In their distant campaigns, the Bedouins became friends with the Meccans and the Yemenis, though both could not tolerate each other in their homeland. The military camps of Kufa, Basra (in Mesopotamia), Kairouan (in North Africa), etc. - became the centers for the creation of a new Arab ethnos, for which the former tribal ties were no longer important. But it was not only Arabs who lived in these military settlements.
Grand victories in the east and west extended the borders of the Caliphate to the Pamirs and the Pyrenees. Many tribes and peoples were incorporated into the Caliphate and converted to Islam. Thus a Muslim super-ethnos was created, too unwieldy for the socio-political system to accommodate. The subjugated ethnic groups did not discard the accepted Muslim tradition, but adapted it to their own tastes and inclinations, as was equally characteristic of the Persian, Berber and Turk converts to Islam and of the Arabs themselves, especially the Bedouins. Just as in Europe the Guelphs fought against the Ghibellines, in the world of Islam, the Sunni caliph, analogous not to the king but to the pope, was opposed by the Shiites, supporters of the heirs of the caliph Ali ("Shiyat-Ali" - the party of Ali), killed by the Kharijites. As soon as the Shi'ites gained an advantage, they were opposed by the zealots of Sunni orthodoxy, who were not at all versed in theological subtleties, but who clearly understood its benefits and willingly killed their opponents. Both, however, defended Islam without a shadow of a doubt against external enemies: Christians, pagans, and fire-worshippers. Internal contradictions did not eliminate the consciousness of unity, but the force of aggression almost did not decrease, and this was important for the neighbors of the Caliphate, including the Khazars.
Having conquered Iran in 650 and Armenia in 654, the Arabs inherited the role played in Transcaucasia by the Shahanshahs [5] of the Sassanid dynasty. Constant warfare with Byzantium took place in the mountains and highlands of Asia Minor and on the azure surface of the Mediterranean Sea. The first victories put Syria, Mesopotamia, and Egypt (634-642) in the hands of the faithful caliphs. Then it was the turn of the Umayyads, who conquered Carthage in 698 in 711-712. - Spain and then Aquitaine in 711-712. Equally rapid were the successes of the "hypocritical" Muslims, the Arabs, who suddenly found a valor unknown to their ancestors in the east. In 661-662 the Arabs conquered Agania and reached Derbent. In 664 they invaded the Punjab, and in 674-676 they conquered Sogdiana and Khorezm. - They invaded Sogdiana and the oasis of Khorezm. In 704-715 the Arab general Kuteiba conquered all the oases of Central Asia. It seemed that the green banner of the Umayyads would soon be flying over the whole world.
But here began the resistance as fierce as the onslaught. In 717-718 the Arab fleet was burned by Greek fire near Constantinople, and the army, starved and battered by the Greeks, withdrew with great losses. After this failure the Arabs lost the initiative in the war against Byzantium.
In 732 Charles Martel gathered the army of the Franks and stopped the Arabs at Poitiers. For a long time there was war between the Franks and the Arabs on the northern slope of the Pyrenees, until the Arabs retreated beyond that ridge. Asturias remained unconquered and had been an everlasting threat to Arab Spain since 718.
In 717 Sudu, the Khan of the Turks, offered the Tang Empire peace and an alliance against the Arabs. The enemy of China, Tibet, signed a separate peace with the Tang empire, so the Turgeshis were holding back the Arabs attack until 736. It is hard not to put these events in connection with the war that Khazaria waged in the Caucasus, apparently as part of the anti-Arab coalition.
Sources of the time report nothing about the eastern and western connections of Khazaria during the climax of the Arab conquests, but is everything written in the sources? The logic of events and chronological coincidences allow to believe that Turgesh khanate, which allied with the Tang empire, was an ally of Khazaria and Byzantium, and Pechenegians, who were freed from the subordination to the Western Türkut kaganate, acted in favor of Arabs, interrupting the routes from Balkhash to the Caspian Sea. They harassed the rear of the Khazars and Turgesh, but did not receive help from the Arabs and lost the war.
Umayyad caliphs had forces much larger than any of their enemies. And the passionate rise facilitated them not only the campaigns, but also the incorporation of the subjugated ethnic groups, and thereby ensured the replenishment of the regular army, which at that time was called the Tajiks. But the system of sabotage in the war on four fronts (including Spain) did not allow the realization of the superiority of forces. Tracing the synchronism of the Greek, Khazar, Turgesh, and Huttal mountaineers' actions in the east, and the Franks in the west, it is easy to see that it is not accidental, and thereby to establish the existence of an anti-Muslim block, supported by the Tang empire.
Since 717 the Sogdians waged war with the Arabs with varying success, but in 737 the Chinese quarreled with the Turgesh, the Turgesh allied with the Tibetans and, by sieging the Kuchi fortress, paralyzed the forces of the Tang Empire, isolating Sogdiana. In 738 the Arab viceroy Nasr ibn Sayyar suppressed the last uprisings and made Central Asia a Muslim country, but after the battle of Akroin in 739 the Arabs were driven out of Asia Minor.
Not every regime can afford the luxury of suffering defeat in offensive wars. The Umayyads were unpopular in their own country. The caliphs of Damascus were hated by the monarchist Alids and the Kharijite republicans, hated by the conquered Berbers, by the robbed Persians, by the Bedouins deprived of their spoils, and by all foreigners who paid jizya, a tax that gave them the right to keep their faith. But in addition to reasons for discontent, it was necessary to have energy to fight, i.e. passionarity. [How about the logistics of war? My question.]
There were relatively few passionate people, but many more harmonious and mediocre ones. As long as they were not extremely taxed, they behaved quietly, letting the passionarians die in rebellions. But that was only because victories brought the caliphs and emirs the main income. They understood that war was feeding them, and they went where they could loot property and get slaves. Since Sogdiana was already mastered, it was the turn of Khazaria.
8. INVASION OF KHAZARIA
It was obvious that the forces of the Caliphate and Khazaria were incomparable. In addition to the fact that most of the Khazar lands were dry steppes inhabited by hostile tribes, the Khazars were cut off from their potential allies - Turkuts and Turgesh and, being pagans, could not establish sincere contact with Byzantium, because in the 7th-8th centuries the confession of faith was an indicator of political orientation. Despite the victory over the North Caucasian Bulgars and the capture of the Steppe Crimea in 670-679, the Khazars had virtually no rear. Bulgarian tribes, who moved to the Danube and the Kama, threatened them from the west and north until the end of the VII century.
And during those decades, the Arabs subjugated not only Armenia and Georgia, but also Aghvania (in 693) and Lazika, as a result of which they captured the Derbent passage. Next in line was the invasion of Khazaria.
The war developed around Derbent. In 708 the Arabs captured, and in 711 lost this fortress. In 713 the Arabs invaded the "country of the Huns" (Northern Dagestan) and were defeated, and in 721 the Khazars invaded Armenia and were defeated. The Arabs, developing success, took Derbent, Belenger (on the bank of the river Sulak) and destroyed Semender (on the bank of the Terek, near the village of Shelkovskaya). The success of the Arabs was facilitated by the fact that the Alans struck at the rear of the Khazars. For that they paid dearly: in the 724-725 the Arabs passed through the Daryal pass, attacked the Alans, subdued them and imposed a tariff.
Then every year there were attacks and counter-attacks of Arabs and Khazars, and the activity of the first was moderated by the need to disperse forces in Asia Minor and Central Asia, and the latter had to move the capital from Terek (west) to the Volga, (north) where the city of Itil was built.
On the side of the Khazars fought the Jews, who lived in the plain between Sudak and Terek, [6] and the Greeks, an alliance with whom was sealed by a marriage between Emperor Constantine V (Isaurus) and the Khazar princess Chichak (Flower), in baptism Irene. Some help was provided by the Georgians, who rebelled in 735 against Arab oppression and were subdued extremely cruelly. Much less than could be expected, resisted the Arabs states of Dagestan. The talented and cruel general Mervan took mountain fortresses, subdued the Laks and Alans in 736 and transferred the war to Khazaria. In 737, the Arab army reached the right bank of the Volga. It had 150 thousand soldiers (?), including auxiliary detachments of Armenian princes. Against this mighty army Khazars were able to put up only 40 thousand militiamen. Khan, having left an army and the country, ran north, "to mountains", and Khazar army moved behind it on the left coast of Volga, believing that this mighty river is insuperable limit for their opponents [7].
Khazars have understudied development of engineering art of southern peoples. The Umayyads relied not only on the Bedouins of Arabia, Qaysites and Kelbits, and the sedentary Arabs of Hijaz, who possessed the same primitive techniques as the Turkuts and Khazars. The conquest of the cultural countries of the Middle East gave them such opportunities, which the Khazars did not have, although it did not raise the cultural level of the thugs, who made up the expeditionary detachments. The brilliant culture commonly called Muslim culture emerged later and was created by the Persians, Syrians, Egyptians and urban Arabs of Mesopotamia after they had all crushed the Umayyad dictatorship, which relied on the brute force of the Bedouin union of Qaisites. So Mervan had skilled engineers who were able to construct a pontoon bridge across the Volga. On this bridge, a select group of Arabs crossed and attacked the Khazar militia unawares. Ten thousand Khazars were killed, 7 thousand were taken prisoner, the rest scattered.
Realizing that the war was lost, Khazar Khan requested peace and received it on the condition of accepting Islam. Mervan returned to Transcaucasia with the spoils and 40 thousand prisoners, which the Arabs called "Sakaliba. These unfortunates were captured near a "Slavic" river, and what to consider a Slavic river was not established [8]. It was assumed that this river is the Don, near modern Kalach. Captives, having come on a place, have revolted, have killed the emir put above them and escaped on a native land, but on way they have been caught up and interrupted.
Having defeated the Khazars, in 739 Mervan subdued the state of Serir (in Dagestan), and in 744 he returned to Damascus and sat on the throne of caliph. And here this glorious warrior faced such enemies against which talents and prowess are powerless - with treachery and more treachery. In 750 he died.
9. UNEXPECTED VICTORY
The grandiose victories of the Arabs proved fruitless. The population of Khazaria and Dagestan preferred Islam to Christianity, which spread among the citizens. Khazars themselves are characterized by a modern Christian author as a rude, bestial and bloodthirsty people, without religion, but worshipping a single God the Creator [9]. But this characterization is not so correct, because the tolerance of the Khazars is reliable. Jews lived among the Khazars, without any restrictions, and even enjoyed freedom of speech in disputes with Christians and Muslims. One such dispute is described in a letter of King Joseph, and the Jews allegedly won a landslide victory. This dispute took place during the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo III (717-741), [10] giving the leader of the Jewish community, Bulan, an Ohazarian Jew, the opportunity to take the biblical name Sabriel and make a brilliant military career (see below), which ended with the described defeat of Khazaria. And it is no accident that the Muslim preacher, left by Mervan to convert the Khazars to Islam, was treacherously murdered not by a crude pagan or a fanatical Christian, but by a Jewish rabbi, as reported by the reliable Arab author al-Bakri [11]. But this crime was an exceptional fact. After 750 the Khazars returned to their customary norms of behavior and even accepted Umayyad supporters who sought political asylum from them.
Under a new dynasty - the Abbasids - the Khazars went on the offensive and from 764 to 799, invaded Transcaucasia, where Kakheti, Tao-Klargheti and Abkhazia were free from Arab rule. Now it was no longer a danger to the Khazars, but to the Caliphate.
Byzantium became equally harmless for the Khazars, which in addition to internal disruptions endured a constant war with the Arabs, which took place with varying success for both sides. Union with the Khazars was so dear to Byzantium, that even an attempt of the Crimean Goths to get rid of the power of the Khazars and return to the empire was not supported by the Greeks, and the leader of the rebellion was extradited to the Khazars. Those treated the prisoner very graciously: they arranged his escape from prison [12]. Apparently, the Khazars did not consider the Gothic adventure anything worthy of attention.
In addition to raids, which brought rich spoils, the Khazar Khans of the Ashin dynasty, (before Jewish rule) also conducted much more extensive operations. In 762 the Khazars took over the regions of Hamzin, Lakz and Alan [13], which meant that all the fruits of Mervan's campaigns were destroyed and the Caucasian ridge became the natural border of steppe Eurasia and the Muslim world - the Levant.
However, the interaction between the Caliphate and Khazaria had not ceased, but simply changed its form. The place of warriors-conquerors was taken by merchants, who made the Caspian and the Volga a trading route to the country of Biarmiya, or the Great Perm. Arab silver dirhams flowed north in exchange for precious furs. The new Khazar capital of Itil, located in the Volga-Akhtubinsk floodplain, and the Great Bulgar, located slightly below the confluence of the Kama River into the Volga, became transit trade points. This latter stimulated the development of agriculture and viticulture, because the excess of products was marketed at the Itil bazaar, where visitors, who had suffered hunger on their way across the sea, bought their sustenance. Then a lasting peace was established between the Arabs and Khazars.
Let us summarize. During a hundred and fifty years of independent existence (650-800) the tiny Turkic-Khazar ethnos not only defended its independence, but also expanded the borders of its power to the Don in the west, the Caucasus range and Yayla in the south, and Yaik in the east. The northern boundary is difficult to determine, and it is unlikely that it existed as a definite boundary. Rather, we can speak of the power of influence, which decreased smoothly with the distance from the capital.
(To the Don, not all the way to the Dnieper as shown here.)
The elasticity of the state system, which can be regarded as a variant of Turkic ale, (el) allowed compromises with neighboring ethnic groups and sub-ethnoses, i.e. small tribes merging with Khazars. And the persistence of ethnic integrity was determined by belonging of the entire population of Khazaria to the Western Eurasian super-ethnos.
The only exception was a small colony of Jews in lowland Dagestan, which peacefully coexisted with the Khazars. However, good relations and ethnic contacts are not the same thing. If the former are determined by political situations and conjuncture, the latter do not depend on the consciousness of people, but rather on the willful decisions of Khans or Beks. The laws of nature have their own logic, and in the ninth century the latter came into force. Then a terrible super-ethnic chimera appeared in place of ethnic xenia [14].
In history, the repetition of the political situation most often entails the restoration of the balance of power, although there are never any literal coincidences. During the 250 years of independent existence Khazaria has grown so much that from a tiny inheritance of the West Turkut princes into a strong power, which won the war against the Arab Caliphate. And here the fates of the Jewish and Khazar ethnic groups were intertwined, and in a most unexpected way. But we do not hurry, let us finish the description of the southern neighbors of Khazaria.
10. PHASE CHANGE.
The passionary rise of the ethnic system is characterized by the social imperative: "Be what you must be," promotes increased coherence within the ethnos and even the super-ethnos. It is thanks to such coherence that the first caliphs and later Umayyads were able to mobilize the energy of their subjects to conquer and suppress rebellions within the country, but the rise of passionarity exceeds the system's capacity and destroys its stability. As soon as the imperative of the acmatic phase arises, and always spontaneously: "Be yourself," the system deforms, like a car running at such a speed that the wheels fly off and the axles break. It is overheating, which can only be cooled by spilled blood.
It was with the blood of Arabs and Persians, Shiites and Kharijites, that Hajjaj, the Umayyad commander, quelled the revolts in 680-701. With these atrocities he delayed the course of ethnic history by 50 years, but it is harder to stop the natural process of ethnogenesis than an avalanche. Hajjaj, the "enemy of Allah and men", executed 130 thousand people, but they had time to disperse the gene pool in the population before perishing, so that in the 8th century the passionate level of Persians and Berbers was equal to the Arab, and perhaps in some places even exceeded it. Therefore, the throne of the last Umayyads in Damascus began to resemble an awakening volcano. And because the Umayyads kept all the Alids under surveillance, a descendant of the prophet's uncle, Abbas, Abu-l-Abbas Saffah, who had a talented assistant, a former slave, Abu-Muslim, was nominated as a pretender.
In 744 the white banner of the Shi'a soared in Kufa, while the red banner of the Kharijites was already flying from western Iran to southern Arabia. The Qaysites quarreled with the Kelbites, and the latter became opponents of the Umayyads. Finally, in Khorasan, on June 9, 747, 4 thousand rebels raised the black banner of the Abbasids and moved westward to the hated Damascus.
The Abbasids were joined by all the population groups of the Caliphate offended by the Umayyads: Iranian peasants, Bedouin-Kelbits and runaway slaves; Sunni, Shiite and Harijite Muslims; non-Muslims: Mazdaqites, Manicheans, Nestorians and fire-worshippers. Mervan's forces were waning, and in January 750 it was all over. The Abbasids, who succeeded the Umayyads, had to manage all this diversity, and it was very difficult. The first caliph, Abu'l-Abbas (749-754), marked his accession to the throne by massacring members of the Umayyad family, although they expressed their willingness to submit to him. The second caliph, Mansur (754-775), treacherously assassinated Abu Muslim, who had brought the dynasty to the throne. His son Mahdi (775-785) opened the way to palace intrigue, with the result that his heir Hadi (785-786) was assassinated and power went to his other son, Harun al-Rashid (786-809), undeservedly celebrated in the novel volume of A Thousand and One Nights. In fact, he was a cruel despot who executed his best assistants, the viziers of the Barmskid family.
All the cases of treachery enumerated and omitted in the list indicated in advance the broadest development of selfishness, driven to extreme limits, which did not take into account the common interests of the ruling house,[15] much less the state. No matter how bad, cruel, or hypocritical (in the religious sense) the Umayyads were, they went from victory to victory, guided, however insincerely, by the dominant principle of Islam and jihad (war for the faith). The Abbasids were devout Sunnis, but it was under their rule that the Arabs lost all importance in the power created by their heroic ancestors. The Persians drove the ✓Arabs out of administration, the ✓Turks out of the guards, the ✓Negro Zinjis out of domestic life, and the ✓Jews out of the bazaar. Baghdad became the world center of transit trade, but the Caliphs did not want to reckon with its population, because they believed not in their ethnicity, but in their surroundings: sycophants, soldiers and informers.
This hypertrophied individualism shows that the Arabs of the VIII-IX centuries caught up with the Byzantines of the V century, having entered the acmatic phase of passionate tension. This is apparently due to widespread mestization and polygamy, in which the children of passionarians from different mothers filled the troops and bazaars, palaces and mosques. And because children under the age of five were brought up by their mothers, paternal kinship was perceived as a legal fiction. The growth of passionarity and ethnic mestizaje were tearing apart Arab families. And where was the unity of the state to be preserved?
It is clear that under such a government there could not even be talk of conquest. On the contrary, Spain was lost in 756, the Maghreb (Morocco) in 789 and Ifriqia (Tunisia) in 800. The initiative in world politics began to shift from Muslims to Christians.
However, the loss of political unity gave the super-ethnic system the flexibility that allowed it to spread out without heavy and bloody wars. For the first three centuries conversion to Islam was very costly, and the fee was collected from the converts in the form of heavy taxes. Therefore, the mountaineers of the Hindu Kush and the steppes of Central Asia spared no effort to defend their independence along with their faith. But if the independence of the mountaineers was reliably protected by impassable gorges and steep cliffs, on which impregnable fortresses were erected, the townsfolk had to find compromises between their conscience and the government. Those who succeeded were called Shi'ites, and although they were not approved, they were not persecuted either. A century of Arab rule in Iran and North Africa changed the ethnic divisions of the preceding era. The Bedouins gradually lost their former tribal distinctions as they changed from herding to escorting and guarding pilgrim caravans, and from the cult of the stars to the leveling of Islam. But in Arabia and the Sahara the changes were very slow, while in the cities the new population mingled with the local one, and already in the 8th century the type of the "Eastern" city, familiar to the reader by many descriptions of travelers and novelists, was created.
The characteristic of ethnology here was the replacement of the tribal principle of the composition of sub-ethnoses by the confessional principle. This may seem strange, since the doctrine of Islam is monolithic, simple, and as if it does not allow for deviations and heresies. But if passionate people have a reason to split, they will find a reason.
Unity was first broken by the assassination of Caliph Osman in 656, which caused the first civil war. Then Caliph Ali was abandoned by 12,000 warriors who created a new current, the Kharijites. These three currents, at first only political, created for themselves ideological systems, stereotypes of relations with each other and within their communities, and recruited supporters from among the subjugated ethnic groups, with the townspeople, in opposition to the government, often preferred Shiism, and the nomads became Kharijites.
In this division of Muslims, the Hebraic Fire-worshippers, the Hurramite-Mazdakites, the Monophysite Christians in Armenia and Egypt, and the Monothelites in the mountains of Lebanon were active. And confessional diversity was necessary as an occasion for bloodshed, for the passions that burned the hearts of the descendants of the Arabs demanded an exit, and found it in war against the Caliphs. For the sake of this struggle a variety of consortia arose, most of which perished, but some of which grew to the level of sub-ethnos.
The relationship between the categories of "ethnos" and "culture" is highly variable. Ethnos cannot do without a system of covenants, ✓skills inherited from ancestors, ✓notions of justice, at least ✓only for tribesmen, and clan sanctuaries. But when all this has been created, has become habitual, has become the property of all those accepted into the social system of the state and, most importantly, when the creators of the cultural complex have ✓found themselves oppressed and foreigners privileged, then the established order can exist as a house from which the family that built it has been kicked out. Such was the case in the Arab Caliphate of the ninth century.
The Arab passion, scattered all over Iran, found expression in a series of uprisings, doomed to death, but repeated under different slogans. In 755, the rebellion of Sumbad Magh in Western Khorasan; in 767, the rebellion of Ustad Sis in Eastern Khorasan; in 778-779, the rebellion of the "red-letter" in Gurgan; in 776-783, the rebellion of the "dressed in white" in Maverannahr; in 816-837. - The uprising of Hurramites (Mazdakites) in Azerbaijan and Western Iran under the leadership of Babek. But the ✓most significant was the rebellion of Mamun, son of Caliph Harun ar-Rashid, against his brother Amin. And here is why.
Mamoun was the rightful heir... from a Persian wife. Amin was the youngest son... of an Arab wife. So Harun bequeathed the throne to Amin, who was supported by the Arabs. Mamun, as ruler of Khorasan, rebelled in 811. He was supported by the Persians and won in 813, although Arab resistance lasted for several more years. From then on, the caliphate ceased to be Arab and became a Muslim super-ethnos, politically fragmented into several emirates and ideologically split by Shi'a and Sunni schools. There were four of each, and they all struggled with each other, occupying different neighborhoods in the busiest cities.
In Muslim cities life was easy and pleasant, for it was hard to live in the villages and as nomads. And in merchant towns the population was always mixed and often inconstant. Some came, traded and left, others succeeded them, others socialized. Thus, in Damascus, Alexandria, Tunisia and Seville, along with perfume and silk; ideas - new, interesting, logical and promising in the sense that they could be turned into actions promising power and wealth - came from the East. Numerous sects emerged, whose members called themselves Shi'a to avoid persecution. The sects seized power, and the sectarians enriched themselves with it, as did the righteous Sunnis when they succeeded in crushing the insurgents.
And since it was difficult to invent philosophical concepts on their own, stories about them were overheard in the bazaars by outsiders, for there were educated people and even scholars among the merchants. Thus, original ethnic worldviews and attitudes were supplanted by imported ones. All this was called "Muslim culture" and was offered to neighboring Christian peoples as the highest intellectual achievement.
The Greeks, proud of their ancient cultural tradition, were skeptical about "Oriental" philosophy, while the French and Spaniards were delighted, but selectively assimilated it, with a certain degree of criticism, though they could not offer anything essential against it. The Arian tradition had been forgotten by the ninth century, and with it the former literacy of the white clergy. Iconoclasts sat in Constantinople, so popes did not prevent candidates for bishop training in Cordoba. And so the metastasis of Eastern teachings spread through France to England. Such was the charm of the culture of the inertial period of Arab ethnogenesis.
And this splendid building, whose foundations had already rotted, was looked on with delight by the people of Western Europe who were experiencing the so-called Carolingian Renaissance, during which illiterate Frankish kings invited scholars from unfaithful Ireland, from schismatic Constantinople and certainly from Cordoba and Seville, where Jewish scholars lived who could teach the necessary languages - Greek, Latin, Hebrew.
Jews and Christians of different confessions were scattered in all the major cities of the Caliphate, but besides participating in the economic life of the Middle East, they enriched Muslim culture with translations of Greek authors into Arabic. During the Umayyad era this work was done by Christians. The famous John of Damascus wittily tried to find common ground between Christianity and Islam, interpreting the antiquity of the Qur'an, the "Word of God", transmitted by Allah through the archangel Gabriel to the prophet Mohammed, as a variant of the teaching of the Logos, "the second Person of the Holy Trinity".
With the Abbasid victory, the center of cultural gravity shifted to a new city, Baghdad, built by Caliph Mansur on the west bank of the Tigris. Iraq had a different readership than Syria. Most of the Iraqi Arabs came from the exuberant warriors of Kufa and Basra, the military colonies of the seventh century. To their number were added the Persians and descendants of merchants who came to Basra across the Persian Gulf. These second- and third-generation passionaries needed their own ideology: philosophy and theology. They found one and separated themselves from orthodoxy. That's how they were called: "mutazilians" (renegades). They themselves were called "people of monotheism and justice"[16].
Map. The Abbasid Caliphate in the eighth and ninth centuries (186 KB)
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Карта. Аббасидский халифат в VIIIЧIX вв. (186 KB)
In essence, the Mu'tazilites ceased to be Muslims. By denying the authenticity of the Qur'an, they also denied its sanctity, which allowed them to interpret the surahs (texts) allegorically, as they pleased. While they denied predestination, they opposed fatalism on the grounds that Allah did not prescribe to do evil, and since there is evil, it does not come from God, but from the free will. In this, they were in tune with Zoroastrianism, for in the absence of a choice between good and evil, there is nowhere for the free will of people to manifest itself. The Mu'tazilians considered God incognizable, so there was no way to distinguish him from Shaitan. They regarded heaven and hell as metaphors rather than reality.
At the same time, the Mu'tazili were opposed to religious freethinking. At their instigation Caliph Mamun in 827 declared the doctrine of Mu'tazilians a state confession, and in 833 instituted the Inquisition (mihna), censorship, and punishment by exile and lashes for orthodox Muslims[17]. This cruel regime lasted until 850-851, but, alas, Muslim religious tolerance did not return; only the Mutazilians themselves were considered heretics, along with the Kharijites, Shiites, and "Zindiks." Even Christians and Jews, tolerated by Islamic law, became severely constrained under the Sunni fanatic Mutawakkil[18].
The short-lived domination of the Mu'tazili in the Caliphate had truly tremendous consequences. A small circle of intellectuals who lectured, translated Greek philosophers into Arabic, and held scholarly debates stood between the government and the people. For the sake of the success of their doctrine, the Mu'tazilites approved the reorganization of the guard made by Caliph Mutasim: the cavalry was reinforced with slaves-Türks, and the infantry with mercenary-Deylemites. The government was arming itself against the people.
However, the Turks were not people who were easy to use. In 861 they assassinated the Caliph Mutawakkil, and then in ten years four of his successors, with complete indifference from the people of Baghdad. The Abbasid dynasty was reliably compromised.
But an even more harmful consequence for Islam was the spread of the "batin" thesis (inner meaning), which allowed any arbitrariness in the interpretation of the Qur'an. Once this doctrine fell into the hands of business intriguers, they created a system of Ismailism, or Karmatism, based on secret wisdom for the initiated and unconditional obedience for the profane; and where there is mystery, there is devil. And then the blood flowed even more profusely. [They created the anti-system.]
11. THE ADVOCATES OF THE DISTORTED LIGHT
In the middle of the eighth century the party of Alids supporters split into moderates and extremists, the latter being called Ishmaelites, or Karmatians. The Karmati inherited the old Arab passionality by changing their religious dominance, i.e., actually departing from the tenets of Islam. In fact, their community in Bahrain turned into a sub-ethnos, which in 899 created an independent state with its center in Lakhsa. The war between the Karmatians and the Muslims was merciless, and here is why.
Muslim law, the Sharia, allowed Christians and Jews for an additional tax, the Haraj, to practice their religions in peace. Idolaters were subject to conversion to Islam, which was also tolerable. But the "zindiks," representatives of nihilistic doctrines, faced a painful death. A whole Inquisition was instituted against them, the head of which bore the title of "executioner of the zindiks", (sorcerers)[19]. Naturally, under such conditions free thought was buried in the underground and emerged from it transformed beyond recognition in the second half of the ninth century. His name was Abdullah ibn Maimun, a native of Midia, an eye doctor by profession, died in 874 (875). His follower, Ubeidullah, seized power in Africa as a descendant of Ali. He exercised the right to lie, given by a high degree of initiation. [20]
The dogma and principles of the new doctrine can only be described, but not articulated, for its basic principle was falsehood. "The proponents of the new doctrine even called themselves differently in different places: Ismaili, Karmati, Batinites, Equalidites, Burkaites, Jannibites, Saidites. Muhammire, Mu-banze, Talimi... [All the anti-system, destroyers.] Their aim was the same - to destroy Islam by all means" [21]. It would be possible to doubt this characterization coming from the lips of the enemy, if the actual history of the course of events did not confirm it. The visible side of the teaching was simple: the outrages of this world will be corrected by the Mahdi, i.e., the savior of mankind and the restorer of justice. This sermon always resonated with the masses, especially in hard times. And the ninth century was very cruel. Emirs' mutinies, tribal uprisings in the outskirts and slave zinjas in the heart of the country, the excesses and arbitrariness of the administration, defeats in the wars with Byzantium, and the growing fanaticism of the mullahs - all this was borne by the peasants and the urban poor, including educated, but poor Persians and Syrians. There was plenty of fuel, all one had to do was to bring a torch to it.
Free propaganda of any non-canonical ideas was not feasible in the caliphate. Therefore, the emissaries of the doctrine, da'i (heralds), posed as pious Shi'ites. They interpreted texts of the Koran, arousing doubts in interlocutors and hinting that they knew something, but that the true law is forgotten, that is why all disasters happen, and if it is restored, then... But then the preacher, as if regaining consciousness, silenced himself, which, of course, aroused curiosity. The interlocutor, extremely interested, asked to continue, but the preacher, again referring to the Koran, took from him an oath of silence, and then, testing the good will of the proselyte, as well as his ability to obey, the amount of money, according to the means of the convert, for the common cause. Then came the initiation of the convert to the doctrine of the "true Imams," the descendants of Ali, and the seven prophets, [22] equal to Mohammed. Having mastered this, the proselyte ceases to be a Muslim, and since the assertion that the last and highest prophet is the Mahdi, contradicts the fundamental tenet of Islam. Then come the four degrees of knowledge for the masses and five more for the elect. The Koran, the rituals, the philosophy of Islam, are all accepted, but in an allegorical sense that allows them to be interpreted as desired. Finally, it is explained to the initiate that the coming of the Mahdi is only an allegory of learning and spreading the truth. All the prophets of all religions were men of error and their laws are not obligatory for the initiate. There is no God in heaven, only a second world where everything is back to our world. Only the Imam, as the receptacle of the spirit, the true lord of the Ismailis, is holy. He must be obeyed and paid in gold, which can easily be obtained from a foreigner by robbery and trade in captured neighbors who have not joined the secret community. All Muslims are enemies against whom lies, treachery, murder and violence are permitted. And one who has entered the "path," even in the first degree, there is no return except to death. The goal of this horrible life was clear: for the individual, the attainment of angelic likeness, and for the community, the path indicated by the "Imam of Time,"[23] i.e., Fatimid, to whom the whole world must gradually submit. This "cancer" has corroded the body of the caliphate.
12. MESSAGE
Let us now interrupt the narrative of the course of events and try to make geographical sense of it. The psychology of an ethnos expresses itself in a spontaneous dominant - a system of distant projections - and in a stereotype of behavior. But when the organic mindset is acted upon by another, quite powerful one, then the deformation of both the dominant and the stereotype is inevitable. Then an eclectic worldview appears instead of an organic one, and usually with the opposite sign, i.e. anti-system. Here we will apply V.I. Vernadsky's third biogeochemical principle, according to which "thought is not a form of energy, but produces actions as if responding to it"[24]. In our case mutazilite consciousness has played the role of rudder, which turned the passionary impulses of its followers by 180∞. Partial annihilation took place, after which the surviving Arabs turned into a relic, and the Arabic-speaking culture spread across the Mediterranean independently of the Arab ethnogenesis. Since the 10th century, a multi-ethnic Muslim super-ethnos became the acting figure of history, with the Deylem dynasty of the Bund, the anti-system of the Fatimids and the outlaw republic of the Carmats of Bahrain in the second place, the Bedouin emirates of Syria: Hamdanids, Uqaylids and others in the third, and only the fourth - the Sunni caliph in Baghdad, surrounded from all sides by hostile Shiites.
It would seem that with such a sad situation, the spread of Islam should have stopped. But the opposite has happened: Islam of Shiite direction was accepted by Deylemits, and Sunni - Karluks (in 960) and Turkic tribe Jagma [25] (in 1000). Why? Or, more precisely, why and how?
Both ethnic groups, the Highlanders-Deylemites and Steppe-Turkmen, were alien to the Muslim culture, but both used the split among the Arabs, just as the Berbers in North Africa used it. Their calculation was correct: support the weak and break the strong. As bad as Abbasid of Baghdad was, he remained the lord of the faithful. This was considered correct not only by the masses, but also by the powerful emirs of Khorasan and Maverannahr - the Samanids, of Azerbaijan - the Sajids and Shirvanshahs, and the rulers of Derbent. Sunnism weakened, but did not lose importance. A kind of political equilibrium emerged.
And then the Deylemites came forward. Leaving their mountainous country, armed with the ideas of restoring the Sassanid kingdom and revenge against the invading Arabs, and led by talented generals from the family of Bouya (Bouids), they crashed into western Iran, separating Iraq - the possession of the Abbasids - from Khorasan, which belonged to the Samanids. And then it turned out that in order to make conquests in the countries of Islam, one had to be a Muslim. The Buids and their army knew this and therefore adopted Shiism in its moderate form even before the conquests began, which ensured their success [26].
The Arabs defended themselves as they could, i.e., very poorly and disorderly. The emirs of Mosul, the Hamdanids, had enough troops to support the caliph in Baghdad, but they were not anxious to do so. It was more important to them to expand the borders of their viceroyalty. So the time and energy of the Arabs was spent on intrigues, quarrels, betrayals, the enumeration of which would lead far away from the subject. And the Buids pressed on, sometimes unsuccessfully, but consistently.
The people of Iraq, and especially Baghdad, hated the Delemites as foreign invaders and Shiites. Equally sincerely they hated their defenders and co-religionists, the Turkic Ghouls, who made up the troops of the emirs of Mesopotamia and Syria. But most of all they feared their fellow tribesmen, the Karmatians. The urban Arabs themselves did not have the courage to defend themselves against enemies, friends, neighbors, Bedouins, and even their superiors. And these were the descendants of the conquerors of the half-world!
In the 10th century in Baghdad itself, plundered by Turks and Deylemites, there was a terrible famine; the inhabitants were robbed of every dirham to pay their salaries to the troops. Therefore on December 19, 945 Ahmed Buid after a short fight at the gates, entered the capital, made Caliph Mustakfi appoint himself as a commander in chief (emir al-umara) and declared himself a sultan, whereby he seized all secular power [27]. The Caliph was soon dethroned for ordering the arrest of one of the Alids, blinded and died in prison, [28] and his heirs drew a miserable existence.
The victory of the Buids meant the triumph of Shiism, although most of the population of Iraq and even Baghdad remained faithful to Sunnism. Following Iran and Syria, Shi'ism triumphed in Africa, where the Fatimids took Egypt in 969. Sunnism as the dominant confession survived only in Spain, under the Umayyads, descendants of the "hypocritical" Muslims, and in Central Asia, under the Samanids. In other words, Sunnism was pushed to the outskirts of the area, while Shiism took over the defense of Islam and... lost a series of wars with Byzantium and Georgia [29]. The Muslim super-ethnos showed symptoms of a fracture phase.
The phase of fracture is characterized by the loss of the sense of unity, as if a "split of the ethnic field", when ideological disputes acquire a real political being. The Arab chroniclers themselves call this date - 974 - and this phenomenon - "asabiyya", i.e. schism [30]. From that time the Arab Shi'ites became supporters of the Deulemites, rather than of the unified Arabs. In 1015-1018 it came to open military clashes in Baghdad itself.
The Buids were in power for 110 years and probably would have led Islam and its culture to a complete breakdown if the Seljuk Turkmens had not prevented them [31]. They took the example of the Buids: starting the conquest of Iran, they took the side of a weak party and, relying on its support, won the victory. The Caliph became their ally and already in 1049 occupied the Shi`a quarter with Turkic troops. In 1055 Togrulbek entered Baghdad and declared himself sultan. The position of the caliph seemed to remain the same, but now he became the spiritual head of the ruler, whereas under the Buids he had been a hostage to heretics. The victories of the three Great Seljuks stopped the advance of the Christians, and their descendants repelled the Crusaders.
And the Deilemites were gone. The Buids drove so many of the bravest and strongest young men from their homeland that Deylem withered, though no one tried to conquer it. The last minor dynasty that traced its genealogy back to the Sassanids, the Baduspanids, lasted until the end of the 16th century, after which the Caspian provinces were annexed to Persia [32]. Victories can be as ruinous as defeats.
The morals of the Sunnis themselves had changed. If earlier they attracted and converted non-believers, then at the end of the XI century in Baghdad itself the Hanbali (the leading school) disrupted the lectures and sermons of the scholar al-Qushayri, who converted some Jews to Islam. The Hanbalites shouted, "This is Islam of treachery and bribery!" - and smashed madrassahs [33]. This caused such outrage that the Shiites of Baghdad demanded a change of caliph.
Three years later the Hanbalis revolted not only against the Shi'a, but also against the authorities. It had to be subdued by troops, which brutally dealt with the Hanbalis, and they as an organization ceased to exist [34]. The surviving Hanafi and Shafi'i schools, however, made up for the loss: the massacres in the Arab and Persian cities did not cease. And since along with this nightmare, which dragged on for 170 years, there were constant feuds between Seljuk emirs and Atabeks, it is not surprising that the country was weakened, so that the third displacement, the Mongol one, was carried out easily and had consequences which could have been avoided in another situation.
NOTES
[1] See: Muller A. History of Islam, vol.1, St. Petersburg, 1895, pp.24-28.
[2] See: Islam, M. 1984, p. 129ff.
[3] See: Ibid.
[4] Opponents of Islam were just as passive as its supporters, which caused a fierce civil war between extreme fanatics - Kharijites (the party of the Prophet's son-in-law, Ali) - and supporters of the Umayyads (who in Muslim historiography were called "hypocrites").
[5] Shahan - plural from Shah - king.
[6] On how the Jews got to the Caucasus and Khazaria from the Middle East, see below - 23. The Persians in the V-VII cc.
[7] For a detailed description of the operations see: Artamonov M.I. History of Khazars. С. 202-225.
[8] See below: 28. The Rakhdonites.
[9] See: Artamonov M.I. History of the Khazars P.248.
[10] See also: Ibid. С. 266.
[11] See: Ibid. С. 277.
[12] See ibid. С. 254-256.
[13] See ibid. С. 243.
[14] Xenia (xenos - guest) is a term borrowed from geology.
[15] See: Muller A. History of Islam.Vol.II.P.147.
[16] Bartold V.V. Islam. Pg. 1918. P.70; Petrushevsky I.P. Islam in Iran in the VII-XV centuries. Л., 1966. С. 199-213.
[17] Mamun was originally a moderate Shi`a (see Bartold V. Ibid, p. 72), but after the Shi`a Zeidite insurrection in Iraq in 815, he had to execute the leader of the insurgents (see: Petrushevsky I. P., ed. The Shi'ite Shi'ite revolt in Iraq in 815, and he had to execute the leader of the rebels (see: Petrushevsky I.P. op. cit., p. 248), he shifted his sympathies to the Mu'tazili, from which the Sunnis, Shi'ites, and the Mu'tazili suffered.
[18] See: Petrushevsky I.P. op. cit. p. 255.
[19] Zindik from the Persian word "zend" - meaning, which was the equivalent of the Greek "gnosis" - knowledge. Consequently, "zindiks" are Gnostics, but in the Arab era the name acquired a new connotation - "sorcerers" (see: Muller A. History of Islam. Vol. P. P. 186).
[20] "The basis of their faith outwardly consists in confessing Shi'a dogma and love for the lord of the faithful Ali, but inwardly they are infidels" ("Kitab al-bayan". 158; quoted from: Nizam al-Mulk. Siaset-nama'e. M.: L., 1949. Footnote 339. С. 336). A similar conclusion was reached by I. P. Petrushevsky, who regards the doctrines of Galiya and Ismailia as independent religions, only superficially covered by Shiite forms" (see: Petrushevsky I.P. Ibid, op. cit., P.242).
[21] Nizam-al-Mulk. Siaset-name.p. 223.
[22] Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Mohammed - according to the doctrine of all Muslims, the seventh, al-Mahdi, must appear before the Day of Judgment, i.e., the end of the world.
[23] Cited from: Bertels A.E. Pasir-i-Khosrow and Ismailism. М., 1959. С. 262.
[24] Vernadsky V.I. Chemical structure of the Earth biosphere and its environment. М.. 1965. С. 272.
[25] See: Gumilev L.N. Search for an imaginary kingdom. М., 1970. С. 86.
[26] See: Muller A. Op. cit. P.262 ff.
[27] See: Muller A. op. cit. p.267-268.
[28] [Religio-political fight in Bagdad under Buids and Seljuks (X-XII centuries)//Islam. С. 223.
[29] Because of the enmity of Shi`ites and Sunnis in 974 the army could not be gathered to repulse the Greeks (See Ibid, p. 225).
[30] Quoted from: Mikhaylova I.B. Ibid, op. cit. p. 225.
[31] See: Gumilev L.N. Ethnogenesis and Biosphere of the Earth, vol. Vol.IV. Millennium around the Caspian Sea. М., 1987.
[32] See: Bosworth K.E. Muslim dynasties. MOSCOW, 1971. P. 124.
[33] See: Mikhaylova I.B. op. cit. p. 226.
[34] See: I.B. Mikhalova, op. cit. С. 226.
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