The Umayyads and Abassids

The original followers of Muhammad created the Arab Empire in the century following the death of the Prophet, and it lasted until the mid-1200’s when it fell into disarray after the Mongol invasions of the Middle East. A couple of centuries later the Turks initiated the second Muslim empire period, and they created three separate empires. The Ottoman Empire was formed in Turkey and eventually covered Eastern Europe much of the eastern Mediterranean and North Africa. The Safavid Empire reached from the southern Caucasus region through Persia into Central Asia as far as Uzbekistan, and the Mughal Empire occupied Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent. Each of these Turkish empires had a different relationship to Islam. The Ottomans were Sunnis, the Safavids Shi’ites, and the Mughals were more ecumenical attempting to make ties with other religions. The latter will be discussed in detail under the section on India. The Turkish-origin empires are referred to as the “gunpowder empires” because these were the first ones built with the use of firearms.
Both the first wave of Muslim empire builders, the Arabs from the Arabian Peninsula, and second wave, the Turks of Central Asia, started as nomadic peoples who acquired the arts of civilization through contact with urbanized people in the Middle East. Both turned to conquest and rapidly absorbed the pre-existing civilizations. As happened in China with the Mongols and in India with the Indo-Europeans, the settled group living in urban civilization co-opted their invaders, converting them in turn into urban civilized people. The Arabs and Turks went on to create civilizations that were brilliant in art and architecture, literature, religious thought, public administration, and the military arts.
Although faith launched the original Muslims out of the Arabian deserts, the arts of culture and international trade by which they produced a rich civilization were borrowed from Iraq, Persia, and Egypt. Territorial expansion was characteristic of early Islam, and during the last ten years of Muhammad's life, Muslims gained the submission or allegiance of virtually all of the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula. A few years after the death of Muhammad, Arab forces quickly gained control of Egypt (639), Syria (640), and the Sassanid Empire (650), consolidating their hold on the core of the Middle East from Persia through Egypt. This beginning of the Arab expansion was continued with the establishment of the Umayyad dynasty which extended Arab control from Spain to India.

The Umayyad Dynasty (661-750) and the Spread of Islam. This Dynasty was established by Mu'awiya, the fourth caliph or "successor", and over a period of ninety years these rulers built the Arab Empire through military conquest. Umayyad rule was spread beyond the Middle East to the western reaches of India (present day Pakistan) in 713 and across North Africa to Spain in 711. They even invaded present day France where their advance was stopped in 732 at Poitiers. Muslims ruled Spain for the next eight centuries until their final defeat by the Christian kings Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492. In the eighty-one years from Muhammad's death in 632 to their conquest of the Indus Valley (today Pakistan) the Umayyads occupied an empire larger than any other that had existed in history. Their capital was Damascus, and they looked as much to their empire in the west (Spain) as they did to their empire in the east (Pakistan).
What was the source of the explosive energy of the Umayyad expansion? There was no single leader like Alexander the Great leading these conquests, nor was there a carefully crafted war machine like the Roman legions. Since the Muslim armies were organized around kin groups, there were many commanders, some competent and some not. Since it was a "Muslim" expansion, it might seem that religious zeal drove the process, except for the fact that most of the warriors in the Arab-led armies knew little about Islam. For example, the conquest of Spain was carried out by Berbers who had only recently been introduced to Islam themselves, and in other areas Christian Arab soldiers were actually doing the fighting. Muslim soldiers were rewarded with the war booty but much of their conquests were arid, desert areas where life was difficult, and there was little booty to be won. So, booty alone does not explain such a sustained, integrated campaign. The expansion also occurred as jihad, technically "striving in the way of the Lord" although it is frequently translated as "holy war". The idea of jihad is based on the tradition of raids among the Bedouin tribes of the Arabian Peninsula, and it was a way of giving religious direction to the aggressive energies in these societies. After the Arabs were unified under Muhammad the idea of jihad was turned outward on their neighbors in the Middle East rather than being directed toward each other.
The one integrating factor behind the Arab expansion was the caliphate. Although caliphs did not lead armies, they did guide the conquests. Another factor that permitted the Arabs to expand rapidly was their policy of leaving local social and economic structures intact with Arab leadership at the top. Since they did not destroy the infrastructure of a conquered kingdom, they did not have to rebuild it. They also had a corollary policy of non-occupation, which meant that conquered peoples retained their lands by and large. Some land grants were made to reward military leaders, but common soldiers were required to stay in military camps and not occupy conquered land. They were rewarded with regular military pay and occasional booty.

The local people in conquered lands were not required to convert to Islam, but the followers of polytheistic and animist religious were actively proselytized to join Islam. The monotheistic Jews, Christians, and Zoroastrians, were called the “protected ones” or dhimmi because of their scriptures, and they were not proselytized. In fact, some splinter Christian groups, such as the Nestorians, Jacobites, or Copts, were persecuted by orthodox Christianity but protected by Islam. There were incentives for converting to Islam, including easier access to positions of power in the government and exemption from certain taxes. During some time periods, Christians and Jews were allowed to occupy positions of economic and political importance within the Muslim world, but it was not always the case. Zoroastrians were ultimately forced to emigrate from their homeland in Persia, and most today live in Mumbai, India where they are known as Parsis.
The Umayyad Dynasty had a narrow base of support, primarily among the Arabs and the original Arab families of the conquest. No more than ten percent of the conquered peoples had converted to Islam, but they outnumbered the descendants of the original conquerors, and they wanted more participation in the governance of their world. In 750, Shi'ites led a coup to overthrow the Umayyads, and the Shi'ites hoped to name an heir of Ali to the caliphate. In spite of these ambitions, the Abbas family, who were descendants of one of Muhammad's uncles, defeated the Shi’ites and claimed the caliphate for themselves. In so doing, people from the small group of Arabs that surrounded Muhammad in the beginning continued to control Islam. The Abbas family tried to kill all of the Umayyads to avoid challenges to the throne, but one of the heirs escaped and established himself in Spain where the Umayyad Dynasty continued for another three hundred years.
The Abbasid Caliphate (750-1517) and the Golden Age of Islam. In contrast to the Umayyad Caliphate which marked a time of territorial expansion, the Abbasid Caliphate consolidated the cultural and religious achievements of Islam. It was a revolt against the Arab aristocracy that had grown wealthy during the conquests, and the Abbasids broadened the base of participation by giving more important roles to Persians, Syrians, Iraqis, and Egyptians. Bernard Lewis says,

The cessation of the wars of conquest, the sole productive activity of the Arab aristocracy who were the ruling class of the Umayyad kingdom, made that class historically redundant, and the way was open for the establishment of a new social order based on a peace economy of agriculture and trade and with a cosmopolitan ruling class of officials, merchants, bankers, landowners and the ‘Ulama’, the class of religious scholars, jurists, teachers and dignitaries who were the nearest Islamic approach to a priesthood.

The Abbasids built Baghdad as their new capital, moving the focus of the empire eastward back into the heartland of the Middle East. Islam became not only a religion but a world political and economic system. Long distance trade and camel caravans became important. Entire industries grew up around those who produced textiles from the fibers (wool, cotton, linen), to those who spun them, those who did the weaving, and those who transported and sold them. In addition to the multi-colored rugs, they produced fine brocades and linens for clothes, and they imported silks from China. To facilitate this long distance trade, they developed a sophisticated banking system, and checks could be written on banks at one end of the Muslim world and cashed in the other.

The Abbasids borrowed court ceremonies and customs from the Sassanid kingdom and cultural sophistication in the arts and literature from the Persians. Abbasid caliphs encouraged learning and the arts, and they sponsored translations of Greek, Persian, and Indian classics into Arabic, drawing from all of the civilizations that surrounded them. It was through these Arabic translations of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle among others that European scholars were to rediscover classic Greek thought centuries later. The study of Islamic theology and religious law were also emphasized at court. The stories of The Arabian Nights are set in this time period and reflect the splendor of the Abbasid court.
Baghdad became the center of learning for the Muslim world as it continued to be for the next five hundred years until the Mongol invasion destroyed it. The Arab Empire had grown to cover much of the world, and the rulers needed solutions for urban, agricultural, and military problems. They created The House of Wisdom in Baghdad and invited scholars to come and work there, Christians, Jews, or Muslims. They borrowed knowledge from any source that was available. The spirit of questioning and testing of ideas led to the origin of an early scientific process. They borrowed the advanced numerical system from India, and they developed algebra to calculate complex technological problems. Muslim physicians developed a proto-germ theory to explain illness, long before it would be developed in the West. They developed the first hospitals. They borrowed paper from China, which permitted the new scientific conclusions to be written down and spread throughout the empire. In Córdoba, Spain the Christian world could experience the learning of the Muslim world. Averröes, the Spanish Muslim thinker, separated faith and learning, a concept picked up later in Europe by Thomas Aquinas. This was an essential step in the development of the scientific approach to learning. Many more non-Arabs were converted to Islam during this period, and the cosmopolitan influences within Islam increased. Persians, Central Asians, Greeks, and Africans were attracted by the sophistication of Baghdad. Muslim poetry gradually changed from its celebration of the austerity and purity of desert life to the celebration of the intellectual and sensual pleasures of urban life.
Although Muslim rule extended over much of Africa and Asia north of the Equator, Muslim culture and civilization was slower to spread. During the early centuries of the Abbasids, most of the Egyptians were still Christians and spoke Coptic. Spain and North Africa were more influenced culturally by Berber traditions than Arabic ones. Even until today, the Persians never have adopted Arabic as a spoken language for the majority of the people. They developed a non-Arabic Muslim culture with literary and artistic traditions admired throughout the Muslim world, and today Iranians continue to walk a different path from the Arab world. This cultural pluralism permitted Islam to become a multilingual and multiethnic society with a degree of religious tolerance. The Abbasids were unable to control the distant reaches of their empire, and by the mid-tenth century, the Spanish, North Africans, and Egyptians had set up rival governments and caliphs. The Abbasids themselves even fell under the control of secular rulers in the heartland, but they retained their status as the head of Islam.

The Turks and Mongols of Central Asia.After 1000 C.E., Turkish nomadic groups from the steppes of south Central Asia migrated into the Middle East and eventually gained political control. Known as the Seljuk Turks, they established a Turkish Muslim state, taking Iraq and Syria and then challenged the decadent Byzantine Empire and conquered Anatolia. In later centuries their Turkish descendants would take Constantinople and most of eastern Europe.
Under the leadership of Hulagu, the grandson of Genghis Khan, the Mongols invaded the Middle East in the 1200's and sacked Baghdad in 1258 ending the power of the Abbasid caliphate. Simultaneously Genghis Khan's other grandson, Kubla Khan, invaded China, defeated the Sung Dynasty, and established a Mongol dynasty to rule that country. Hulagu's army destroyed much of Baghdad from palaces, mosques, and libraries to the agricultural infrastructure in the hinterland. In 1260 the Mongol forces took Syria and sacked Damascus. Not long after they were defeated and their advance into the Muslim heartland was stopped. The Mongol attack ended the golden age of Muslim civilization in Tigris-Euphrates area, and Baghdad would not recover for centuries. The Abbasids fled to Egypt and re-established their much weakened caliphate which lasted until 1517. The Muslim world was fragmented politically during this period with power in the hands of various regional rulers.
The Mongols destroyed Muslim civilization in the Arab heartland from Baghdad to Damascus. Although some of the Mongol rulers converted to Islam, their occupation had a devastating effect on the lands that had been the cultural, political, and economic center of the Muslim world. The loss of population in Iraq was so severe that it continues to be an under populated country today at the beginning of the twenty-first century. After the sack of Baghdad, the Mongols maintained control of the territory to the east of Iraq for the next century during which urban cultural life was neglected. The Mongols were not urban people, and they did not encourage the rebuilding of the cities. Even after they converted to Islam, they had a casual attitude toward religion which did not encourage the continued development of Muslim thought or art. They moved the Silk Route trade to the more northerly routes, closer to their own homeland, which eliminated Syria and Iraq from that lucrative business. In the meantime, Europeans discovered sea routes to India and China, eliminating the Middle East altogether as the intermediaries in that trade.
Tamerlane (1330-1405), also known as Timur the Lame, followed the Mongols making lightening conquests that stretched from Syria to India and well into Central Asia. The capital was located in Samarkand, today the capital of Uzbekistan, where he built major mosques, libraries, and study centers in the Persian style of architecture. The nomadic groups of Central Asia did not have developed urban traditions, and they tended to borrow from the Persians for architecture and the arts. Islam brought an overlay of urban civilization to Central Asia, but much of the society was, and even today is, organized primarily around clan and tribal identities.

The dramatic growth of Islam in the seventh century C.E. from a religion to a political and economic power linked many distinct cultural groups from Africa to Asia. Although Arabic cultural influence continues to be of central importance in Islam, most Muslims are not Arabs. The central Asian Muslims, such as the Uygurs, are Turks, not Arabs. Arabic is a second language to them which is used only in the practice of the religion, and many know little Arabic. Turks and Arabs were traditionally in contact with each other through the Silk Route carrying trade goods across the desert from China to trade centers on the Mediterranean. The Turks have been middle men, merchants, and long distance traders and China's intermediaries with the Muslim world and the West for centuries. Like most other groups in Asia, they were conquered during the Mongol expansion during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Most Turks remained in central Asia to become the Uygurs, Kazaks, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and others of today, and the central Asian homeland of the Turks today remains solidly Turk.
After 1258 the Arab core of the Middle East (Arabia, Syria, and Iraq) gradually lost its economic and political importance and its place as the center of a cosmopolitan world. However, Islam continued to expand into new areas, including Africa, Russia, and Central Asia. Since Egypt had historically played an important role in Africa, it was the catalyst for the expansion of Islam into that continent.

Conclusions

The Middle East has had profound cultural influence on much of the contemporary world. The religious heirs of Abraham in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam reflect the cultural brilliance of ancient Iraq, a cultural legacy that has been resurrected time and again throughout history from the Babylon to the Muslim fluorescence. The early civilizations produced a prolonged cultural golden age in the Middle East, and it would be repeated in recurring cycles during the later Arab and Turkish Empires. Many people in the Middle East today dream of the time when Islam will return to its historic role of power, wealth, and influence in the world.
Muslim dominance of the Middle East and much of Africa and Asia started by creating a world system of trade, cultural exchange, and religion during the 600 and 700's C.E. That dominance endured through different dynasties and empires up to the twentieth century when the Ottoman Empire fell. After that, political power fragmented in the Middle East, leaving no dominant Muslim powers in the region. Middle Eastern nationalism became the new force around which the region was re-organized, creating the modern nations. Although the Middle East has the longest history of civilization in the world, the organization of most of the contemporary countries only dates from recent decades. The oldest countries are also among the newest as the Middle East re-organizes to be a part of the contemporary world. The Muslim struggle to define the shape and values of their new countries is occurring at the same time that they are confronting the economic and cultural encroachments from the West.

Boxed Insert One. Time Line

Boxed Insert Two. Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) and Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406): Great Figures from the Fourteenth Century.
Ibn Batuta was the great traveler of the fourteenth century, and his descriptions of diverse world populations that he visited anticipate the development of cultural anthropology later. He was born in Tangier and studied Islamic law. When he was twenty-one, he traveled to Mecca, making the hajj, or pilgrimage. To arrive to Mecca he traveled across North Africa and Egypt. After completing the hajj, he traveled for another year throughout the Tigris-Euphrates region and down the east coast of Africa. Arriving back to Mecca, he heard that sultan of Delhi was offering good incomes to Muslim legal scholars, and he decided to go there. He traveled northward around the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea across south central Asia and arrived to India from the north. He stayed there for several years before traveling further to present day Myanmar, Indonesia, and China. At the age of forty-five he returned to Morocco traveling through India, the Middle East, and North Africa again. Later, he traveled to the Muslim kingdom in Spain and traveled with a caravan across the Sahara into Africa. He visited the territories of almost fifty modern nation-states in his travels. Although the description of his experiences, Travels in Asia and Africa, 1325-1354, ranks him with Marco Polo as one of the two most important cross-cultural observers of the time, his work is known by few in the West.

Just as Ibn Battuta anticipated anthropology, Ibn Khaldun was a scholar whose work ranged from history to philosophy of history and an early version of sociology. He was one of the first scholars to propose culture as the cause of differences in behavior between people of different groups, and he also approached history as a social science. In Universal History he attempted to create an integrated historical narrative based on a cyclical theory. He proposed that history is cyclical, and the source of cultural renewal comes from the nomadic people who invade cities, settle down, become urban dwellers themselves, then become mellow with the comforts of civilized living and fall prey to the invasion of the next wave of more vigorous nomadic people who in turn invade the city again. This was a cycle that could be observed in the history of those areas of the world where arid and well-watered lands were closely juxtaposed, such as North Africa and the river valleys of the Middle East. His proto-sociological work includes a study of the city of Baghdad in which he describes the various quarters of the city including their populations and institutions. He describes how the different quarters complement each other in occupations. When read today, this study still sounds amazingly contemporary.

Boxed Insert Four. Art and Religion in Islam
Islamic art is non-iconic, meaning that no figures are portrayed in the mosques or the Quran. Figures may be shown in secular literature and art, especially in the Persian tradition, but calligraphy is the dominant art form. The most important art forms are illustrated manuscripts, woven textiles (especially carpets in Central Asia), inlaid metalwork, glazed pottery, blown glass, carved wood, and architecture, especially mosque architecture where the elaborate designs of arches, columns and the Mihrab (prayer niche) reached exquisite levels. Islamic art that is religious is focused on manuscript illustration and mosque architecture. There are four major themes in Islamic art.
1) Calligraphy. Islamic design emphasizes calligraphy, as well as floral and geometric patterns. The power of the written word is most important, and calligraphy is considered the noblest form of art in Islam, much like the role of calligraphy in China and Japan. The calligraphic texts are almost invariably religious ones. The walls of mosques are covered with intricate vine-like patterns that are actually texts of the Quran written out in careful detail. Art and religion are fused in calligraphy and adorn architecture, manuscripts, and many other surfaces. The Ottomans made an art out of the calligraphy of the individual titles of the sultans. Calligraphy may also be used for more ordinary information, such as historic details or simply wishing the reader well. Arabic script spread to all areas of the world following Islam and became important in the arts of countries from Africa to Asia. In the first centuries of Islam, the Quran was written in Kufic script which is austere with straight heavy lines. Beginning in the 12th century, more flowing scripts were used, and these cursive scripts were more curvilinear in design. These scripts were especially important in mosque architecture. Script as design has spread from architecture to all media, including glass, metal, pottery, wood, stone, and textiles. Arabic script is also used to write other languages, such as Farsi, Turkish, and Urdu.
2) Geometric Designs. Geometric forms are used to create an almost unlimited variety of multi-colored patterns, and most frequently these designs are used on ceramic tiles used to decorate the walls of buildings. These designs are also used for inlaid woodwork for furniture and boxes, leather work, and book decoration including book covers.