THE CALIPHS UNDER BUYID CONTROL
The coming of Buyid rule in Baghdad from 945 lead to the almost complete collapse of the administration of the Abbasid caliphate and ushered in two generations of obscurity and impotence in which the ancient office seemed to many an irrelevant relic. A succession of caliphs lived in the remains of the Great Palace of the Caliphate (Dār al-khilāfa) on the banks of the Tigris, but much of it lay in ruins and their authority was confined within its walls. The caliph no longer had a vizier to manage his affairs since there were so few of them to manage, nor dīwāns for his administrators, for there were none, or barracks for his soldiers, for they had gone to serve other masters. He had a secretary and a modest retinue of domestic servants, an exalted title and an ancient genealogy, and that was all. Nor was his person secure: Muttaqī was deposed and blinded in 944 and Mustakfī killed in 949 when they aroused the anger of their military ‘protectors’.
The Buyids were complete outsiders in the world of the caliphate. They came from no famous tribe and until the beginning of the tenth century the family lived in obscurity as fishermen on the shores of the Caspian Sea. By a mixture of daring and ability, they took advantage of the debacle of the caliphate and by 945 made themselves masters of western Iran, Iraq and of Baghdad itself, and with it the person of the Abbasid caliph. The Buyids ruled in Shiraz, Rayy and Baghdad, but Baghdad was always the most prestigious, if no longer the most prosperous, of their capitals. They were also Shi
ites, though it is not entirely clear which sect of the Shia they belonged to. This meant that they had none of the respect for the Abbasids which other politicians and generals at the time had. It might have seemed logical for them to remove the Abbasids altogether and establish a caliph from the house of Alī. They chose not to do so, partly at least because they risked choosing a man whose authority and popular appeal would supplant their own, and who could dispense with them. Instead, it suited them to maintain an Abbasid presence. It attracted some support for their regime among the non-Shia population and it also gave them a constitutional legitimacy. They ruled as supporters of the dawla (the state or dynasty, meaning the Abbasids), and they took titles which meant ‘pillar of the dynasty’, ‘support of the dynasty’ (Rukn al-Dawla, Adud al-Dawla), and so forth. Everyone knew that this was at best a polite fiction, since the Buyids made all the decisions even in Baghdad, but it served its purpose. When the Fatimids conquered Egypt in 969, they made no effort to forge a Shiite alliance with them, instead remaining as protectors of the Abbasids.
Despite his powerlessness, the caliph could still be useful on some occasions to the Buyid rulers. In 980, when an ambassador from the rival Fatimid caliph in Cairo came to visit Adud al-Dawla, then ruler in Baghdad, the latter sought to impress him by the presence of his caliph, Tā’ī. The ambassador was led between serried ranks of troops to the presence of the caliph, hidden by a veil. When this veil was removed, the caliph could be seen, seated on a high throne surrounded by a hundred guards in brilliant robes with drawn swords. He wore the mantle of the Prophet and held his sceptre in his hands. Before him the Qur’ān of Uthmān was displayed. When the ambassador asked who this was, Adud al-Dawla replied, ‘This is the Caliph of God on earth,’ a clear rebuke to the pretensions of the Fatimids. Adud al-Dawla made a huge show of respect, kissing the caliph’s foot before being formally appointed to offices he already held: ‘I entrust you with the charge of my subjects whom God has committed to me in the east and in the west, with the exception of my personal and private property. Do you therefore assume charge of them?’ To which the Buyid replied in apparent humility, ‘God aid me in obedience to our Lord the Commander of the Faithful.’ The performance ended with the bestowal of robes of honour by the caliph.1 The ostentatious deference of Adud al-Dawla to the caliph was, as everyone knew, a charade, but the Abbasid caliphs soon began to assume a new and significant role as leaders of the Sunni community in Baghdad and the wider Muslim world.
Important developments took place in Baghdad at this time, which have striking and unhappy parallels in our own day. In the year 900 the Sunni and Shii communities were not sharply differentiated. There were certainly enthusiastic, even fanatical, supporters of the Family of the Prophet who were prepared to risk their lives for the cause, but many Muslims were simply that, part of the broad consensus of the umma. The uncertainties caused by the collapse of government in the tenth century led men to seek the protection of other like-minded people. What had been differences in religious opinion now became differences in political life. Baghdad became divided into sectarian communities, each intent on defending its own district. The Shiites worshipped in their own mosques and developed their own, exclusive festivals, especially the celebration of the Ghadīr Khumm, the pond between Mecca and Medina where, the Shia believe, Muhammad designated Alī as his heir. Their opponents, whom we can describe as proto-Sunnis, developed a rival festival of the Cave, the cave where Muhammad and Abū Bakr had hidden together to escape the persecutions of the Meccans. Graffiti artists wrote slogans on walls, cursing some of the early caliphs. Most people in Baghdad would accept the cursing of the Syrian Umayyad Muāwiya, but when the cursing was extended to Uthmān and, even worse, Abū Bakr and Umar (for depriving Alī of his rightful inheritance), anger rapidly developed into violence.
The Buyid regime became involved in these differences between the people, often supporting the Shia as a way of mobilizing popular forces against their enemies, who in turn began to look to the Abbasids for leadership. Until his death in 983 the greatest of the Buyid emirs, Adud al-Dawla, ruled the city with an iron hand, suppressing violence from whichever quarter it came: on one occasion he had the leaders of the Alid Shiites and the Abbasid party drowned together in the Tigris as a sign of his even-handed, no-nonsense justice.
When he died, his successors fought against each other to control his inheritance. As the power of the Buyid claimants was undermined by wars among themselves and increasing financial problems, the balance between the Buyids and the Abbasid caliphs began slowly to change. Increasingly Buyids needed the support in the city which the Abbasids were sometimes able to deliver and the caliph had much more scope for public action.
REINVENTING THE ABBASID CALIPH
In late 991 the Abbasid caliph Tā’ī held an audience for the new ruler of Baghdad, Bahā al-Dawla. The caliph wore a ceremonial sword and sat on his throne. The Buyid approached and, as protocol demanded, bowed his head to the ground in front of the caliph before being invited to take a seat beside him: the Buyids, for all their power, were still in theory servants of the dynasty. What happened next was definitely not in the caliph’s script. The Buyid troops approached the caliph, but instead of bowing down seized him by the strap of his sword, dragged him from his throne and took him prisoner to the Dār al-mamlaka, the Buyid centre of power in the city. Here Bahā al-Dawla declared the caliph deposed and announced that the new caliph was to be Tā’ī’s cousin Qādir, who was then a refugee in the marches of southern Iraq.
It was a public and obvious humiliation for the Abbasids (even if the deposed caliph was more fortunate than those of his predecessors who were blinded or murdered). However, even though no one probably realized it at the time, the incident marked a new beginning for the caliphate.
We have some fairly detailed descriptions of how Qādir was accepted as caliph. There were two oaths of allegiance: the first, a private oath (bayat al-khāssa) taken among the Abbasid family and the members of the caliphal household, and the second a public oath (bayat al-āmma) taken before a more general audience. The next stage was a ceremony at which the new caliph and his Buyid sponsor swore mutual oaths of loyalty to each other. In addition, a family agreement was made by which Bahā al-Dawla’s daughter would marry the new caliph, though in the event she died before the wedding ceremony could take place. Such dynastic alliances were becoming increasingly important at this time as a way in which dynasties of outsiders, like the Buyids and later the Seljuqs, could attach themselves to the genealogy of the Quraysh and the Abbasids.
The mention of the caliph’s name in the khutba (the Friday sermon) and on the sikka (coinage) were further acknowledgements of his status in the public eye. In the days when Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs were all-powerful, these symbols were more or less taken for granted, but by the end of the tenth century they were often contested and thereby more important. However, the Buyid army in Baghdad, demonstrating yet again the truculence with which soldiers at the time responded to their rulers, refused to allow the khutba to be made in Qādir’s name until each of them had received eighty dirhams.
Although both sermon and coinage were significant indicators of the caliph’s acceptance beyond the region of Baghdad and its immediate surroundings, there would be no such affirmations of loyalty, of course, in the areas of Syria and Egypt rule by the Shiite Fatimids, who had their own sermons and coinage proclaiming their caliphal title. The situation in Iran was even more complex and some, notably other members of the Buyid family, resented Bahā al-Dawla’s high-handed treatment of the previous caliph. But by the year 1000 Qādir’s name was almost universally acknowledged. In 1001 his position was further secured when his son was publicly accepted as heir apparent.
The naming of the caliph on coins is an invaluable piece of evidence for the historian. While chroniclers can make mistakes about complex events which happened long before their time, the evidence of the inscriptions on dated coins is more trustworthy and, by following them, we can trace the extent of the caliph’s recognition and note who were the local rulers who acknowledged him.
So what real authority did this imply? From Qādir to the death of the last Abbasid caliph, Mustasim, at the hands of the Mongols in 1258, caliphs exercised some limited power at two different levels. At one level they were, in a vague, undefined but still crucial way, heads of the Sunni Muslim community. Most thinkers believed that a caliph was necessary for the maintenance of the sharīa and true Islam. In some respects the caliph was a bit like the Hidden Imam of the Twelver Shiis, powerless but essential for the performance of true religion, except that the caliph was a live human being. At another level, the later Abbasids were rulers of a principality in central Iraq with its capital at Baghdad which became increasingly important within the regional politics of greater Mesopotamia, reaching its apogee in the long reign of Caliph Nāsir (1180–1225).
One of the ways in which Qādir could exercise real power was through the appointment of qādīs, or judges. While the appointment of local governors or military commanders was beyond his control, qādīs owed their position to the sharīa, of which the caliph could claim to be the guardian. Qādīs were often important figures in their own right because they came from influential families in their localities. In the mid-eleventh century, indeed, we find them acting as virtually independent rulers of towns. In 999 Qādir made a number of appointments in the Baghdad area, Wasit and in distant Jilan, in northern Iran. In fact, he did not limit himself to appointments but also sent letters of instruction and guidance. This was soft power to be sure, but power nonetheless.
Within Baghdad, Qādir asserted his leadership of the Sunni community in the city. Sometimes this took the form of direct intervention in the conflicts which plagued the city. In 1007, for example, a dispute had broken out when Sunnis were accused of burning a recension of the Qur’ān which the Shiites held in great respect. The Shiites gathered in protest, publicly cursing those involved, even going so far as to proclaim allegiance to the Fatimid caliph in Cairo, but the Qādir acted to support the Sunnis, sending members of his household to help. In the end, matters quietened down and the Shiite leaders went to the caliph to apologize.
A much more important element of Qādir’s policy was the staking of the claim to decide doctrine, and specifically Sunni doctrine, in distinction to any other forms of Muslim belief. The early Abbasid caliphs had not been, in the modern sense, Sunnis. Their claim to the caliphate was, after all, based on their membership of the extended Family of the Prophet and there was, at that time, no clearly defined body of belief which might be described as Sunni. Faced with the Shiite sympathies of his protectors the Buyids, and, much more challenging, the Fatimids claim to be the rightful caliphs of the whole Islamic world, Qādir decided to establish his leadership of the Sunni community in unambiguous terms. In 1017 he called on ‘innovators’, notably Mutazilite jurists (who believed in using philosophical logic to examine the mysteries of faith) to repent and stop their teaching. In 1029 he went much further in holding a series of public ceremonies in the Dār al-khilāfa, attended by the civil elite of Baghdad, in which a letter explaining correct beliefs and attacking Mutazilites and Shiites was read out. At the end of his life he had written a document in which he formulated Sunni beliefs in a clear and approachable way.2
The Qādiri Epistle (Risālat al-Qādiriya) is a comparatively short document and has none of the bombastic and convoluted language of, say, Walīd II’s letter about the appointment of his heir discussed earlier. In fact, it was obviously written for public circulation and information.
Having started, as we might expect, with an affirmation of God’s unity and eternity and a statement that He is the creator and lord of everything, Qādir denounces anthropomorphists, those who ascribe human attributes, especially speech, to God: ‘He speaks but not with organs like those of human beings.’ He also denounces in no uncertain terms anyone who believes in the createdness of the Qur’ān: ‘He who asserts that it is in any way “created” is an unbeliever whose blood it is permissible to shed, should he refuse to repent of his error when called upon to do so.’ After a general exhortation to faith, which can have no end because no one knows what God has recorded about him, he moves on to the most substantial issue which separated Sunnis from Shiis:
One must love all the Companions of the Prophet. They are the best of human beings after the Prophet. The best and noblest of them after the Prophet is Abū Bakr al-Siddiq, next to him Umar [I] b. al-Khattāb, next to Umar, Uthmān b. Affān and next to Uthmān, Alī b. Abi Tālib. May God bless them and associate with them in paradise and have compassion on the souls of the Companions of the Prophet.
He then introduces two figures who are much more controversial. The first is Muhammad’s wife Aisha, who had fought against Alī at the Battle of the Camel and whose alleged hostility to Alī made her a hate figure among the Shia: ‘He who slanders Aisha has no part or lot in Islam.’ Finally there is the first Umayyad caliph, Muāwiya, of whom ‘we should only say good things and refuse to enter into any controversy about him’. This acceptance of Muāwiya was something none of the Shia, whatever sect they belonged to, could accept.
This uncompromising list is followed by a general plea for tolerance among Muslims: ‘We should declare no one an unbeliever for omitting to fulfil any of the legal ordinances except the prescribed prayer,’ and a quote from the Prophet: ‘Neglect of prayer is unbelief, whoever neglects it is an unbeliever and remains so until he repents and prays’, to which he adds that the neglect of other injunctions does not make one an unbeliever. This seems to be a direct refutation of the Kharijites, and no doubt others, who held that sinners (that is, those who did not agree with them) were not Muslims but heathens, whom true Muslims should put to death unless they repented: ‘Such are the doctrines of the sunna and of the community.’ Qādir then concludes with an invocation to God for forgiveness and what should perhaps be an indication of the role of the caliph: ‘Let Him make us defenders of pious exercises and let Him forgive us and all the faithful.’
This is an interesting and impressive document, remarkable as much for what it does not say as what it does. There is no mention, for example, of the use of the Traditions of the Prophet as a source of law, no mention of fasting or the hajj or the prohibition of wine-drinking, all of which one might expect. Prayer is the only obligation absolutely incumbent on every Muslim. The reference to the caliph is understated and modest.
Just as important as the contents of the Epistle is the nature of its publication. It was read out in public assemblies, copies were sent to the provinces and Qādir’s son and successor Qā’im reissued it under his own authority. No one could be in any doubt that the caliph claimed the right and obligation to decide on and communicate the basis of Sunni religious practice. This was something new and different in the development of his office.
This took place against the backdrop of a rapidly changing political situation. The death of Bahā al-Dawla in 1012 ushered in a period of chaos in the Buyid state as different members of the family tried to assert their leadership and win over the loyalty of the army. As short-lived and impoverished claimants succeeded each other, the balance between the caliph and his ‘protectors’ changed. Now it was not the case that caliphs were in the thrall of the Buyids, who could replace them and humiliate them at will, but the Buyid claimants increasingly needed Qādir’s support and Qādir found himself in the position of being the intermediary between the Buyids and their armies as they tried to find a stable basis for their government, without any real success. The caliph did not, at this stage, have an army to call his own, but he was increasingly influential in Baghdad politics.
THE ABBASIDS AND THE COURT OF THE GHAZNEVID SULTANS
In eastern Iran, more important changes were afoot. At the end of the tenth century, the Samanid emirate which had controlled eastern Iran and Transoxania (modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) from its capital Bukhara for the best part of a hundred years began to disintegrate. The western part of their lands, in eastern Iran and the north of modern Afghanistan, were taken over by one of their ambitious slave soldiers, Sebuktagin, and his son Mahmūd. They founded a dynasty known from the name of its capital Ghazni, in eastern Afghanistan between Kabul and Qandahar, as the Ghaznevids. This new dynasty, now powerful monarchs but only one generation from slavery and paganism, needed a legitimizing discourse, a position among the patchwork of Islamic dynasts who surrounded them and something to impress the religious dignitaries of the great eastern Iranian cities, such as Nishapur and Balkh, of which they were now the lords.
It was Mahmūd who decided that an alliance with the Abbasid caliph would serve his interests best. There was a lot to be said for this policy. The Abbasids could endorse his titles as no one else could, but they were a long way away and needing support; their overlordship would not be burdensome. Furthermore, there was a religious justification. The Ghaznevid defined himself not just as a Muslim but as a Sunni Muslim. This meant that he was totally opposed to the Shiite Buyids but even more to the Rāfidis, the Isma’ilis and other Shii popular groups in Iran.
Mahmūd’s military power made him a formidable ally and enabled Qādir to appeal to him for support over the heads, as it were, of the Buyids. The alliance also introduced a major theme which would be important for the subsequent history of the caliphate: the connection between the Turks and the Sunni caliphate. It was with Mahmūd that this link first became established and to an extent the Seljuqs and Ottomans simply followed a pattern he had set. It is not easy to explain why Turkish dynasts were so drawn to these views and it may be that it was simply because the first Muslims the Turks came into contact with were Sunnis and they adopted their faith on conversion. Whatever the reason, Mahmūd made this connection with the reinvented Sunni Abbasid caliphate which was to be followed by the Turkish Seljuqs in the eleventh and twelfth centuries and the equally Turkish Mamluks in late medieval Egypt. The identification of the Turks with Sunni Islam has persisted to the present day: the modern Turkish republic and the Turkic-speaking areas of Central Asia—Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Khazakhstan and Kirghizstan—are firmly Sunni. Only in Iranian Azerbaijan do we find a substantial Turkish-speaking Shii population.
Qādir’s original heir apparent had died, of natural causes, long before his father. In 1030 the caliph, now a man in his eighties, appointed a new heir with the title of Qā’im. A description of the ceremony tells of the caliph, now almost too deaf to understand what was going on, receiving the prostration of some of his old enemies before the curtain which hid him in the first part of the audience was drawn apart to reveal the old man on his throne. No Buyid approval was needed for this, the then Buyid ruler in Baghdad was informed by letter and had no choice but to acquiesce; the caliph could make up his own mind.
Qādir eventually died in 1031 at the age of eighty-six after a reign of almost forty years. This in itself was remarkable and his son Qā’im was to continue this tradition of longevity: he died in 1075 after a reign of forty-four years. Such biological events had a more than random importance. None of the ‘great’ Abbasid caliphs of the earlier period had lived beyond their early sixties and many had died in their forties or earlier. Qādir and Qā’im both outlived almost all their political contemporaries and rivals: Buyid kings and Seljuq sultans followed each other in rapid succession. Only the caliphs lived on, increasingly venerable and increasingly respected. What accounts for this longevity is quite unclear. It is possible that a moderate lifestyle and abstinence from alcohol may have played their part, but we have no evidence for this. Certainly their largely static lifestyle—neither of them seems to have travelled far from Baghdad—does not suggest that fresh air and exercise were important factors. Be that as it may, the long lives and reigns of these two caliphs were central to the revival of caliphal power and prestige in this period.
Qā’im continued most of the policies of his father, including the alliance with the Ghaznevids. The importance of this relationship to both sides can be seen in the account of the reception at the Ghaznevid court in Balkh of the ambassador sent to announce the accession of Qā’im and to receive the baya from the new Ghaznevid sultan Masūd, who had succeeded his father the previous year. The reception, lasting from December 1031 to January 1032, is described in the Persian history of Bayhaqi, a courtier of the Ghaznevids and eyewitness, in which the importance of ceremonial in establishing legitimacy is described in fascinating detail.
At this time the Ghaznevids, ruled by Sultan Masūd (1030–41), son of the great Mahmūd, were the most powerful dynasty in eastern and central Iran and, from their base in Ghazni, controlled much of northern India. Furthermore, the dynasty had acquired huge prestige in the wider Muslim world because of their role in this jihād (the ‘Holy War’ of pillage and conquest) in the northern part of the subcontinent. With their powerful and well-organized army, which included many elephants, their core of experienced administrators and their resource base in the rich cities of Khurasan, the Ghaznevids seemed to have little need of the approval of the almost powerless caliph in distant, semi-ruined Baghdad.
This appearance of invincibility did, however, hide some significant weaknesses and anxieties. For all their military power and their starring role in the jihād in northern India, the Ghaznevids were still newcomers on the political scene. In 1031 the newly enthroned Masūd was the third generation to hold power, but there must have been many in Iran who remembered that his grandfather had been a slave from an obscure Turkish tribe in an out-of-the-way part of what is now Kirghizstan. Moreover, he was a first-generation convert to Islam. The family could claim no kinship with the Family of the Prophet or the heroes of the early Islamic state and they had no great pretensions to piety; indeed the public, formal consumption of wine in vast quantities at court was one of the defining features of their royal style. In these circumstances, it was very important to them to be granted the caliphal seal of approval. To be able to claim that they were servants of the Abbasid caliphs, who had appointed them to rule vast and populous areas of the eastern Islamic world, was of immense benefit. It gave them a recognizable position in the hierarchy of Muslim rulers, even if everyone knew that they had acquired their position by brute force and that the caliph had had little choice but to accept their position.
Mahmūd had forged close links with Caliph Qādir. They had mutual interests. The caliph, as we have seen, was intent on developing the religious and ideological aspects of his office and needed to find powerful supporters to accept this. Mahmūd of Ghazna, now firmly established as a ruler, had seen his opportunity. He proclaimed himself a loyal servant and protector of the caliph against the ‘heretic’ Buyids and pledged his loyalty to what was now clearly a Sunni caliphate. It was no coincidence that he also had his eye on many of the rich lands of western Iran presently slipping from the hands of the increasingly feeble Buyid princes. Who knows, he might well have had aspirations to establish his control in Baghdad itself and rule as a powerful Sunni protector of the caliph. Any such aspirations he may have had were ended by his death in 1030, but Masūd, always his father’s son, was determined to pursue the alliance with the Abbasids.
There were other, more specific areas in which caliphal support could be of benefit to the new Ghaznevid ruler. Masūd’s own accession had not been uncontested. He had been in central Iran with much of the army when his father had died in distant Ghazna. His half-brother Muhammad had taken control in the capital and was making a bid to be the next sovereign. There was no undisputed hereditary succession, no primogeniture to decide which of the two should succeed or, indeed, whether the Ghaznevid realm should be divided between them. For the moment, Muhammad had been defeated and was confined to prison in a castle near Ghazna, but he still had influential supporters and may well have been planning a comeback. Caliphal investiture of Masūd might well have persuaded many waverers that he was the legitimate ruler.
But there was another problem too. When the Samanid state had disintegrated, the Ghaznevids had seized control of the western and southern areas, but Transoxania, including the old Samanid capital at Bukhara, had been taken by a Turkish nomadic group generally referred to as the Qara Khanids or Black Khans. They had converted to Islam and had claims to be powerful Muslim rulers. They were also powerful rivals and intent on expanding their influence to the west of the great river Oxus in the cities of Khurasan and especially the rich inland delta of the Oxus known as Khwarazm, which had its own lords, nominally vassals of the Ghaznevids but always careful to maintain their autonomy. If the Ghaznevids were to retain control of these areas, it was vital that they secured the caliphal investiture which would convince both citizens of the towns and local lords that they were the legitimate sovereigns. The new caliph, however, might take some persuading to put all his resources into the Ghaznevids.
Bayhaqi begins his account3 with the report that the caliph Qādir had died and that his son Qā’im had been chosen to succeed him. The oath of allegiance had been taken by both the Abbasids and the Alids and all the people of Baghdad. Envoys had been sent out to the various provinces of the caliphate to request their oaths of allegiance and one Muhammad Sulaymānī had come to Khurasan for this purpose. The sultan and his counsellors met to decide what to do. There had not been a new caliph in the whole time of the Ghaznevid dynasty and there was no obvious precedent or rule to follow. They were really inventing a tradition which could be developed to boost the prestige of caliph and sultan alike and they realized this was a great opportunity to request the caliph’s political support and to display the sultan’s power to his subjects. Masūd was staying at Balkh at the time. The Ghaznevid court was itinerant, like many contemporary monarchies in western Europe, and the ruler and his whole court moved between the cities and hunting grounds of his realm. Balkh, sometimes referred to as the ‘mother of cities’, had very ancient origins going back to Achaemenid times if not before. It consisted of an ancient citadel surrounded by a shahristan, an inner city roughly circular in shape. In the shahristan were the great mosque and the bazaars, while outside the walls there were gardens and the palaces of the elite. Masūd chose to stay in a garden palace where there was space to house his troops and set up temporary offices for the government departments.
On Friday 3 December 1031 news came that the envoy was very close and the sultan ordered a reception committee of the sharīfs (nobles) of the Alids and other prominent citizens to go out and escort him in. It was important to send some men who spoke Arabic because there is no indication that the envoy spoke Persian, while many at the Ghaznevid court, including the sultan himself, had little or no Arabic. On 10 December, escorted by the notables of the town and a guard of honour of 1,000 troops, the envoy entered the city and was taken to his lodgings in a palace in the Alley of the Basket Weavers where ‘much delicately prepared food was immediately brought in’.
The envoy was allowed three days to recover from the rigours of the journey and was lavishly entertained. The sultan then ordered that he be brought into his presence. Before he arrived, Masūd had another private meeting with his main advisers to discuss how this encounter was going to be organized and how the letter pledging allegiance had been drafted. Thursday 19 December was the first day of the new Muslim year (423). Already by dawn 4,000 troops were on parade, all in full military regalia, including belts, swords, quivers and bow cases, and each soldier was dressed in a brocaded coat from Tustar, a city in southern Iran well known for the production of fine textiles. They stood in two lines so that the envoy would pass between them and be left in no doubt as to the power of a state which could muster so many soldiers and equip them with such gorgeous uniforms. The procession which took him to the palace was accompanied by trumpets and various types of drums, including those which were carried on the backs of elephants—‘one would have said it was the Day of Resurrection’—and Muhammad Sulaymānī was much impressed, having never seen anything like this in the modest court of the caliph in Baghdad.
When Sulaymānī, dressed in Abbasid black, reached the palace, he found the sultan sitting on his throne surrounded by courtiers, the grand vizier standing by his side. He was invited to sit and the sultan asked him how the caliph was. This was the cue for him to announce the bad news of Qādir’s death and the good news of Qā’im’s accession. The grand vizier then requested that he present the letter he had brought and so he stood up and walked to the throne, taking the letter out of its black silk pouch. He then called on one of the courtiers to read out the latter in Arabic and then to translate it into Persian so that everyone (including the sultan himself) could understand. When this had been done, the envoy was escorted back to his lodgings with great ceremony.
The next day was to be the start of mourning for the dead caliph. The sultan wore a white headcloth and a white robe, white being the colour of mourning, and all his courtiers did the same. The bazaars were closed and people of all ranks came in groups to offer their condolences. After three days the mourning ended and drums were beaten to announce the reopening of the bazaars.
The next stage of the ceremonies was to acknowledge the new caliph. This was to take place at the great mosque in the centre of the city. The sultan summoned Alī b. Mikāl, a member of a well-known Persian family who held the office of chief of the notables of the city and who had been put in charge of the arrangements. Alī was ordered to decorate the street which led from the gate where the palace was situated to the great mosque. Ornamental arches were also to be erected on platforms. Alī summoned the leading citizens and for the whole week, Monday to Thursday, they transformed the street so that ‘no one could remember seeing Balkh like it’. They carried on working all Thursday night and by dawn on Friday everything was ready.
That morning the sultan held court and gave instructions that the people should come in an orderly fashion to witness the procession, should be careful not to damage the arches and other decorations and should not make any noise or indulge in any jollity or merrymaking until after he and the envoy had passed. The onlookers could do then as they pleased, for he intended to return to his palace by another route outside the walls. Black-robed attendants were appointed to make sure the populace behaved themselves and played their part in this dignified pageant.
At noon the sultan mounted his horse. The 4,000 troops who had served as the guard when the envoy had first come to the city led the procession with their commander in the rear. They were followed by the sultan’s personal guard, carrying his standard, the major dignitaries of the court and then the sultan himself. He in turn was followed by the grand vizier and Alī b. Mikāl escorting the envoy and the civilian elite of the city, the judges and learned ulama. It was all very sedate and disciplined, with not a sound to be heard apart from the drums and the attendants ordering people to stand back.
Once they reached the mosque they found the minbar covered from top to bottom with brocade woven with golden thread. The sultan and his courtiers sat at the foot of the pulpit while the khatīb, the official preacher, gave the sermon and formally invoked the name of the new caliph. After that the sultan’s treasurers came up and laid purses full of coins by the minbar, first in his name and then in the names of his sons and his courtiers, until a vast sum of money had been collected. All this was to be taken to Baghdad and given to Caliph Qā’im. After that the court dispersed: the sultan and his immediate entourage made their way back to the palace while Alī b. Mikāl escorted the envoy through the bazaars past the stalls in the market, now thronging with people, back to his lodgings where an elaborate reception had been prepared. Meanwhile the people of the city celebrated enthusiastically.
The next day was reserved for business. The grand vizier and other advisers were to draw up the formal agreement (ahd) which Sulaymānī was to take back to Baghdad for the caliph to sign. After the vizier had consulted with his colleagues, Sulaymānī was summoned. It looks as if there was some fairly hard bargaining. The sultan would accept the agreement which had been brought from Baghdad, subject to certain conditions. Masūd was to be invested with lands which were significantly more extensive than the ones he presently controlled. Among these were ‘all of Sind and Hind [India]’ and, more controversially, the whole of the western Iranian plateau as far as the pass of Hulwan. This would bring his forces to the edge of the Iraqi plain, only a short distance from Baghdad itself. The caliph was also to promise that he was not to enter into any direct correspondence with the Qara Khanids of Transoxania, nor to give them honorific titles or robes of honour, but was to use the Ghaznevids as intermediaries. This, the advisers claimed, had been the position under the great Mahmūd of Ghazna and they wanted it to be restored. In addition, the caliph was to give permission for Ghaznevid armies to attack Kirman in southern Iran and Oman on the other side of the Gulf. The Qarāmita heretics in Bahrayn were also to be annihilated. The sultan’s officials were frank about their motivations: ‘a vast army has been assembled and we need more territory. The army must be put to work.’ An army which did not bring in more resources was an intolerable burden on the state.
There was more to come. If not for the respect Masūd had had for the caliph, he would have been forced to launch an attack on Baghdad itself. In fact, had it not been for his father’s death and the need to return east, ‘at the present time we would have been in Syria and Egypt’. The sultan explained that, although he was on good terms with the Buyid rulers of central and western Iran, they must be more vigilant in respecting the caliphate and restoring it to its former dignified state. Above all, they must protect the pilgrim route. The sultan’s subjects had been instructed to prepare for the hajj and had been promised that they would be accompanied by one of his commanders. If they did not protect the pilgrims the Ghaznevids would ‘act strongly’. For they were ‘answerable to God Most High since there has been imposed on [them] not only great power and prestige but also countless troops all fully equipped and ready for action’. The mixture of pious justification and military menace was clear. Sulaymānī agreed that all this sounded fair and reasonable and the sultan’s officials went to tell him, as he had not been present, everything that had been agreed.
With the business completed, it was time for the envoy to depart. The leading courtiers were assembled and the document pledging allegiance to the caliph, which had been drafted in Arabic, was translated into a Persian ‘as fine and delicate as a Byzantine brocade’. The Arabic version and the Persian translation were presented to Sulaymānī, who read them both out and agreed that the Persian was an accurate translation of the text and that he would commend it to the Commander of the Faithful. Then the sultan read the Persian version with great eloquence: ‘Amongst the monarchs of this house,’ the author tells us, ‘I have never known anyone who could read and write Persian the way he did.’ When he had finished, the royal inkstand was brought and he signed his name at the foot of both the Arabic and Persian texts. Then the grand vizier and the officials present wrote their signatures as witnesses. The Turkish commander of the army, Begtughdī, did not know how to write, so a courtier signed for him.
Then the question arose of the presents Sulaymānī was to take back with him to Baghdad. The grand vizier replied, perhaps rather surprisingly, that generous amounts of indigo for the caliph and the courtiers was the traditional gift, though where he got this idea from is not clear. In addition, of course, the envoy was to take all the gifts which had been presented at the mosque. The grand vizier also looked back to precedents. He said that he had read in historical accounts that when Caliph Mutamid had sent an envoy to Amr b. Layth the Saffarid on his accession a century and a half before, in 879, the envoy was sent back with a gift of 100,000 dirhams. When the envoy returned from the caliph, bringing with him the banner (liwā) which symbolized the conferment of office on Amr and a document from the caliph to that effect, he and his mission were given 700,000. This example was to be followed; Sulaymānī would be given 100,000 dirhams at this stage, but when he returned with the caliph’s signature, then he would be given whatever the sultan saw fit. The sultan agreed that this was sound sense.
Then a list was made of further gifts: generosity was one of the hallmarks of a powerful ruler. There were to be 100 pieces of high-value clothing, ten of them woven with gold thread, fifty containers of musk, 100 pastilles of camphor, 200 bales of linen of the highest quality, fifty excellent Indian swords, a golden goblet filled with pearls, twenty fine rubies from Badakhshan (in north-east Afghanistan, then part of the sultan’s domains), ten sapphires, ten Khurasani horses with satin brocade caparisons and head covers, and five valuable Turkish slaves. It was an eclectic list to say the least.
Then Sulaymānī was given personal presents, including riding animals and equipment and 100,000 dirhams for his personal use. On 9 January 1032 he finally set out, having spent some three weeks in Balkh. Typically for Masūd’s court, a spy was attached to his retinue to report back on everything which went on.
At the end of his long account, Bayhaqi appends copies of the Arabic letters which were exchanged at this point. To say they are grandiloquent would be an understatement; they are a masterclass in classical Arabic epistolary rhetoric. At the same time the substance and detail are quite limited. The caliph’s begins with a long, pious introduction about God’s favour to Muhammad and the caliphs and the inevitability of fate. Blessings are called upon his father and predecessor Qādir. Eventually he explains how he became caliph because of the designation by his father. He then held a general court at which the prominent members of the court, the supporters of the dynasty and religious figures, judges, religious lawyers and court witnesses all stretched out their hands to swear allegiance. Finally he praises Masūd for his qualities and his obedience and asks him to swear allegiance publicly through his envoy Muhammad Sulaymānī before calling down elaborate blessings on all concerned.
The sultan’s reply is equally rhetorical, full of fine phrases and short of information. He swears genuine and unshakeable allegiance to the caliph, his lord (sayyid), though exactly what this might entail is not specified. Certainly, there is no concrete mention of military or financial support. He takes the oath by the Qur’ān, as one might expect, but also by the Jewish Torah, the Christian Gospels and the Psalms of David, and he finishes by a very extended indemnity clause in which he states that if he breaks this oath all his possessions, including slaves, should be given to the poor and any wives he has or will marry should be irrevocably divorced. Finally he will make the hajj to Mecca thirty times, on foot, not riding.
The sultan received the caliphal investiture in the time-honoured fashion for all his subjects to see. But however much the caliph’s deed and banner meant to the Ghaznevids they could not save Masūd from his fate. In the middle of the celebrations, news arrived of Turkmen raids from the desert on the eastern frontiers of the Ghaznevid state and many of the soldiers who had attended the celebrations were ordered to march out and confront them. It was a sign of things to come. Within a decade, the Ghaznevid army had been defeated and driven out of Khurasan by the Turkmen under their Seljuk rulers, the sultan was dead and the power of his successors was reduced to a small area of northern and eastern Afghanistan. The caliph, for all his high-sounding rhetoric, was neither willing nor able to help him and his investiture counted for nothing when the Ghaznevids were faced with the uncouth military power of the Turkish nomads.
ABBASID CALIPHS AND SELJUQ SULTANS
The caliphates of Qādir and Qā’im mark a moment when the Abbasid caliphs tried to assert a spiritual leadership in the Islamic world. The issuing of Qādir’s Epistle, with its attempt to codify Sunni beliefs, the appointment of qādīs and the elaborate approval given to leaders such as Masūd of Ghazna were all signs that the caliphate mattered, but they were not signs of military power.
In the almost two centuries between the death of Qā’im in 1075 and the Mongol conquest of Baghdad in 1258, successive Abbasid caliphs worked and struggled to maintain their position in a political world of almost mind-boggling complexity. In 1058–9 Qā’im had survived an attempted takeover of Baghdad itself by a military adventurer acting on behalf of the Fatimid caliph of Egypt and, for the only time in history, the pulpits of Baghdad had proclaimed a Shiite caliph. The coming of the Turkish Seljuq rulers, with their commitment to Sunni Islam and clear hostility to the Fatimids, put an end to that danger, but the Seljuqs could be demanding protectors. Fortunately for the Abbasids, they did not seek to make Baghdad their capital, preferring to rule from Iranian cities like Isfahan, Nishapur and Merv, but they did want to control the city and constrain the caliph.
In 1092 both the great Seljuq sultan Malik Shāh and his all-powerful vizier Nizām al-Mulk died and the Seljuq family embarked on a pattern of civil wars which was to last almost the whole of the twelfth century and destroy their once powerful state. Increasingly, as had happened with the Buyids, the Seljuq warlords became dependent on the Abbasids, not the other way round. The caliphs could give their mandate to one prince and remove it from another. They also controlled Baghdad and through the twelfth century built up what was effectively an independent state in southern Iraq, stretching from Takrit to the head of the Gulf. In Baghdad itself authority was divided, often uneasily, between the Dār al-khilāfa, the ancient palace of the caliphs, and the Dār al-mamlaka, the palace where the Seljuq military governor resided. Gradually the Abbasids began to recover some of the attributes of temporal sovereignty which their ancestors had enjoyed. The caliphs again had viziers to run an expanded administration and in 1125 Caliph Mustarshid (1118–35) led an army in the field against an aggressive prince of Hilla, who had attached himself to the Shiite cause. Caliph Muqtafī (1136–60) used his increased revenues to build up a new army recruited not from Turks but from Greeks and Armenians who had converted to Islam. The caliphs often set themselves up as protectors of Baghdad and its inhabitants against the warring bands of Turkish troops. They claimed the moral high ground in the city as well, championing Sunni against Shiite and closing down wine shops, often run by agents of the Seljuq princes.
There were also advances on the international stage. In 1086 the new Almoravid ruler of Muslim Spain and Morocco, Yūsuf b. Tashfīn, who had just inflicted a major defeat on King Alfonso VI of Castile, was advised by the religious lawyers that ‘It is proper that your authority should come from the caliph to make obedience to you incumbent on all and sundry.’ So he sent an envoy to Caliph Mustazhir, Commander of the Faithful, with a large gift and a letter in which he mentioned the Frankish territories which God had conquered (at his hands) and his efforts to bring victory to Islam, and he also requested investiture with rule over his lands. A diploma granting him what he wished for was issued from the caliphal chancery and he was given the (newly invented) title of Commander of the Muslims. Robes of honour were also sent to him and he was greatly delighted with this.4 In 1229 the ruler of Delhi, Iltutmish, requested investiture from Caliph Mustansir (1226–42). He was granted the title of Great Sultan and confirmed in all his possessions. The document was solemnly read out in a vast assembly and from then on Iltutmish put the caliph’s names on his coins. His successors followed his example.5 It is worth noting that neither Spain and Morocco nor northern India had ever been ruled by the Abbasids at the height of their political power.
In 1097 the first Crusaders, known to the Muslims as Franks, marched from France and other areas of western Europe and appeared in the Middle East. In 1099 they conquered the city of Jerusalem, holy to Muslims as well as Christians and Jews, and made it the capital of a new Latin Christian kingdom. Other Crusader principalities were created in the following decades in Tripoli, Antioch in the north of Syria, and even distant Edessa (Urfa in southern Turkey), until the whole of the eastern coast of the Mediterranean was ruled by these infidel intruders. For almost 200 years there was a Frankish military presence on the coastal areas of Syria and Palestine, an infidel presence in the heart of the Dār al-Islam. It would seem that this was an obvious opportunity for the Abbasid caliphs to seize the initiative and to lead, or at least coordinate, the Muslim response. Muslims at the time certainly thought so and groups of refugees from the occupied cities made their way to Baghdad in the hope of attracting caliphal support. In the event, no caliph participated actively in the campaigns or ventured far from Baghdad. None of them seems to have been prepared to take the leadership of Muslims or to undertake the traditional caliphal role of defending Islam against non-Muslim enemies. In hindsight it can perhaps be seen as a lost opportunity to revive the ancient role and prestige of the office. Instead the caliphs gave their blessings, but not much more, to those military leaders who attempted to combat the invaders. The great Saladin, ruler of Muslim Syria and Egypt from 1174 until his death in 1193, proclaimed that he was leading the Muslims in jihād, as the servant of Caliph Nāsir (1180–1225), but relations between the two men were generally cool and cautious, both sides being careful not to antagonize the other while not cooperating in any meaningful way. In a letter Saladin sent to Frederick Barbarossa, emperor of Germany, when he knew that Frederick was joining the Third Crusade, he threatened that ‘If we instruct the Caliph of Baghdad, God save him, to come to us, he will rise up out of the high throne of his empire and he will come to aid our excellence’6—but he was ‘calling spirits from the vasty deep’: at no time did the caliph stir himself.
It was also during the Crusades that western Europeans began to hear about caliphs and the word begins to appear in Latin and Old French. Authors tried to compare the authority of the caliph with that of the pope over the Latin Church. The Arabic chronicler Ibn Wasil, who had spent some time at the Hohenstaufen court in southern Italy in the early thirteenth century, commented: ‘According to them [the Franks], the Pope in Rome is the khalīfa of the Messiah and the one acting in his place. He has the right to ban and to permit . . . He crowns the kings and nominates them. Nothing is done on their Holy Law [sharīa] except with his consent. He has to be a priest.’7 There were some similarities. Both ruled over a small state, the popes in Rome and the caliphs in Baghdad, but aspired to a spiritual leadership over a much wider area. Both could provide legitimacy by granting investiture to newly established rulers, as Mustazhir did to the Almoravid Ibn Tashfīn and Gregory VII did for Rudolf of Swabia in 1080. But there were many more differences. The popes, from Gregory VII to Innocent IV (1073– 1216), built up a commanding authority over the western Church which enabled them to summon councils, decide doctrine and have a major influence on the choice of bishops throughout western Europe. The caliph, by contrast, had no authority over doctrine and little if any influence in the choice of qādīs or other religious leaders outside Baghdad and the immediately surrounding area.
In one way the twelfth century did see an expansion of the caliph’s theoretical authority. In 1171 Saladin conquered Egypt, putting an end to the Fatimid caliphate, and one of his first actions was to arrange that the sovereignty of the Abbasid caliph be proclaimed from the pulpits of Cairo. The long years of struggle for power and influence in the Muslim world between the Sunni Abbasids of Baghdad and the Shii Fatimids of Cairo were brought to a close: there was now only one caliphate, the Abbasid, with universal pretensions—even if these meant little in practical terms.
None of the caliphs of the twelfth century had the opportunity or perhaps the personality to develop the sort of reputation that great rulers of the early Abbasid period, such as Mansūr, Hārūn al-Rashīd or Ma’mūn, had enjoyed, but some of them at least had a reputation for good government in their own area around Baghdad. Of Mustazhir (d. 1118) it was said:
He was (God be pleased with him) gentle and noble in character. He loved to shower benefits on people and do good. He was eager to perform pious acts and good deeds. His efforts were appreciated and he never refused a favour that was asked of him.
He showed great trust in those he appointed to office, not hearkening to any slanderer nor paying attention to what such a one might say. Capriciousness was unknown to him, nor did his resolution wilt under the urging of those with special interests.
His days were days of happiness for his subjects, like festive days, so good they were. When he heard of that, he rejoiced and was very happy. When any sultan or deputy of his set out to harm anyone, he did all he could to condemn and prevent it.
He had a good hand and his minuting of documents was excellent. No one came near him in that, which showed his rich culture and wide learning.8
He was also, and unusually for a ruler of his time, something of a poet:
‘The heat of passion melted what had frozen in my heart
When I stretched forth my hand for the formal farewell.
How shall I fare along the path of patient endurance,
Seeing my paths over the chasm of love to be cords?
A new moon whom I loved has broken his promise
After my fate had fulfilled what it promised.
If I break the compact of love in my heart
After this, may I never behold him more.’
It is interesting to reflect on the love interests of caliphs and other elite figures as revealed in their poetry. It would apparently have been out of the question for any caliph to write poetry to a free woman. Early Abbasid courtiers and rulers could express their love for unfree singing girls, who might be slaves but who were, at least in the land of poetry, coquettishly free to reject their master’s advances. In the more austere and military world of the twelfth century the singing girls are distant memory. Only the handsome young man is a proper and decent subject for a caliph’s passion.
We have a revealing account of how the Abbasid caliph appeared to an outside visitor in 1184 in Ibn Jubayr’s Travels.9 Ibn Jubayr was an Andalusi (from Muslim Spain) and a pious but keen observer. He made the hajj from his distant homeland and after he had completed his pilgrimage made a sort of grand tour through Iraq, Syria and the Crusader states before boarding an Italian ship in Acre to take him home. As a secretary working for the government of the Almohad caliphate, one might have thought that he would dismiss the Abbasid caliphate. In fact, he is interested and respectful, although he reserves his real admiration for Saladin, then preparing for his epic struggle with the Crusaders.
He describes the city of Baghdad, partly in ruins but still boasting numerous baths and congregational mosques, including the one built by Mansūr, ancient but remaining in use, and the innumerable boats in which people crossed the river since the bridge of boats had been washed away by floods. He also mentions the ‘famous Baghdad hospital’:
It is on the Tigris and every Monday and Thursday physicians visit it to examine the state of the sick and prescribe for them what they might need. At their disposal are persons who undertake the preparation of the foods and the medicines. The hospital is a large palace, with chambers and closets and all the appurtenance of a royal dwelling. Water comes into it from the Tigris.
He honours both of the tombs of the descendants of Alī, ‘may God hold him in his favour’, and also of the great Sunni legal scholars Abū Hanīfa and Ahmad b. Hanbal. He even records, without passing judgement, seeing the tomb of the famous early tenth-century mystic Hallāj, executed for heresy on the orders of Caliph Muqtadir, before turning to the caliph himself:
All the Abbasids live in sumptuous confinement in those palaces, neither going forth nor being seen, having settled stipends. A large part of these palaces are used by the Caliph himself and he has taken the high balconies, the splendid halls and the delightful gardens. Today he has no vizier, only an official called the deputy of the vizierate who attends the council which deals with the property of the Caliph and who holds the books and controls the affairs. He has an Intendant over all the Abbasid palaces and an amīn over the harem, remaining from the time of the Caliph’s father and grandfather, and all those included in the Caliph’s own harem. He appears little before the public, being busy with his affairs concerning the palaces, their guardianship, the responsibility for their locks and their inspection night and day. . . .
We saw him one day going forth, preceded and followed by the officers of the army, Turks, Daylamites and others, and surrounded by about fifty drawn swords in the hands of the men about him. . . . He has palaces and balconies on the Tigris. The Caliph would sometimes be seen in boats on the Tigris, and sometimes he would go into the desert to hunt. He goes forth in modest circumstance to conceal his state from the people, but despite this concealment his fame only increases. Nevertheless, he likes to appear before the people and show affection to them. They consider themselves fortunate in his character for in his time they have obtained ease, justice and good-living and, great and small, they bless him. We saw this Caliph Ahmad al-Nāsir, whose lineage goes back to Muqtadir and beyond him to his ancestors the (Abbasid) caliphs, may God hold them in His favour, in the western part of his balcony there. He had come down from it and went up the river in a boat to his palace further up the east bank. He is a youth in years with a beard which is short but full, is of handsome shape and good to look on, of fair skin, medium stature and comely aspect. He is about twenty-five years of age. He wore a white dress like a full-sleeved gown embroidered with gold, and on his head was a gilded qalansuwa encircled with black fur of the costly and precious kind used for royal clothes, such as that of the marten or even better. His purpose of wearing this Turkish dress was the concealment of his state, but the sun cannot be hidden even if veiled. This was the evening of 6 Safar 580 [20 May 1184] and we saw him again the following Sunday, looking down from his balcony on the west bank. It was nearby this that we lodged.
Ibn Jubayr then describes the caliph’s mosque next door to the palace, which was vast and had excellent ablution facilities. There was also a mosque of the sultan (that is the Seljuq rulers) outside the city walls where their palace had been. The Seljuqs used to control the affairs of the caliph but no longer had such influence. In another mosque, in Rusafa, were the tombs of the Abbasid caliphs ‘may God’s mercy rest on their souls’. He finishes his account with a poetic reflection on the vanished glories of Baghdad:
The state of this city is greater than can be described. But ah, what is she to what she was! Today we may apply to her the saying of the lover:
‘You are not you, and the houses are not those I knew.’
Ibn Jubayr points out the prosperity the caliph’s rule brought to the city and there is no mention of any Seljuq officials: they are a thing of the past. When he leaves Baghdad with returning pilgrims, they are accompanied by a troop of the caliph’s soldiers to protect them from the Bedouin—the caliph thereby fulfilling, at least in part, the ancient caliphal duty of safeguarding the hajj. On the other hand, there is no mention of him attending Friday prayers in his mosque, even though it was next door to his palace, or of any public receptions. Ibn Jubayr hears about him, no doubt because he asked lots of questions, and sees him in the distance, but there is no question of approaching him or having an audience.
This silver age of the Abbasid caliphate reached its apogee in the long reign of Nāsir (1180–1225), the caliph Ibn Jubayr saw as a young man. Nāsir went on to build a strong state in central and southern Iraq and to make the Abbasid caliphate an important regional power. And that is all it was. The Fatimids no longer provided a Shiite challenge to the Abbasids and the Isma’ilis were confined to their mountainous strongholds in coastal Syria and northern Iran. The revived caliphate no longer had any pretensions to universal power or wider religious authority, the Abbasid caliphs were simply one, and not necessarily the most powerful, of the dynasts who sought to expand their power in the Fertile Crescent.
DISASTER: THE MONGOL CONQUEST OF 1258
The later years of Nāsir’s reign saw the emergence of a new threat to the entire political order in the Middle East: the invasions of the Mongols. Mongol power had been growing in eastern Asia from the end of the twelfth century and by 1206 Genghis Khan ruled over a nomad empire which dominated the steppes to the north of the Great Wall of China. The Mongols posed no threat to the Islamic world until 1217 when, in response to a foolish provocation by a local eastern Iranian ruler, Genghis launched a devastating attack on Iran. Great centres of Islamic civilization like Samarqand, Merv and Nishapur were destroyed and their populations massacred or driven west as refugees. For a generation or so the conquests stalled and then, from 1256, Genghis’s grandson Hulegu renewed the push to the west. His intention was to secure Mongol control over the whole of Iran and Iraq. Two groups posed a challenge to this domination. One was the Isma’ili Assassins in their castle of Alamut in northern Iran, who had successfully resisted all the attempts of the Seljuq Turks to subdue them, and the other was the Abbasid caliphs of Baghdad.
Two centuries before, the arrival of the Seljuq Turks from the east had presented both a danger and an opportunity to the caliphs, for they were, at least nominally, converted to Islam and their rulers sought to be integrated into the Muslim political world. The caliphs could, and did, do business with them. It was a very different story with the Mongols. They were not Muslims and sought domination rather than integration. For them the Abbasid caliphs, with their claims to be leaders of the whole Muslim community, were a threat they could not allow to remain. So it was that, in 1257, Hulegu directed his forces to Baghdad.
At the end of January 1258, after a siege of more than a month, the city was stormed and Caliph Mustasim taken prisoner and brought to Hulegu’s camp. What followed became the stuff of legend, or rather a number of different legends.10 There are a few contemporary or near contemporary accounts in Arabic and Persian sources and they have very different views. One group was the pro-Abbasid Sunni historians. The first of these was our old friend Ibn al-Sāī who lived in Baghdad through the conquest and included an account of the death of the last caliph of Baghdad in his short History of the Caliphs. For him, the fall of Baghdad was the result of the treachery of Ibn al-Alqamī the vizier of the last Abbasid caliph. He was a Shiite and was determined to take revenge for an attack on the Shiite quarter of Baghdad by the Caliph’s troops. It was he who wrote to Hulegu inviting him to take the city and it was he who persuaded the unfortunate caliph, and the Sunni elites of the city, to come to Hulegu’s camp where they were all put to death, though quite how is not clear: “it was reported that he (the caliph) was drowned, strangled or put in a bag and kicked until he died”. There then followed the sack of the city and the massacre of the inhabitants and “it is said that they used the books of Baghdad’s libraries to build stable for their horses”. According to later Arabic sources, the execution was carried out by having the caliph and his sons put in two great sacks and trampled to death. In the Mongol scale of values, killing a man without shedding his blood was an expression of respect. But the thirty-seventh and last Abbasid caliph of Baghdad may have missed the point of this compliment as Hulegu’s horses pounded him to extinction.
This then was the Sunni narrative; the blameless caliph was betrayed by his Shiite vizier. As might be expected a radically different story was developed in Shiite and pro-Mongol circles. The story seems to go back to the account of Nāsir al-Dīn al-Tūsi (d. 1274). He was a philosopher and scientist who had joined the Isma’ili Assassins in Alamut but later attached himself to the entourage of the Mongol Hulegu. In his account the blame for what happened lay with the vacillating caliph and his Sunni courtiers. Hulegu (“King of the World and source of peace and security”) had asked the caliph to send him troops to help in the siege of Alamut, but the caliph was persuaded to refuse because this was a ruse to deprive him of his soldiers. Hulegu was furious and the caliph tried to appease him with gifts of gold plate and other valuables. When hauled into the conqueror’s presence, the starving caliph was told to eat the gold and silver and when he said that he could not, he was reproached for his miserliness. He was then put to death in some unspecified way.
This account formed the basis of the moralising legend which appears in western sources in the late thirteenth century. The earliest surviving narrative comes from the Frenchman Jean de Joinville (d. 1317), in his biography of the crusading French king Louis IX. The story was taken up by Marco Polo and popularised, who travelled through the Middle East at the end of the thirteenth century.
In this tale, the caliph was brought before Hulegu and shown all the gold and silver plate which had been taken from his treasuries. Then Hulegu told him that he had to eat the possessions he had loved so much. When the caliph objected that they could not be eaten, Hulegu asked why he had not used them to send him gifts to dissuade him from launching an attack or to raise more soldiers to defend his city. Then the caliph was confined in prison, surrounded by his treasures, and starved to death.
The fall of Baghdad and the brutal death of its caliph were at one level simply another grim incident in an era which had witnessed more than its share of massacre and murder. As we have noted, there was no widespread and immediate sense of shock or general lamentation in the Muslim world. But later generations looking back on these events would realize that they marked the end of a long story. Never again would the caliphate be a politically independent entity; as we shall see, it would always be subordinate to Mamluk or Ottoman rulers and priorities. While the papacy has, precariously at some times, maintained its political independence to this day, the caliphate lost it in 1258 and it was never revived. With this political independence, gone too were any real aspirations to a leadership which went beyond self-interested dynastic concerns.