Islam in Middle Ages 2 episode The Umayyad Caliphate 661 750 CE

hey he lost mori hello and welcome to islam in the middle ages series for ihshg examining the islamic world from muhammad to the mural empire on the first sunday of each month in the last episode we saw the meteoric rise of the early islamic caliphate and the factors that allowed niche new religion to become one of the most influential forces in global medieval history we saw the world before the prophet muhammad his ministry and early following the rise of the new power and the devastating civil war that created the sunni shia divide today we pick up where we left off examining the dynasty that the victor of the first fitnah the governor of syria muawiyah established and the unique legacy it left to the islamic world thereafter this podcast wouldn't be possible without the support of the ihshg and would like to thank them for giving me the platform to be able to host this do be sure to check out their website facebook page and youtube channels for more historical discussions in english and portuguese so let's begin muawiyah following his victory over aliyah sifin became the first and founding member of the dynasty of khalif's known as the umayyads named after the banu umaya tribe of which muawiyah was member this was dynastic policy by which the khalif's son succeeded him upon his death and power was for the most part consolidated within the khalif's family for reference this dynasty is often differentiated from the first four khalifs that succeeded muhammad known later as the rashdoon or rightly guided khalifs so called as they would go on to be seen as the only four khalifs that could be written about without any substantial deal of controversy or political intrigue within the non-shia islamic world indeed it should be noted that establishing dynasty and the way that the umaids did was regarded as highly controversial act as you'll hopefully remember from the last episode when the position of khalif was established there was great deal of uncertainty around the qualifications for office and the extent of the hadith's power and in this period that doubt still to some extent lingered later sources however would discuss the umayyads in scathing light claiming that they were abusing the office of khalif to promulgate their personal political ambitions instead of acting as figureheads from which the whole islamic world could be united it is this latter idea that would later come to articulate the kind of person that the khalif ought to be in the high politics of the islamic world and this development was argue largely shaped by the experience of maya government in the late 7th and early 8th centuries we must as always be careful of the written accounts from this period given that many come from the abbasid caliphates that would later overthrow and replace umayyad rule over the islamic world like many successor dynasties the abbasids went to some lengths to denigrate the power that had come before them so it's likely that their vices are exaggerated in our source material it's worth mentioning too that the abbasids were in many ways just as dynastic and politically partisan as their predecessors as we will see in the third episode of this podcast nevertheless despite this caveat the umayyads continue to attract controversy and their reputation for taking advantage of the office of the caliphates for their own ends has persisted in the way that they're written about and spoken of today despite this caveat the humans continue to attract controversy and their reputation for taking advantage of the office of the caliphates for their own ends has persisted even today in the way that they're discussed and written about following his victory over the armies of ali muaria rose to power as khalif in 661 establishing new capital from the caliphate in damascus in his home province of syria his style of rule was similar to that of the methods he deployed in his previous position as governor of this region that is to say ruling primarily through network of trading alliances formed of the prominent groups of syria at the time number of innovations however were introduced by this new khalif the band of tribes that had formed the bulk of the caleb armed force was replaced by salaried standing army garrisoned in syria and formal circle of elites was established amongst the leaders of the conquering armies who go on to administer the cities of the new caliphate as result of these reforms by the end of his caleb rule in 680 status quo of power had emerged in the islamic world the caliphate was primarily urban power boasting chain of sophisticated cities that were rivaled in size and wealth only by tang china these were managed and ruled by the military leaders of early conquests known as omirs as well as judges of islamic law known as khabibs many of these cities however also regularly negotiated and worked with both rural communities and tribal groups lacking the infrastructure and means to exercise direct control over the rural areas around the cities these networks were vital for bringing in the agricultural surpluses to maintain the cities of the islamic world as such legal practices and customs could vary considerably even within the boundaries of city-state as it was often necessary to allow rural and nomadic areas to continue with their own laws provided of course they didn't clash directly with quranic teachings and sharia law with regards to this law the umayyad set precedent of issuing legal opinions at advising khardis who wrote to them with more difficult legal issues those familiar with the roman system of imperial decretals or the growth of papal canon law in the middle ages may be able to draw parallels with this system as it was fairly similar structure whereby the khalif would receive concerns from local rulers and respond with an interpretation that would later set precedent as the letter was disseminated to others this was duty that it would appear most of the khalis of this period took very seriously we have evidence of rulings being issued from all the khalifs that set precedence for legal management in this period this is unique as it's the only time in islamic history that the khalifs were able to wield power over the interpretation of sharia as freely as this and it must be noted that this caused some controversy amongst scholars of islamic law he would later believe that this freedom to interpret the decrees of god by men no matter how well educated those men were was sure way to deviate from the righteous path that the prophet allowed mankind to return to corpus of law incidentally was also beginning to become increasingly standardized and comprehensive as the transition continued from tribal confederacies to settled empire spurred on by the growth of quranic studies as the cities of the islamic worlds began to mature into permanent settlements that could house schools of learning known as madrasas sharia law is interesting inasmuch as it is more concerned with personal status and religious devotion than it is in matters of commerce and criminal justice whilst there is certainly precedent in the quran for both of these affairs they were in practice managed by precedents laid down by an individual car these rulings known as raii as well as the laws of communities that were able to govern themselves such as bedouins in the arab peninsula as well as religious minorities such as christians and jews it should be noted though that muawiyah's authority wasn't wholly accepted throughout the islamic world in iraq in particular the martyrdom of ali had been received badly by the religious scholars there who believed that the khalif should be chosen for their piety and skill and not as part of dynastic succession support for shiite teaching began to grow in this region largely as the province began to feel increasingly disconnected from the new metropole it didn't help either that as result of muawiyah's attempts to centralize the caliphate iraq in this period was ruled by string of governors appointed from damascus who had reputation for heavy-handed management of the population this only served to distance the province further from the centre of power in syria it also based mentioned that iraq was wealthier and better connected region of the caliph than syria in this period and also had stronger islamic identity there were more arab settlers here and the cities of iraq didn't have the established non-arab and more muslim traditions but syrian cities such as aleppo edessa antioch and damascus tended to be characterized by iraq in this episode cannot be ignored their wealth and resources coupled with prominent anti-amide sentiments placed them in prime position to be thorn in the side of the umayyads as their dynasty went on something that eventually would prove to be absolutely devastating for the umayyads elsewhere too issues began to emerge egypt like iraq began to feel isolated from the center of power in damascus and that their wealth and resources were being driven away from them furthermore the family heads of mecca and medina also began to express resentments over muari's treatments of them feeling understandably that they had been sidelined in the new streams of patronage despite being the leaders of the birthplace of islam to compound matters even further two prominent tribes of muari's trading alliance the kolb and kaiz began to clash with each other for greater share of the khalif's patronage threatening the coalition on which his power was built more general issues were beginning to come to the fore as well the pace of conquest was beginning to slow by the end of the 670s to resume only at the very end of the century without conquest to act as release valve for pressures within the caliphate as well as lucrative source of enrichment between groups on the borders of umayyad society tensions and resentments over serious domination of the other parts of the islamic world began to surface again without the sufficient outlets to alleviate them furthermore it's also worth remembering that the caliphates had grown out of confederacies of arab tribes with the shared faith and many of the ways of managing group like this had to adapt to the challenges of ruling large multi-ethnic empire like that of byzantium and persia this new style of rulership demanded new methods to make it successful and arguably muawiyah's inability to quickly adopt these changing circumstances exacerbated the breakdown of political order in the caliphate as he tried to rule sophisticated bureaucratic network in the same way as tribal coalition these tensions suddenly and dramatically came to the fore in 680 with the death of muawiyah and the succession of his son as yazid the first the second umayyad khalif in iraq ali's son el hussein rose in rebellion against the umayyads only to be killed in karbala where the umayyads sent their syrian army against him el hussein's death sparked an enormous backlash from the shiite community who hailed and still do revere today el hussein as martyr and began to see the caliphate as inherently hostile to shiaism and determined to stop it at all costs even amongst non-shia muslims the notion of descendant of the prophet himself being killed by brother muslim didn't sit easily in addition to this further local breakouts occurred in medina from 683 to 692 and in kufa in central iraq from 685 to 7. during which time the city became effectively ungovernable in addition to this the kolb and kaize tribes came to blows from 684 to 685 killing yazid's successor marwan the first when he tried to quell them this dramatic string of uprisings has come to be known as the second feat na grim reference to the devastating first war of just few decades prior the man to eventually end the conflict was abdel malik the first coming to the california in 685 he would take the first seven years of his reign campaigning against the various dissident elements of the islamic world to bring them to order eventually quelling the second defeat na by the 690s the new khalif realized too that change in the political order was necessary to ensure that these kinds of conflicts and uprisings would remain isolated incidents in the islamic world he set up close control over the two rebellious provinces of egypt and iraq by installing highly loyal governors from his own family men who as we are julian formed were effective at their work but isolated lot of minority groups during their heavy-handed rule abdel malik also redistributed patronage networks too to balance the kobe and kay's tribe's rivalry conquest continued too from the 690s onwards raids into north africa took place from the garrison city of cairo in modern tunisia one of the most eminent cities in the western caliphates until the growth of cordoba in alan de luz by 698 the armies of the caliphates had conquered an area as far as modern algeria incorporating many berber tribes into the fold of islam in 711 the berber general tariq ibn ziyard went one step further incorporating morocco and iberia into the caliphate this secondary force got as far as the pyrenees only to be checked by the frankish prince charles martell at the battle of poitiers in 732 for many scholars this is seen as the points that islamic conquest in the western world stopped and opens fascinating counterfactual or what if considering how things might have been different if charles martel hadn't repelled the conquering force further east in 717 armies under abdel maliksan muslimah marched on constantinople and attempted albeit unsuccessfully to take it from 750 onward this feat would be attempted on an almost annual basis by subsequent khalifs finally from 706 to 712 armies took over bukhara and samarkand in central asia and marched into modern day afghanistan and pakistan settling near punjab in present day india in addition abdel malik introduced number of wider policies to reform the caliphate as whole he implemented standard system of weights and coinage as well as replacing images on islamic coins with verses from the quran this incidentally coincides with the movements amongst religious elites of the islamic world to try to curb the use of representation of life in art seeing it as idolatry and an attempt to replicate the divine as curious side note this may well have contributed to the iconoclast controversy in the byzantine empire where comparable although much shorter lived purging of images on the grounds of idolatry took place it may be argued that the circulation of islamic coinage and byzantine society off the back of trade that existed between the two powers despite their military enmity led some byzantine christian patriarchs to consider that the success of the islamic world was due to the fact that god favored people who hadn't lapsed into worshiping images instead of himself on this note of the use of images in islamic arts however it's worth noting that the ban was not consistently practiced and many remarkable works of art with depictions of animals plants and even human figures exist across the medieval islamic world critically the new khalif also set arabic as the standard language of government administration this was important as it began the process by which converting to islam and speaking arabic became prerequisites for those in governmental positions as the caliphate began to rely less and less on local administrators operating in their own languages and with their own faith and customs would like to take detour to explore this further as this is partly why the caliphate had such long-lasting legacy on the territories at concord rather than assimilating to the culture and faith the people they took over the armies of islam came with their own culture and religion which trickled down to the conquered population from this period onwards as governments started to become increasingly arabized many people began to convert in order to integrate into the political order these individuals came to be known as mawali singular maola and whilst they had some restrictions on the power they wielded in some areas of the caliphates such as iraq for example they could nevertheless become very successful al-andalus or moorish spain had an especially open culture of integrating mawali into the government this was not without some controversy however the question of whether islam was for all of mankind or just arabs alone was still hotly debated in this period and whilst conversions were more common in this period it would take up until the end of the eighth century for conversions to occur on more widespread basis restrictions on other faiths began to take place as well churches and synagogues for example were not permitted to be built anew and existing ones couldn't have spies taller than the minarets of mosques in addition jews and christians are expected to pay fairly substantial poll tax known as the jizya furthermore proselytizing and converting away from islam became illegal and jewish and christian men were not permitted to marry muslim women that being said it was worth bearing in mind that in spite of these restrictions minorities here were generally treated better than their counterparts in christian europe and indeed the coming of islam was seen as preferable in large number of jewish communities as well as christian minority groups who it would seem preferred state that allowed them to go on relatively untroubled versus one that took an active interest in suppressing them in many parts of the islamic world such as al-andalus jews and christians were also employed in governmental functions and were allowed degrees of freedom to promulgate their faith christian bishops in cordoba for example were still allowed to send missionaries to territories outside of the caliphate's land returning to the subject of buildings the increased cash flow from conquest and taxation in this period that was increasingly being sent to the californ palace in damascus inspired an ambitious series of building projects that more confidently promulgated the message of islam perhaps the most iconic example of this is the dome of the rock established in 692 at the point that it was believed that the prophet rode winged horse to paradise at the end of his ministry this building was most likely created as challenge to the established faiths of the city of jerusalem indeed the calligraphy around the dome comes from verse in the quran calling on christians to turn to islam and recognize jesus as simply prophet of god rather than god's human incarnation and redeemer of all humanity curiously however the glass work in the mosque comes from the byzantine empire where craftsmen in greece and present-day turkey were beginning to display particular aptitude for this craft it's one of those fascinating elements of this period that despite being rivals with different faiths the islamic world and byzantium enjoyed lively trade and cultural exchange between one another and could be fighting one moment and supporting each other the next it is common misconception that christianity and islam were diametrically opposed to each other in the middle ages the reality is lot more nuanced and the relationship between the two cultures as is often the case waxed and waned at different points following this abdel malik's successor el walid the first ruling from 705 to established the great mosque of medina in 710 al-aqsa mosque in jerusalem in 715 and the gorgeous great mosque of damascus in 716. this is all evidence that wealth was being centered on syria in this period and stands testament to just how powerful the halifs have become by now nothing as ambitious as this was being constructed in europe and further west in asia only the ebullient tongue dynasty in china managed to rival the scale and expense of these buildings however these ambitious projects weren't without controversy some of el waleed's palaces in the levant caused some controversy as they displayed ornate decoration of plants and animals just two decades after the ban on images was established as side note this sort of decoration can also be found curiously in the great mosque of damascus rare example of surviving umayyad architectural design furthermore these fed the growing accusation that the umayyads weren't worthy commanders of the faithful at all and were more interested in dynastic promulgation rather than leading religious community nevertheless many of these mosques survived well beyond the dynasty that created them and stood as signs of islam's growth and ambition during this period each of these mosques would have distinct setup but by this point many have begun to take on most had large central dome as well as minaret tower from which the isaan or call to prayer could be called from large courtyard led onto the prayer hall which contained mehrab niche in the wall pointing to the direction of mecca as well as minbar series of steps that served as pulpit from which the imam could deliver their sermon or during friday prayers as side note this khutba was an important event because as well as teaching his congregation an imam also customarily offered prayers for the longevity and success of the ruling khalif as well as on occasion cursing his enemies it was mark of khalif's legitimacy that he was prayed for during butts and imams could show their disapproval or even dissent for rule by praying for another individual instead traditionally many mosques were decorated only in their inner space to replicate the idea that in their walls was small window to janna or paradise and it was only in the fold of islam that the believer would ascend as time continued however external decorations also became more common this wasn't entirely consistent however and some earlier mosques lacked the features that i've described as above one especially interesting example of this is the great mosque of kairowan in tunisia which is rare example of mosque before this process of standardization i've included an image in the powerpoints although encourage you to look this up for yourself as it's rare example of how mosques may have looked before the standard model took hold therefore by the start of the 8th century the umad khalifs were in strong position to continue their reign however despite the success new force was beginning to emerge in the field of islamic law that would irrevocably change where power lied in years to come the concepts of sunnah and hadith sooner refers to the actions and words of respectable people that are praiseworthy enough to be imitated it was common way to settle legal disputes and set precedence in the arab world before the rise of islam to look to the sunnah are prominent former members of the tribe to decide what's due this also incidentally is where we get the name sunni from to describe muslims that don't belong to either sheer sex or those who rejected ali's decision at zifin early on suno was used to complement teachings from the quran to provide benchmark for ideal devotion whereby muslims would imitate the deeds of especially pious early members of the community it could also be used as basis from which to set legal disputes and was also shorthand for justice and correct religious devotion when factions fought in this period they accused each other of going against the quran and the sunnah of the prophets rebellions could be framed as restoration of sunna from those who had perverted it initially though it didn't have any particular meaning outside of an idea of correct practice that was usually determined by the individual invoking it hadith on the other hand are the oral and written records of the prophet's words and deeds from which his own sunnah can be derived during this period an increasing number of quranic scholars began to see hadith as better way to set up corpus of islamic law compared to the individual decisions of the khalif or khardis which were becoming increasingly indefensible as way of interpreting god's revealed and unchanging word as such hadith began to spread as second complementary tool to the quran for the purpose of establishing islamic law and correct practice as the humay's legitimacy began to waver this idea began to gather momentum fast appropriate sooner initially referred to the actions and words of the prophet as well as some companions and the russian khalifs although this was eventually filed down to just the prophet as it was felt that as virtuous as they were the russian khalifs weren't as fully attuned to god's will as the prophet muhammad was after 680 it started to become the single go-to source of law icardi's individual opinion began to be intermingled with set of legal precedents to form more concrete form of law without lots of subsequent innovations from the 740s onwards however this began to be taken even further and the idea developed that the prophet's revelation and deeds were the only true windows unto god and everything else had to be interpreted in light of the quran and hadith as result this laid down number of important precedents khadis and khalifs were now no more important than any other muslim they were just there to uphold the law some schools of this period even quipped the grocers of kufa had more authority than the khalif if they had and quote hadith to go with their beans as historian patricia crone puts it in her book god khalif as successor of the prophet commander of the believers and executor of islamic law he still occupied position of central importance to the religion but he was not authorized to define it this on several accounts undermined the idea that the khalif ought to be able to decide religious affairs on his own merit for one hadith and sooner were already established and the khalif couldn't create their own furthermore it was interpreted by scholars and not the khalif meaning by extension that the khalif was no longer liberty to set his own legal precedence thirdly these two sources tended to not be reinterpreted the original literal interpretation always stuck which undermined k-level attempts to reinvent the principles laid down by them from 750 onwards this would go even further still instead of invoking appropriate sunnah at will standardized set of sunnah for each legal ruling was established and individual cardes were required to use this instead of being able to choose at their own discretion although this was still in its very early stages during the umayyad caliphate this was gaining energy quickly and would play decisive role in the power dynamics of the islamic world right up to the modern day this is vital concept in the development of religious and legal authority spurned on by the umaid's failure to unite the caliphate and present themselves as worthy arbiters of the quran and its laws it's at this point therefore that the umayyad's time in leadership was beginning to draw to close the warning signs however weren't entirely obvious to the new caliphate the ambitious building continued under elwelli the first and beyond only stopping briefly from 717 to 724 under the reign of the moral stir umar ii this surge in wealth however led to an apparent growth of decadence within the court that was beginning to attract serious criticism from religious scholars in this period even taking into account the fact that our sources are from the following caliphate it is clear that the kelo4 lifestyle was starting to be seen as unsustainable coupled with the way that admired governors tended to isolate the people they ruled over and the growth of hadith as preferred way to interpret islamic law to californicretals this resulted in serious hemorrhaging of the umayyad's dynasties legitimacy elwalid ii caliph from 743 to 744 is singled out especially by his lavish consumption of luxury goods and raucous banquets by our sources and was in fact usurped by his brother yazid iii who promised upon becoming caliph that he returned the office to the righteous path promising concessions such as allowing governors to collect and keep their own taxes by this time however the caliphates had lost great deal of respect amongst the people and despite his promises yazid failed to make any substantial changes to the way that things were run this is exacerbated by the fact that by the 720s conquest had dried up significantly as you'll recall from earlier in the episode part of muawiyah's issues at the start of the dynasties reign was the slumming of conquests which provoked restlessness amongst the armies of the caliphate without the release valve of new lands to fight against history was about to repeat itself in dramatic fashion furthermore in conquering parts of central asia the umayyads discovered the perennial and ever-present issue of empire building in this part of the world raids by step dwelling nomads the new cities of the islamic world were being attacked sporadically by groups of turkic and khazar raiders causing serious issues along the border states you may remember from our first episode the way that sassania and persia faced similar issue prior to the right of islam and it's worth noting that every power in this period struggled with turkic and mongol raiding bans right up until the 18th century this was compounded by the fact that from 740 to 743 the berbers of northern africa rebelled too cutting off this region from the caliphate although the khalifam ii was able to deal with this it weakened syria's military base furthermore iraq and egypt were becoming quickly resentful that money was flowing out of them and towards syria and the army at the time was starting to be made of exclusively syrian tribes it's worth remembering that one of yazid iii's failed promises is that he would let provinces rule and administer themselves then in 744 disaster struck the kaab and kaiz tribes just as they had done in the second fitna fought between each other and at the same time shira vaults broke out in iraq the spirit of rebellion stretched further east into iran where the dominant political factions there were waiting for the right time to march on syria one of these factions since 710 have preached that the umayyads were illegitimate rulers and needed to be overthrown what is significant about this is that their leaders were descended from the prophet's uncle abbas giving them powerful claim to leadership over the islamic world in 750 this army marched from horison in eastern iran taking syria and egypt at lightning speed the umayyads were forced to flee and what remained of the family left to arlandalus safely away from the new dynasty's power by 754 their leader el mansour was proclaimed the new khalif under the name of dynasty known today as the abbasids named after the link to abbas by 762 iraq had replaced syria as the capital of the caliphate and its centre of power rested in the newly constructed city of baghdad huge ambitious building project that would remain the center of islamic power and to the mongol sacking in 1257 what followed would be golden age for the islamic world where scholarship trade and political confidence soared to new heights the umayyads therefore was certainly fascinating dynasty who oversaw the crystallization of islamic power in the regions that they conquered under them the political and legal structures of the islamic world began to take shape and the caliphate's boundaries were established it is perhaps ironic though that the backlash against their controversial reign set down large number of further presidents that would be equally if not more decisive in the shaping of the destiny of this part of the world in the middle ages whether you see them as self-obsessed political movers or victims of poor press after their reign had been quashed the umayyads undeniably left their mark and under them the early empire began to settle as the seismic political force that shaped the world in both the middle ages and through to the modern day in our next episode we will examine the abbasid caliphate one of the most successful although fraught periods in islamic history we will look at the golden age of science scholarship and debate that flourished under the funding of new cities the new dynasty's ambitious trade and political policies as well as the continuing disputes that erupted over the khalif's legitimacy especially as in an unprecedented move rival caliphates began to emerge to challenge baghdad's supremacy thank you very much for listening to islam in the middle ages and see you in the next episode