49


 




 

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


VER the two millennia that followed the establishment
of empires in Mesopotamia, various attempts at empire-
building took place across the region and in the area to the
west and east of it.
By the sixth century BCE, Iranians had established control over
major parts of the Assyrian empire. Networks of trade developed
overland, as well as along the coasts of the Mediterranean Sea.
In the eastern Mediterranean, Greek cities and their colonies benefited
from improvements in trade that were the result of these changes.
They also benefited from close trade with nomadic people to the north
of the Black Sea. In Greece, for the most part, city-states such as
Athens and Sparta were the focus of civic life. From among the Greek
states, in the late fourth century BCE, the ruler of the kingdom of
Macedon, Alexander, undertook a series of military campaigns and
conquered parts of North Africa, West Asia and Iran, reaching up to
the Beas. Here, his soldiers refused to proceed further east. Alexander’s
troops retreated, though many Greeks stayed behind.
Throughout the area under Alexander’s control, ideals and cultural
traditions were shared amongst the Greeks and the local population.
The region on the whole became ‘Hellenised’ (the Greeks were called
Hellenes), and Greek became a well-known language throughout. The
political unity of Alexander’s empire disintegrated quickly after his
death, but for almost three centuries after, Hellenistic culture remained
important in the area. The period is often referred to as the ‘Hellenistic
period’ in the history of the region, but this ignores the way in which
other cultures (especially Iranian culture associated with the old empire
of Iran) were as important as – if not often more important than –
Hellenistic notions and ideas.
This section deals with important aspects of what happened after
this.
Small but well-organised military forces of the central Italian city-
state of Rome took advantage of the political discord that followed the
disintegration of Alexander’s empire and established control over North
Africa and the eastern Mediterranean from the second century BCE.

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 E MPIRES 51

At the time, Rome was a republic. Government was based on a complex

system of election, but its political institutions gave some importance
to birth and wealth and society benefited from slavery. The forces of
Rome established a network for trade between the states that had
once been part of Alexander’s empire. In the middle of the first century
BCE , under Julius Caesar, a high-born military commander, this
‘Roman Empire’ was extended to present-day Britain and Germany.
Latin (spoken in Rome) was the main language of the empire,
though many in the east continued to use Greek, and the Romans
had a great respect for Hellenic culture. There were changes in the
political structure of the empire from the late first century BCE, and it
was substantially Christianised after the emperor Constantine became
a Christian in the fourth century CE.
To make government easier, the Roman Empire was divided into
eastern and western halves in the fourth century CE. But in the west,
there was a breakdown of the arrangements that existed between Rome
and the tribes in frontier areas (Goths, Visigoths, Vandals and others). Ruins at Greek city of
These arrangements dealt with trade, military recruitment and Corinth.

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settlement, and the tribes increasingly attacked the Roman

administration. Conflicts increased in scale, and coincided with internal
dissensions in the empire, leading to the collapse of the empire in the
west by the fifth century CE. Tribes established their own kingdoms
within the former empire, though, with the prompting of the Christian
Church, a Holy Roman Empire was formed from some of these
kingdoms from the ninth century CE. This claimed some continuity
with the Roman Empire.
Between the seventh century and the fifteenth century, almost all
the lands of the eastern Roman Empire (centred on Constantinople)
came to be taken over by the Arab empire – created by the followers of
the Prophet Muhammad (who founded the faith of Islam in the seventh
century) and centred on Damascus – or by its successors (who ruled
from Baghdad initially). There was a close interaction between Greek
and Islamic traditions in the region. The trading networks of the area
and its prosperity attracted the attention of pastoral peoples to the
north including various Turkic tribes, who often attacked the cities of
the region and established control. The last of these peoples to attack
the area and attempt to control it were the Mongols, under Genghis
Khan and his successors, who moved into West Asia, Europe, Central
Asia and China in the thirteenth century.
All these attempts to make and maintain empires were driven by
the search to control the resources of the trading networks that existed
in the region as a whole, and to derive benefit from the links of the
region with other areas such as India or China. All the empires evolved
administrative systems to give stability to trade. They also evolved

The Great Mosque,

Damascus, completed
in 714.

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 E MPIRES 53

different types of military organisation. The achievements of one empire

were often taken up by its successor. Over time, the area came to be
marked by Persian, Greek, Latin and Arabic above many other languages
that were spoken and written.
The empires were not very stable. This was partly due to disputes
and conflict over resources in various regions. It was also due to the
crisis that developed in relations between empires and pastoral peoples
to the north – from whom empires derived support both for their trade
and to provide them with labour for production of manufactures and
for their armies. It is worth noting that not all empires were city-
centric. The Mongol empire of Genghis Khan and his successors is a
good example of how an empire could be maintained by pastoral people
for a long time and with success.
Religions that appealed to peoples of different ethnic origins, who
often spoke different languages, were important in the making of large
empires. This was true in the case of Christianity (which originated in
Palestine in the early first century CE) and Islam (which originated in
the seventh century CE).

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


This timeline focuses on kingdoms and empires. Some of

these such as the Roman Empire were very large,
spreading across three continents. This was also the
time when some of the major religious and cultural
traditions developed. It was a time when institutions of
intellectual activity emerged. Books were written and
ideas travelled across continents. Some things that are
now part of our everyday lives were used for the first
time during this period.

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 T IMELINE - II 55

DATES AFRICA EUROPE

100-50 BCE Bananas introduced from Southeast Asia Spartacus leads revolt of about 100,000
to East Africa through sea routes slaves (73 BCE)
50-1 Cleopatra, queen of Egypt (51-30 BCE) Building of Colosseum in Rome
1-50 CE
50-100
100-150 Hero of Alexandria makes a machine that Roman Empire at is peak*
runs on steam
150-200 Ptolemy of Alexandria writes a work on
geography
200-250
250-300
300-350 Christianity introduced in Axum * (330) Constantine becomes emperor,
establishes city of Constantinople
350-400 Roman Empire divided into eastern and
western halves
400-450 Vandals from Europe set up a kingdom in Roman Empire invaded by tribes from
North Africa (429) North and Central Europe
450-500 Conversion of Clovis of Gaul (France) to
Christianity (496)
500-550 St Benedict establishes a monastery in
Italy (526), St Augustine introduces
Christianity in England (596), Gregory the
Great (590) lays the foundations of the
power of the Roman Catholic Church
550-600
600-650 Emigration (hijra) of some Muslims to
Abyssinia (615)
650-700 Muslim Arabs sign treaty with Nubia, Bede writes the History of the English
south of Egypt (652) Church and People
700-750
750-800
800-850 Rise of kingdom in Ghana Charlemagne, king of the Franks, crowned
Holy Roman Emperor (800)
850-900 First Russian states founded at Kiev and
Novgorod
900-950 Viking raids across western Europe
950-1000
1000-50 Medical school set up in Salerno, Italy (1030)
1050-1100 Almoravid kingdom (1056-1147) extends William of Normandy invades England and
from Ghana to southern Spain becomes king (1066); proclamation of the
first crusade (1095)
1100-50 Zimbabwe (1120-1450) emerges as a centre
for production of gold and copper artefacts,
and of long-distance trade
1150-1200 Construction of the cathedral of Notre Dame
Christian churches established in Ethiopia begins (1163)
1200-50 (1200), kingdom of Mali in West Africa, with St Francis of Assisi sets up a monastic
Timbuktu as a centre of learning order, emphasising austerity and
compassion (1209); lords in England rebel
against the king who signs the Magna
Carta, accepting to rule according to law

1250-1300 Establishment of the Hapsburg dynasty

that continued to rule Austria till 1918

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DATES ASIA SOUTH ASIA

100-50 BCE Han empire in China, development of the Bactrian Greeks and Shakas establish
Silk Route from Asia to Europe kingdoms in the north-west; rise of the
Satavahanas in the Deccan
50-1 Growing trade between South Asia,
Southeast and East Asia, and Europe
1-50 CE Jesus Christ in Judaea, a province of the
Roman Empire; Roman invasion of Arabia (24)
50-100 Establishment of the Kushana state in the
northwest and Central Asia
100-150 Paper invented in China (118); development
of the first seismograph (132)
150-200
200-250 End of Han empire (221); Sasanid rule in
Persia (226)
250-300 Tea at the royal court, China (262), use of
the magnetic compass, China (270)
300-350 Chinese start using stirrups while riding Establishment of the Gupta* dynasty (320)
horses *
350-400 Fa Xian travels from China to India (399)
400-450
450-500 Aryabhata, astronomer and mathematician
500-550
550-600 Buddhism introduced in Japan (594); Chalukya temples in Badami and Aihole
Grand Canal to transport grain built in
China (584-618), by 5,000,000 workers
over 34 years
600-650 Tang dynasty in China (618); Xuan Zang travels from China to India;
Prophet Muhammad goes to Medina; the Nalanda emerges as an important
beginning of the Hijri era ( 622); educational centre
collapse of the Sasanian empire (642)
650-700 Umayyad caliphate (661-750)
700-750 A branch of the Umayyads conquers Arabs conquer Sind (712)
Spain; Tang dynasty established in China
750-800 Abbasid caliphate established and
Baghdad becomes a major cultural and
commercial centre
800-850 Khmer state founded in Cambodia (802)
850-900 First printed book, China (868)
900-950
950-1000 Use of paper money in China
1000-50 Ibn Sina, a Persian doctor, writes a Mahmud of Ghazni raids the north-west;
medical text that is followed for centuries Alberuni travels to India; Rajarajesvara
temple built at Thanjavur
1050-1100 Establishment of the Turkish empire by
Alp Arsalan (1075)
1100-50 First recorded display of fireworks in Kalhana writes the Rajatarangini
China
1150-1200 Angkor empire, Cambodia, at its height
(1180), temple complex at Angkor Wat
1200-50 Genghis Khan consolidates power (1206) Establishment of Delhi sultanate (1206)
1250-1300 Qubilai Khan, grandson of Genghis Khan, Amir Khusrau (1253-1325) introduces new
becomes emperor of China forms of poetry and music *; Sun Temple at
Konark

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 T IMELINE - II 57

DATES AMERICAS AUSTRALIA / PACIFIC ISLANDS

100-50 BCE

50-1

1-50 CE

50-100

100-150

150-200

200-250
ACTIVITY
250-300
Try and identify
300-350 City-state of Teotihuacan established in
at least five
Mexico, with pyramid temples, Mayan
events/processes
ceremonial centres*, development of
astronomy, pictorial script *
that would have
involved the
350-400 movement of
peoples across
400-450 regions/
450-500 continents. What
would have been
500-550 the significance
550-600 of these events/
processes?
600-650

650-700

700-750

750-800

800-850

850-900

900-950

950-1000 First city is built in North America (c.990) Maori navigator from Polynesia ‘discovers’
New Zealand

1000-50

1050-1100 Sweet potato (originally from South

America) grown in the Polynesian islands

1100-1150

1150-1200

1200-50

1250-1300

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 58 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

  

 

THE Roman Empire covered a vast stretch of territory that

included most of Europe as we know it today and a large
part of the Fertile Crescent and North Africa. In this chapter
we shall look at the way this empire was organised, the
political forces that shaped its destiny, and the social groups
into which people were divided. You will see that the empire
embraced a wealth of local cultures and languages; that
women had a stronger legal position then than they do in
many countries today; but also that much of the economy
was run on slave labour, denying freedom to substantial
numbers of persons. From the fifth century on, the empire fell
apart in the west but remained intact and exceptionally
prosperous in its eastern half. The caliphate which you will
read about in the next chapter built on this prosperity and
inherited its urban and religious traditions.

Roman historians have a rich collection of sources to go on,

which we can broadly divide into three groups: (a) texts,
(b) documents and (c) material remains. Textual sources
include histories of the period written by contemporaries (these
were usually called ‘Annals’, because the narrative was
constructed on a year -by-year basis), letters, speeches,
sermons, laws, and so on. Documentary sources include
mainly inscriptions and papyri. Inscriptions were usually cut
on stone, so a large number survive, in both Greek and Latin.
The ‘papyrus’ was a reed-like plant that grew along the banks
of the Nile in Egypt and was processed to produce a writing
material that was very widely used in everyday life. Thousands
of contracts, accounts, letters and official documents survive
‘on papyrus’ and have been published by scholars who are
called ‘papyrologists’. Material remains include a very wide
assortment of items that mainly archaeologists discover (for
example, through excavation and field survey), for example,
buildings, monuments and other kinds of structures, pottery,
coins, mosaics, even entire landscapes (for example, through
the use of aerial photography). Each of these sources can only
tell us just so much about the past, and combining them can
be a fruitful exercise, but how well this is done depends on
Papyrus scrolls the historian’s skill!

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 AN EMPIRE A CROSS THREE CONTINENTS 59

Two powerful empires ruled over most of Europe,North Africa and the
Middle East in the period between the birth of Christ and the early part
of the seventh century, say, down to the 630s. The two empires were
those of Rome and Iran. The Romans and Iranians were rivals and
fought against each other for much of their history. Their empires lay
next to each other, separated only by a narrow strip of land that ran
along the river Euphrates. In this chapter we shall be looking at the
Roman Empire, but we shall also refer, in passing, to Rome’s rival, Iran.
If you look at the map, you will see that the continents of Europe and
Africa are separated by a sea that stretches all the way from Spain in the
west to Syria in the east. This sea is called the Mediterranean, and it was
the heart of Rome’s empire. Rome dominated the Mediterranean and all
the regions around that sea in both directions, north as well as south.
To the north, the boundaries of the empire were formed by two great MAP 1: Europe and
rivers, the Rhine and the Danube; to the south, by the huge expanse of North Africa

desert called the Sahara. This vast stretch of territory was the Roman
Empire. Iran controlled the whole area south of the Caspian Sea down
to eastern Arabia, and sometimes large parts of Afghanistan as well.
These two superpowers had divided up most of the world that the Chinese
called Ta Ch’in (‘greater Ch’in’, roughly the west).

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
The Roman Empire can broadly be divided into two phases, ‘early’ and
‘late’, divided by the third century as a sort of historical watershed
between them. In other words, the whole period down to the main part
of the third century can be called the ‘early empire’, and the period
after that the ‘late empire’.
A major difference between the two superpowers and their respective
empires was that the Roman Empire was culturally much more diverse
than that of Iran. The Parthians and later the Sasanians, the dynasties
that ruled Iran in this period, ruled over a population that was largely
*The Republic was
the name for a
Iranian. The Roman Empire, by contrast, was a mosaic of territories
regime in which the and cultures that were chiefly bound together by a common system of
reality of power lay government. Many languages were spoken in the empire, but for the
with the Senate, a purposes of administration Latin and Greek were the most widely used,
body dominated by a
indeed the only languages. The upper classes of the east spoke and
small group of
wealthy families who wrote in Greek, those of the west in Latin, and the boundary between
formed the ‘nobility’. these broad language areas ran somewhere across the middle of the
In practice, the Mediterranean, between the African provinces of Tripolitania (which
Republic represented was Latin speaking) and Cyrenaica (Greek-speaking). All those who
the government of
the nobility,
lived in the empire were subjects of a single ruler, the emperor, regardless
exercised through the of where they lived and what language they spoke.
body called the The regime established by Augustus, the first emperor, in 27 BCE
Senate. The Republic was called the ‘Principate’. Although Augustus was the sole ruler and
lasted from 509 BC to
the only real source of authority, the fiction was kept alive that he was
27 BC, when it was
overthrown by actually only the ‘leading citizen’ (Princeps in Latin), not the absolute
Octavian, the ruler. This was done out of respect for the Senate, the body which had
adopted son and heir controlled Rome earlier, in the days when it was a Republic.* The
of Julius Caesar, who Senate had existed in Rome for centuries, and had been and remained
later changed his
name to Augustus.
a body representing the aristocracy, that is, the wealthiest families of
Membership of the Roman and, later, Italian descent, mainly landowners. Most of the
Senate was for life, Roman histories that survive in Greek and Latin were written by people
and wealth and from a senatorial background. From these it is clear that emperors
office-holding
were judged by how they behaved towards the Senate. The worst
counted for more
than birth. emperors were those who were hostile to the senatorial class, behaving
with suspicion or brutality and violence. Many senators yearned to go
back to the days of the Republic, but most must have realised that this
was impossible.
Next to the emperor and the Senate, the other key institution of
imperial rule was the army. Unlike the army of its rival in the Persian
**A conscripted empire, which was a conscripted** army, the Romans had a paid
army is one which is professional army where soldiers had to put in a minimum of 25 years
forcibly recruited;
of service. Indeed, the existence of a paid army was a distinctive feature
military service is
compulsory for of the Roman Empire. The army was the largest single organised body
certain groups or in the empire (600,000 by the fourth century) and it certainly had the
categories of the power to determine the fate of emperors. The soldiers would constantly
population. agitate for better wages and service conditions. These agitations often

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 AN EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS 61

took the form of mutinies, if the soldiers

felt let down by their generals or even the
emperor. Again, our picture of the Roman
army depends largely on the way they were
portrayed by historians with senatorial
sympathies. The Senate hated and feared
the army, because it was a source of often-
unpredictable violence, especially in the
tense conditions of the third century when
government was forced to tax more heavily
to pay for its mounting military
expenditures.
To sum up, the emperor, the aristocracy
and the army were the three main ‘players’
in the political history of the empire. The
success of individual emperors depended
on their control of the army, and when the
armies were divided, the result usually was
civil war*. Except for one notorious year (69 CE), when four emperors Shops in Forum
mounted the throne in quick succession, the first two centuries were Julium, Rome. This
piazza with columns
on the whole free from civil war and in this sense relatively stable.
was built after 51 BCE,
Succession to the throne was based as far as possible on family descent, to enlarge the older
either natural or adoptive, and even the army was strongly wedded to Roman Forum.
this principle. For example, Tiberius (14-37 CE), the second in the long
line of Roman emperors, was not the natural son of Augustus, the
ruler who founded the Principate, but Augustus adopted him to ensure
a smooth transition. *Civil war refers to
External warfare was also much less common in the first two armed struggles for
centuries. The empire inherited by Tiberius from Augustus was already power within the
same country, in
so vast that further expansion was felt to be unnecessary. In fact, the contrast to conflicts
‘Augustan age’ is remembered for the peace it ushered in after decades between different
of internal strife and centuries of military conquest. The only major countries.
campaign of expansion in the early empire was Trajan’s fruitless
occupation of territory across the Euphrates, in the years 113-17 CE
abandoned by his successors.









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 Much more characteristic was the gradual extension of Roman direct
 rule. This was accomplished by absorbing a whole series of ‘dependent’
 kingdoms into Roman provincial territory. The Near East was full of
 such kingdoms*, but by the early second century those which lay west
 of the Euphrates (towards Roman territory) had disappeared, swallowed
 up by Rome. (Incidentally, some of these kingdoms were exceedingly
 wealthy, for example Herod’s kingdom yielded the equivalent of 5.4
 million denarii per year, equal to over 125,000 kg of gold! The denarius

was a Roman silver coin containing about 4½ gm of pure silver.)

In fact, except for Italy, which was not considered a province in

 these centuries, all the territories of the empire were organised into
  provinces and subject to taxation. At its peak in the second century,
 the Roman Empire stretched from Scotland to the borders of
 Armenia, and from the Sahara to the Euphrates and sometimes
 beyond. Given that there was no government in the modern sense
  to help them to run things, you may well ask, how was it possible
for the emperor to cope with the control and administration of such
* These were local a vast and diverse set of territories, with a population of some 60
kingdoms that were million in the mid-second century? The answer lies in the
‘clients’ of Rome.
Their rulers could urbanisation of the empire.
be relied on to use The great urban centres that lined the shores of the Mediterranean
their forces in (Carthage, Alexandria, Antioch were the biggest among them) were
support of Rome, the true bedrock of the imperial system. It was through the cities
and in return Rome
allowed them to
that ‘government’ was able to tax the provincial countrysides which
exist. generated much of the wealth of the empire. What this means is
that the local upper classes actively collaborated with the Roman
Pont du Gard, near state in administering their own territories and raising taxes from
Nimes, France, first them. In fact, one of the most interesting aspects of Roman political
century BCE. Roman history is the dramatic shift in power between Italy and the provinces.
engineers built
massive aqueducts Throughout the second and third centuries, it was the provincial
over three continents upper classes who supplied most of the cadre that governed the
to carry water. provinces and commanded the armies. They came to form a new
elite of a d m in istr a tor s a n d
military commanders who
became much more powerful
than the senatorial class because
they had the backing of the
emperors. As this new group
emerged, the emperor Gallienus
(253-68) consolidated their rise to
power by excluding senators from
military command. We are told
that Gallienus forbade senators
from serving in the ar my or
having access to it, in order to
prevent control of the empire from
falling into their hands.

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 AN EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS 63

To sum up, in the late first, second and early third centuries the
army and administration were increasingly drawn from the provinces, ACTIVITY 1
as citizenship spread to these regions and was no longer confined to
Who were the
Italy. But individuals of Italian origin continued to dominate the senate
three main
at least till the third century, when senators of provincial origin became
players in the
a majority. These trends reflected the general decline of Italy within political history
the empire, both political and economic, and the rise of new elites in of the Roman
the wealthier and more urbanised parts of the Mediterranean, such as Empire? Write
the south of Spain, Africa and the east. A city in the Roman sense was one or two lines
an urban centre with its own magistrates, city council and a ‘territory’ about each of
containing villages which were under its jurisdiction. Thus one city them. And how
could not be in the territory of another city, but villages almost always did the Roman
were. Villages could be upgraded to the status of cities, and vice versa, emperor manage
to govern such a
usually as a mark of imperial favour (or the opposite). One crucial
vast territory?
advantage of living in a city was simply that it might be better provided
Whose
for during food shortages and even famines than the countryside. collaboration
was crucial to
 this?

  












Public baths were a striking feature of

Roman urban life (when one Iranian ruler
tried to introduce them into Iran, he
encountered the wrath of the clergy there!
Water was a sacred element and to use it
for public bathing may have seemed a
desecration to them), and urban
populations also enjoyed a much higher
level of entertainment. For example, one
calendar tells us that spectacula (shows)
filled no less than 176 days of the year!

Amphitheatre at the Roman cantonment town of Vindonissa

(in modern Switzerland), first century CE. Used for military
drill and for staging entertainments for the soldiers.

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 64 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY


If the first and second centuries were by and large a period of peace,
prosperity and economic expansion, the third century brought the
first major signs of internal strain. From the 230s, the empire found
itself fighting on several fronts simultaneously. In Iran a new and
more aggressive dynasty emerged in 225 (they called themselves the
‘Sasanians’) and within just 15 years were expanding rapidly in the
direction of the Euphrates. In a famous rock inscription cut in three
languages, Shapur I, the Iranian ruler, claimed he had annihilated a
Roman army of 60,000 and even captured the eastern capital of Antioch.
Meanwhile, a whole series of Germanic tribes or rather tribal
confederacies (most notably, the Alamanni, the Franks and the Goths)
began to move against the Rhine and Danube frontiers, and the whole
period from 233 to 280 saw repeated invasions of a whole line of
provinces that stretched from the Black Sea to the Alps and southern
Germany. The Romans were forced to abandon much of the territory
beyond the Danube, while the emperors of this period were constantly
in the field against what the Romans called ‘barbarians’. The rapid
succession of emperors in the third century (25 emperors in 47 years!)
is an obvious symptom of the strains faced by the empire in this period.


One of the more modern features of Roman society was the widespread
prevalence of the nuclear family. Adult sons did not live with their
families, and it was exceptional for adult brothers to share a common
household. On the other hand, slaves were included in the family as
the Romans understood this. By the late Republic (the first century
BCE), the typical form of marriage was one where the wife did not
transfer to her husband’s authority but retained full rights in the
property of her natal family. While the woman’s dowry went to the
husband for the duration of the marriage, the woman remained a
primary heir of her father and became an independent property owner
on her father’s death. Thus Roman women enjoyed considerable legal
*Saint Augustine
rights in owning and managing property. In other words, in law the
(354-430) was
bishop of the North married couple was not one financial entity but two, and the wife
African city of Hippo enjoyed complete legal independence. Divorce was relatively easy and
from 396 and a needed no more than a notice of intent to dissolve the marriage by
towering figure in either husband or wife. On the other hand, whereas males married in
the intellectual
history of the their late twenties or early thirties, women were married off in the late
Church. teens or early twenties, so there was an age gap between husband and
Bishops were the wife and this would have encouraged a certain inequality. Marriages
most important were generally arranged, and there is no doubt that women were often
religious figures in a
Christian
subject to domination by their husbands. Augustine*, the great Catholic
community, and bishop who spent most of his life in North Africa, tells us that his
often very powerful. mother was regularly beaten by his father and that most other wives

2018-19
 AN EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS 65

in the small town where he grew up had similar bruises to show! *The use of reading
Finally, fathers had substantial legal control over their children – and writing in
everyday, often
sometimes to a shocking degree, for example, a legal power of life and trivial, contexts.
death in exposing unwanted children, by leaving them out in the cold
to die.
What about literacy? It is certain that rates of casual literacy* varied 
greatly between different parts of the empire. For example, in Pompeii, 
which was buried in a volcanic eruption in 79 CE, there is strong evidence 
of widespread casual literacy. Walls on the main streets of Pompeii 
 
often carried advertisements, and graffiti were found all over the city.
By contrast, in Egypt where hundreds of papyri survive, most formal 
documents such as contracts were usually written by professional 
scribes, and they often tell us that X or Y is unable to read and write. 

But even here literacy was certainly more widespread among certain

categories such as soldiers, army officers and estate managers.

The cultural diversity of the empire was reflected in many ways and 
at many levels: in the vast diversity of religious cults and local deities; 
the plurality of languages that were spoken; the styles of dress and
costume, the food people ate, their forms of social
organisation (tribal/non-tribal), even their patterns
of settlement. Aramaic was the dominant language
group of the Near East (at least west of the Euphrates),
Coptic was spoken in Egypt, Punic and Berber in
North Africa, Celtic in Spain and the northwest. But
many of these linguistic cultures were purely oral, at
least until a script was invented for them. Armenian,
for example, only began to be written as late as the
fifth century, whereas there was already a Coptic

Mosaic in Edessa,
second century CE.
The Syriac
inscription
suggests that
those depicted are
the wife of king
Abgar and her
family.

Pompeii: A wine-
merchant’s dining-
room, its walls
decorated with
scenes depicting
mythical animals.

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 66 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

translation of the Bible by the middle of the third century. Elsewhere,

the spread of Latin displaced the written form of languages that were
ACTIVITY 2
otherwise widespread; this happened notably with Celtic, which ceased
How to be written after the first century.
independent
were women in 
the Roman
world? Compare The empire had a substantial economic infrastructure of harbours,
the situation of mines, quarries, brickyards, olive oil factories, etc. Wheat, wine and
the Roman olive-oil were traded and consumed in huge quantities, and they came
family with the mainly from Spain, the Gallic provinces, North Africa, Egypt and, to a
family in India lesser extent, Italy, where conditions were best for these crops. Liquids
today.
like wine and olive oil were transported in containers called ‘amphorae’.
The fragments and sherds of a very large number of these survive
(Monte Testaccio in Rome is said to contain the remnants of over 50
million vessels!), and it has been possible for archaeologists to
Shipwreck off the
south coast of France, reconstruct the precise shapes of these containers, tell us what they
first century BCE. The carried, and say exactly where they were made by examining the clay
amphorae are Italian, content and matching the finds with clay pits throughout the
bearing the stamp of a Mediterranean. In this way we can now say with some confidence that
producer near the
Lake of Fondi.
Spanish olive oil, to take just one example, was a vast commercial
enterprise that reached its
peak in the years 140-160.
The Spanish olive oil of this
period was mainly carried in a
container called ‘Dressel 20’
(after the archaeologist who
first established its form). If
finds of Dressel 20 are widely
scattered across sites in the
Mediterranean, this suggests
that Spanish olive oil
circulated very widely indeed.
By using such evidence (the
remains of amphorae of
different kinds and their
‘distribution maps’),
archaeologists are able to
show that Spanish producers
succeeded in capturing
markets for olive oil from their
Italian counterparts. This
would only have happened if
Spanish producers supplied a
better quality oil at lower
prices. In other words, the big
landowners from different

2018-19
 A N EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS 67

regions competed with each other for control of the main markets for
the goods they produced. The success of the Spanish olive growers
ACTIVITY 3
was then repeated by North African producers – olive estates in this
part of the empire dominated production through most of the third Archaeologists
and fourth centuries. Later, after 425, North African dominance was who work on the
broken by the East: in the later fifth and sixth centuries the Aegean, remains of
southern Asia Minor (Turkey), Syria and Palestine became major pottery are a bit
exporters of wine and olive oil, and containers from Africa show a like detectives.
dramatically reduced presence on Mediterranean markets. Behind these Can you explain
why? Also, what
broad movements the prosperity of individual regions rose and fell
can amphorae
depending on how effectively they could organise the production and tell us about
transport of particular goods, and on the quality of those goods. the economic
The empire included many regions that had a reputation for life of the
exceptional fertility. Campania in Italy, Sicily, the Fayum in Egypt, Mediterranean
Galilee, Byzacium (Tunisia), southern Gaul (called Gallia Narbonensis), in the Roman
and Baetica (southern Spain) were all among the most densely settled period?
or wealthiest parts of the empire, according to writers like Strabo and
Pliny. The best kinds of wine came from Campania. Sicily and Byzacium
exported large quantities of wheat to Rome. Galilee was densely
cultivated (‘every inch of the soil has been cultivated by the inhabitants’,
wrote the historian Josephus), and Spanish olive oil came mainly from
numerous estates (fundi) along the banks of the river Guadalquivir in
the south of Spain.
On the other hand, large expanses of Roman territory were in a
much less advanced state. For example, transhumance* was widespread *Transhumance is
in the countryside of Numidia (modern Algeria). These pastoral and the herdsman’s
semi-nomadic communities were often on the move, carrying their regular annual
movement between
oven-shaped huts (called mapalia) with them. As Roman estates the higher mountain
expanded in North Africa, the pastures of those communities were regions and low-
drastically reduced and their movements more tightly regulated. Even lying ground in
in Spain the north was much less developed, and inhabited largely by search of pasture
for sheep and other
a Celtic-speaking peasantry that lived in hilltop villages called castella.
flocks.
When we think of the Roman Empire, we should never forget these
differences.
We should also be careful not to imagine that because this was the
‘ancient’ world, their forms of cultural and economic life were necessarily
backward or primitive. On the contrary, diversified applications of water
power around the Mediterranean as well as advances in water-powered
milling technology, the use of hydraulic mining techniques in the
Spanish gold and silver mines and the gigantic industrial scale on
which those mines were worked in the first and second centuries (with
levels of output that would not be reached again till the nineteenth
century, some 1,700 years later!), the existence of well-organised
commercial and banking networks, and the widespread use of money
are all indications of how much we tend to under-estimate the
sophistication of the Roman economy. This raises the issue of labour
and of the use of slavery.

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 68 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY


Slavery was an institution deeply rooted in the ancient world, both in
the Mediterranean and in the Near East, and not even Christianity
when it emerged and triumphed as the state religion (in the fourth
century) seriously challenged this institution. It does
not follow that the bulk of the labour in the Roman
 economy was performed by slaves. That may have
been true of large parts of Italy in the Republican
     period (under Augustus there were still 3 million
   
slaves in a total Italian population of 7.5 million) but

   
it was no longer true of the empire as a whole. Slaves
     were an investment, and at least one Roman
      agricultural writer advised landowners against using
     them in contexts where too many might be required
      (for example, for harvests) or where their health could
     be damaged (for example, by malaria). These
    considerations were not based on any sympathy for
 the slaves but on hard economic calculation. On the
     other hand, if the Roman upper classes were often
    
brutal towards their slaves, ordinary people did
  
    
sometimes show much more compassion. See what
     one historian says about a famous incident that
 occurred in the reign of Nero.
     As warfare became less widespread with the
      establishment of peace in the first century, the supply
    of slaves tended to decline and the users of slave
    labour thus had to turn either to slave breeding* or
 to cheaper substitutes such as wage labour which
      was more easily dispensable. In fact, free labour was
  extensively used on public works at Rome precisely
because an extensive use of slave labour would have
been too expensive. Unlike hired workers, slaves had
*The practice of to be fed and maintained throughout the year, which increased the
encouraging female cost of holding this kind of labour. This is probably why slaves are not
slaves and their widely found in the agriculture of the later period, at least not in the
partners to have
more children, who eastern provinces. On the other hand, they and freedmen, that is,
would of course also slaves who had been set free by their masters, were extensively used
be slaves. as business managers, where, obviously, they were not required in
large numbers. Masters often gave their slaves or freedmen capital to
Opp page: Mosaic at run businesses on their behalf or even businesses of their own.
Cherchel, Algeria,
The Roman agricultural writers paid a great deal of attention to the
early third century CE,
with agricultural management of labour. Columella, a first-century writer who came
scenes. from the south of Spain, recommended that landowners should keep
Above: Ploughing and a reserve stock of implements and tools, twice as many as they needed,
sowing. so that production could be continuous, ‘for the loss in slave labour-
Below: Working in
vineyards. time exceeds the cost of such items’. There was a general presumption

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among employers that without

supervision no work would ever get
done, so supervision was paramount,
for both free workers and slaves. To
make supervision easier, workers
were sometimes grouped into gangs
or smaller teams. Columella
recommended squads of ten, claiming
it was easier to tell who was putting
in effort and who was not in work
groups of this size. This shows a
detailed consideration of the
management of labour. Pliny the
Elder, the author of a very famous
‘Natural History’, condemned the use
of slave gangs as the worst method of
organising production, mainly
because slaves who worked in gangs
were usually chained together by their
feet.
All this looks draconian*, but we
should remember that most factories
in the world today enforce similar
principles of labour control. Indeed,
some industrial establishments in the
empire enforced even tighter controls.
The Elder Pliny described conditions
in the frankincense** factories (officinae) of Alexandria, where, he tells *Draconian: Harsh
us, no amount of supervision seemed to suffice. ‘A seal is put upon the (so-called because of
workmen’s aprons, they have to wear a mask or a net with a close an early sixth-
century BCE
mesh on their heads, and before they are allowed to leave the premises,
Greek lawmaker
they have to take off all their clothes.’ Agricultural labour must have called Draco, who
been fatiguing and disliked, for a famous edict of the early third century prescribed death as
refers to Egyptian peasants deserting their villages ‘in order not to the penalty for most
engage in agricultural work’. The same was probably true of most crimes!).
factories and workshops. A law of 398 referred to workers being branded **Frankincense – the
so they could be recognised if and when they run away and try to hide. European name for
Many private employers cast their agreements with workers in the an aromatic resin
form of debt contracts to be able to claim that their employees were in used in incense and
perfumes. It is
debt to them and thus ensure tighter control over them. An early, tapped from
second-century writer tells us, ‘Thousands surrender themselves to Boswellia trees by
work in servitude, although they are free.’ In other words, a lot of the slashing the bark
poorer families went into debt bondage in order to survive. From one and allowing the
exuded resins to
of the recently discovered letters of Augustine we learn that parents
harden. The best-
sometimes sold their children into servitude for periods of 25 years. quality frankincense
Augustine asked a lawyer friend of his whether these children could be came from the
liberated once the father died. Rural indebtedness was even more Arabian peninsula.

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*A rebellion in widespread; to take just one example, in the great Jewish revolt of 66
Judaea against CE* the revolutionaries destroyed the moneylenders’ bonds to win
Roman domination, popular support.
which was
Again, we should be careful not to conclude that the bulk of labour
ruthlessly
suppressed by was coerced in these ways. The late-fifth-century emperor Anastasius
the Romans in built the eastern frontier city of Dara in less than three weeks by
what is called the attracting labour from all over the East by offering high wages. From
‘Jewish war’. the papyri we can even form some estimate of how widespread wage
labour had become in parts of the Mediterranean by the sixth century,
especially in the East.
ACTIVITY 4

The text has 

referred to three Let us stand back from the details now and try and get a sense of the
writers whose
social structures of the empire. Tacitus described the leading social
work is used to
say something groups of the early empire as follows: senators (patres, lit. ‘fathers’);
about how the leading members of the equestrian class; the respectable section of the
Romans treated people, those attached to the great houses; the unkempt lower class
their workers. (plebs sordida) who, he tells us, were addicted to the circus and
Can you identify theatrical displays; and finally the slaves. In the early third century
them? Reread when the Senate numbered roughly 1,000, approximately half of all
the section for senators still came from Italian families. By the late empire, which
yourself and starts with the reign of Constantine I in the early part of the fourth
describe any two century, the first two groups mentioned by Tacitus (the senators and
methods the
the equites*) had merged into a unified and expanded aristocracy, and
Romans used to
control labour. at least half of all families were of African or eastern origin. This ‘late
Roman’ aristocracy was enormously wealthy but in many ways less
powerful than the purely military elites who came almost entirely from
non-aristocratic backgrounds. The ‘middle’ class now consisted of the
*The equites, considerable mass of persons connected with imperial service in the
(‘knights’ or bureaucracy and army but also the more prosperous merchants and
‘horsemen’) were
traditionally the farmers of whom there were many in the eastern provinces. Tacitus
second most described this ‘respectable’ middle class as clients of the great senatorial
powerful and houses. Now it was chiefly government service and dependence on the
wealthy group. State that sustained many of these families. Below them were the vast
Originally, they
mass of the lower classes known collectively as humiliores (lit. ‘lower’).
were families whose
property qualified They comprised a rural labour force of which many were permanently
them to serve in the employed on the large estates; workers in industrial and mining
cavalry, hence the establishments; migrant workers who supplied much of the labour for
name. Like the grain and olive harvests and for the building industry; self-employed
senators, most
‘knights’ were artisans who, it was said, were better fed than wage labourers; a large
landowners, but mass of casual labourers, especially in the big cities; and of course the
unlike senators many thousands of slaves that were still found all over the western
many of them were empire in particular.
shipowners, traders
One writer of the early fifth century, the historian Olympiodorus
and bankers, that
is, involved in who was also an ambassador, tells us that the aristocracy based in
business activities. the City of Rome drew annual incomes of up to 4,000 lbs of gold

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 A N EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS 71

from their estates, not counting the produce they

consumed directly! 
The monetary system of the late empire broke with the 
silver-based currencies of the first three centuries because

the Spanish silver mines were exhausted and government
ran out of sufficient stocks of the metal to support a stable 
coinage in silver. Constantine founded the new monetary   
system on gold and there were vast amounts of this in    
circulation throughout late antiquity.   
The late Roman bureaucracy, both the higher and middle    
echelons, was a comparatively affluent group because it   
drew the bulk of its salary in gold and invested much of    
this in buying up assets like land. There was of course also    
a great deal of corruption, especially in the judicial system   
and in the administration of military supplies. The extortion    
of the higher bureaucracy and the greed of the provincial 
governors were proverbial. But government intervened   
repeatedly to curb these forms of corruption – we only    
know about them in the first place because of the laws that 
tried to put an end to them, and because historians and    
other members of the intelligentsia denounced such 
practices. This element of ‘criticism’ is a remarkable feature     
of the classical world. The Roman state was an authoritarian 
regime; in other words, dissent was rarely tolerated and    
government usually responded to protest with violence 
(especially in the cities of the East where people were often 
fearless in making fun of emperors). Yet a strong tradition 
of Roman law had emerged by the fourth century, and this
acted as a brake on even the most fearsome emperors.
Emperors were not free to do whatever they liked, and the
law was actively used to protect civil rights. That is why in the later
fourth century it was possible for powerful bishops like Ambrose to
confront equally powerful emperors when they were excessively harsh
or repressive in their handling of the civilian population.


We shall conclude this chapter by looking at the cultural
transformation of the Roman world in its final centuries. ‘Late
antiquity’ is the term now used to describe the final, fascinating
period in the evolution and break-up of the Roman Empire and
refers broadly to the fourth to seventh centuries. The fourth century
itself was one of considerable ferment, both cultural and economic.
At the cultural level, the period saw momentous developments in
religious life, with the emperor Constantine deciding to make
Christianity the official religion, and with the rise of Islam in the
seventh century. But there were equally important changes in the

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structure of the state that began with the emperor Diocletian (284-
305), and it may be best to start with these.
Overexpansion had led Diocletian to ‘cut back’ by abandoning
territories with little strategic or economic value. Diocletian also fortified
the frontiers, reorganised provincial boundaries, and separated civilian
from military functions, granting greater autonomy to the military
commanders (duces), who now became a more powerful group.
Constantine consolidated some of these changes and added others of
his own. His chief innovations were in the monetary sphere, where he
introduced a new denomination, the solidus, a coin of 4½ gm of pure
gold that would in fact outlast the Roman Empire itself. Solidi were
minted on a very large scale and their circulation
ran into millions. The other area of innovation was
the creation of a second capital at Constantinople
(at the site of modern Istanbul in Turkey, and
previously called Byzantium), surrounded on three
sides by the sea. As the new capital required a new
senate, the fourth century was a period of rapid
expansion of the governing classes. Monetary
stability and an expanding population stimulated
economic growth, and the archaeological record
shows considerable investment in rural
establishments, including industrial installations
like oil presses and glass factories, in newer
technologies such as screw presses and multiple
water-mills, and in a revival of the long-distance
trade with the East.
All of this carried over into strong urban
prosperity that was marked by new forms of
architecture and an exaggerated sense of luxury.
The ruling elites were wealthier and more powerful
than ever before. In Egypt, hundreds of papyri
survive from these later centuries and they show
us a relatively affluent society where money was in
extensive use and rural estates generated vast
incomes in gold. For example, Egypt contributed
Part of a colossal taxes of over 2½ million solidi a year (roughly 35,000 lbs of gold) in the
statue of Emperor
Constantine, 313 CE.
reign of Justinian in the sixth century. Indeed, large parts of the Near
Eastern countryside were more developed and densely settled in the
fifth and sixth centuries than they would be even in the twentieth
century! This is the social background against which we should set the
cultural developments of this period.
The traditional religious culture of the classical world, both Greek
and Roman, had been polytheist. That is, it involved a multiplicity of
cults that included both Roman/Italian gods like Jupiter, Juno, Minerva
and Mars, as well as numerous Greek and eastern deities worshipped
in thousands of temples, shrines and sanctuaries throughout the

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empire. Polytheists had no common name or label to describe *Monolith – literally

themselves. The other great religious tradition in the empire was a large block of
stone, but the
Judaism. But Judaism was not a monolith* either, and there was a expression is used
great deal of diversity within the Jewish communities of late antiquity. to refer to anything
Thus, the ‘Christianisation’** of the empire in the fourth and fifth (for example a
centuries was a gradual and complex process. Polytheism did not society or culture)
that lacks variety
disappear overnight, especially in the western provinces, where the
and is all of the
Christian bishops waged a running battle against beliefs and practices same type.
they condemned more than the Christian laity*** did. The boundaries
between religious communities were much more fluid in the fourth **Christianisation –
century than they would become thanks to the repeated efforts of the process by
which Christianity
religious leaders, the powerful bishops who now led the Church, to spread among
rein in their followers and enforce a more rigid set of beliefs and practices. different groups of
The general prosperity was especially marked in the East where the population and
population was still expanding till the sixth century, despite the impact of became the
dominant religion.
the plague which affected the Mediterranean in the 540s. In the West, by
contrast, the empire fragmented politically as Germanic groups from the
***Laity –
North (Goths, Vandals, Lombards, etc.) took over all the major provinces the ordinary
and established kingdoms that are best described as ‘post-Roman’. The members of a
most important of these were that of the Visigoths in Spain, destroyed by religious community
the Arabs between 711 and 720, that of the Franks in Gaul (c.511-687) as opposed to the
priests or clergy
and that of the Lombards in Italy (568-774). These kingdoms foreshadowed
who have official
the beginnings of a different kind of world that is usually called ‘medieval’. positions within the
In the East, where the empire remained united, the reign of Justinian is community.
the highwater mark of prosperity and imperial ambition. Justinian

The Colosseum, built in

79 CE, where gladiators
fought wild beasts. It
could accommodate
60,000 people.

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 74 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

recaptured Africa from the Vandals (in 533) but his recovery of Italy (from
the Ostrogoths) left that country devastated and paved the way for the
Lombard invasion. By the early seventh century, the war between Rome
and Iran had flared up again, and the Sasanians who had ruled Iran since
the third century launched a wholesale invasion of all the major eastern
provinces (including Egypt). When Byzantium, as the Roman Empire was
now increasingly known, recovered these provinces in the 620s, it was
just a few years away, literally, from the final major blow which came, this
time, from the south-east.
The expansion of Islam from its beginnings in Arabia has been
called ‘the greatest political revolution ever to occur in the history of
the ancient world’. By 642, barely ten years after the Prophet
Muhammad’s death, large parts of both the eastern Roman and
Sasanian empires had fallen to the Arabs in a series of stunning
confrontations. However, we should bear in mind that those conquests,
which eventually (a century later) extended as far afield as Spain, Sind
and Central Asia, began in fact with the subjection of the Arab tribes
by the emerging Islamic state, first within Arabia and then in the
Syrian desert and on the fringes of Iraq. As we will see in Theme 4, the
unification of the Arabian peninsula and its numerous tribes was the
MAP 2: West Asia key factor behind the territorial expansion of Islam.

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 AN EMPIRE ACROSS THREE CONTINENTS 75

 

   


   
 
  

 
 

  

  

 
 

  
  
  

      

  
 
     

  

  
  
  

  


 

  
 
 

  

  


 
  
  
  

 

 
 


 

 
 

2018-19
 76 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

Mosaic at Ravenna,
547 CE, showing
Emperor Justinian.


  
 

            



 

 



   

 
           


 
        


2018-19
 
77 

  



AS we enter the twenty-first century, there are over 1 billion

Muslims living in all parts of the world. They are citizens
of different nations, speak different languages, and dress
differently. The processes by which they became Muslims
were varied, and so were the circumstances in which they
went their separate ways. Yet, the Islamic community has its
roots in a more unified past which unfolded roughly 1,400
years ago in the Arabian peninsula. In this chapter we are
going to read about the rise of Islam and its expansion over a
vast territory extending from Egypt to Afghanistan, the core
area of Islamic civilisation from 600 to 1200. In these
centuries, Islamic society exhibited multiple political and
cultural patterns. The term Islamic is used here not only in
its purely religious sense but also for the overall society and
culture historically associated with Islam. In this society not
everything that was happening originated directly from
religion, but it took place in a society where Muslims and
their faith were recognised as socially dominant. Non-Muslims
always formed an integral, if subordinate, part of this society
as did Jews in Christendom.

Our understanding of the history of the central Islamic lands

between 600 and 1200 is based on chronicles or tawarikh
(which narrate events in order of time) and semi-historical
works, such as biographies (sira), records of the sayings and
doings of the Prophet (hadith) and commentaries on the
Quran (tafsir). The material from which these works were
produced was a large collection of eyewitness reports (akhbar)
transmitted over a period of time either orally or on paper.
The authenticity of each report (khabar) was tested by a
critical method which traced the chain of transmission (isnad)
and established the reliability of the narrator. Although the
method was not foolproof, medieval Muslim writers were more
careful in selecting their information and understanding the
motives of their informants than were their contemporaries
in other parts of the world. On controversial issues, they
reproduced different versions of the same event, as they found
in their sources, leaving the task of judgement to their
readers. Their description of events closer to their own times
is more systematic and analytical and less of a collection of
akhbar. Most of the chronicles and semi-historical works are

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 78 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

in Arabic, the best being the Tarikh of Tabari (d. 923) which
has been translated into English in 38 volumes. Persian
chronicles are few but they are quite detailed in their treatment
of Iran and Central Asia. Christian chronicles, written in
*Aramaic is a Syriac (a dialect of Aramaic*), are fewer but they throw
language related to interesting light on the history of early Islam. Besides
Hebrew and Arabic. chronicles, we have legal texts, geographies, travelogues and
It has also been literary works, such as stories and poems.
used in Ashokan Documentary evidence (fragmentary pieces of writing,
inscriptions.
such as official orders or private correspondence) is the
most valuable for writing histories because it does not
consciously refer to events and persons. It comes almost
entirely from Greek and Arabic papyri (good for
administrative history) and the Geniza records. Some
evidence has emerged from archaeological (excavations
done at desert palaces), numismatic (study of coins) and
epigraphic (study of inscriptions) sources which is of great
value for economic history, art history, and for establishing
names and dates.
Proper histories of Islam began to be written in the
nineteenth century by university professors in Germany and
the Netherlands. Colonial interests in the Middle East and
North Africa encouraged French and British researchers to
study Islam as well. Christian priests too paid close attention
to the history of Islam and produced some good work,
although their interest was mainly to compare Islam with
Christianity. These scholars, called Orientalists, are known
for their knowledge of Arabic and Persian and critical
analysis of original texts. Ignaz Goldziher was a Hungarian
Jew who studied at the Islamic college (al-Azhar) in Cairo
and produced path-breaking studies in German of Islamic
law and theology. Twentieth-century historians of Islam have
largely followed the interests and methods of Orientalists.
They have widened the scope of Islamic history by including
new topics, and by using allied disciplines, such as
economics, anthropology and statistics, have refined many
aspects of Orientalist studies. The historiography of Islam
is a good example of how religion can be studied with
modern historical methods by those who may not share the
customs and beliefs of the people they are studying.



During 612-32, the Prophet Muhammad preached the worship of a
single God, Allah, and the membership of a single community of believers
(umma). This was the origin of Islam. Muhammad was an Arab by
language and culture and a merchant by profession. Sixth-century
Arab culture was largely confined to the Arabian peninsula and areas
of southern Syria and Mesopotamia.

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC L ANDS 79

The Arabs were divided into tribes* (qabila), each led by a chief who *Tribes are societies
was chosen partly on the basis of his family connections but more for organised on the basis
of blood relationships.
his personal courage, wisdom and generosity (murawwa). Each tribe The Arab tribes were
had its own god or goddess, who was worshipped as an idol (sanam) in made up of clans or
a shrine. Many Arab tribes were nomadic (Bedouins), moving from dry combinations of large
to green areas (oases) of the desert in search of food (mainly dates) and families. Unrelated
clans also merged to
fodder for their camels. Some settled in cities and practised trade or
make a tribe stronger.
agriculture. Muhammad’s own tribe, Quraysh, lived in Mecca and Non-Arab individuals
controlled the main shrine there, a cube-like structure called Kaba, in (mawali) became
which idols were placed. Even tribes outside Mecca considered the members through the
Kaba holy and installed their own idols at this shrine, making annual patronage of prominent
tribesmen. Even after
pilgrimages (hajj) to the shrine. Mecca was located on the crossroads converting to Islam, the
of a trade route between Yemen and Syria which further enhanced the mawali were never
city’s importance (see Map p. 82). The Meccan shrine was a sanctuary treated as equals by
(haram) where violence was forbidden and protection given to all visitors. the Arab Muslims and
had to pray in separate
Pilgrimage and commerce gave the nomadic and settled tribes
mosques.
opportunities to communicate with one another and share their beliefs
and customs. Although the polytheistic Arabs were vaguely familiar A thirteenth century
with the notion of a Supreme God, Allah (possibly under the influence painting from ‘Ajaibul
Makhluqat’ depicting
of the Jewish and Christian tribes living in their midst), their attachment
the artist’s imagination
to idols and shrines was more immediate and stronger. of the Archangel Gabriel
Around 612, Muhammad declared himself to be the messenger (Jibril) who brought
(rasul) of God who had been commanded to preach that Allah alone messages to
should be worshipped. The worship involved simple rituals, such as Muhammad. The first
word he spoke was
daily prayers (salat), and moral principles, such as distributing ‘recite’ (iqra) from
alms and abstaining from theft. Muhammad was to found a which has come the
community of believers (umma) bound by a common set of religious word Quran. In Islamic
beliefs. The community would bear witness (shahada) to the existence cosmology, angels are
one of the three
of the religion before God as well as before members of other religious
intelligent forms of life
communities. Muhammad’s message particularly appealed to those in the Universe. The
Meccans who felt deprived of the gains from trade and religion and other two are humans
were looking for a new community identity. Those who and jinns.
accepted the doctrine were called Muslims. They
were promised salvation on the Day of Judgement
(qiyama) and a share of the resources of the
community while on earth. The Muslims soon
faced considerable opposition from affluent
Meccans who took offence to the rejection of
their deities and found the new religion a
threat to the status and prosperity of Mecca.
In 622, Muhammad was forced
to migrate with his followers to Medina.
Muhammad’s journey from Mecca (hijra) was
a turning point in the history of
Islam, with the year of his arrival in
Medina marking the beginning of the
Muslim calendar.

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 80 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY



  



          








The survival of a religion rests on the

survival of the community of believers. The
community has to be consolidated internally
and protected from external dangers.
Consolidation and protection require
political institutions such as states and
governments which are either inherited from
the past, borrowed from outside or created
from scratch. In Medina, Muhammad
created a political order from all three
sources which gave his followers the
protection they needed as well as resolved
the city’s ongoing civil strife. The umma was
converted into a wider community to include
polytheists and the Jews of Medina under
the political leadership of Muhammad.
Muhammad consolidated the faith for his
followers by adding and refining rituals
(such as fasting) and ethical principles. The
community survived on agriculture and
trade, as well as an alms tax (zakat). In
addition, the Muslims organised
expeditionary raids on Meccan caravans
and nearby oases. These raids provoked
reactions from the Meccans and caused a
breach with the Jews of Medina. After

Pilgrims at the Kaba, illustration from a fifteenth-

century Persian manuscript.

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 81

a series of battles, Mecca was conquered and Muhammad’s reputation

as a religious preacher and political leader spread far and wide.
Muhammad now insisted on conversion as the sole criterion for
membership of the community. In the harsh conditions of the desert,
the Arabs attached great value to strength and solidarity. Impressed
by Muhammad’s achievements, many tribes, mostly Bedouins, joined
the community by converting to Islam. Muhammad’s alliances began
to spread until they embraced the whole of Arabia. Medina became the
administrative capital of the emerging Islamic state with Mecca as its
religious centre. The Kaba was cleansed of idols as Muslims were
required to face the shrine when offering prayers. In a short space
of time, Muhammad was able to unite a large part of Arabia under
a new faith, community and state. The early Islamic polity, however,
remained a federation of Arab tribes and clans for a long time.



After Muhammad’s death in 632, no one could legitimately claim
to be the next prophet of Islam. As a result, his political authority
was transferred to the umma with no established principle of
succession. This created opportunities for innovations but also
caused deep divisions among the Muslims. The biggest innovation
was the creation of the institution of caliphate, in which the leader
of the community (amir al-muminin) became the deputy (khalifa) of
the Prophet. The first four caliphs (632-61) justified their powers
on the basis of their close association with the Prophet and
continued his work under the general guidelines he had provided.
The twin objectives of the caliphate were to retain control over the
tribes constituting the umma and to raise resources for the state.
Following Muhammad’s death, many tribes broke away from the
Islamic state. Some even raised their own prophets to establish
communities modelled on the umma. The first caliph, Abu Bakr,
suppressed the revolts by a series of campaigns. The second caliph,
Umar, shaped the umma’s policy of expansion of power. The caliph
knew that the umma could not be maintained out of the modest
income derived from trade and taxes. Realising that rich booty
(ghanima) could be obtained from expeditionary raids, the caliph and
his military commanders mustered their tribal strength to conquer
lands belonging to the Byzantine Empire in the west and the Sasanian
empire in the east. At the height of their power, the Byzantine and
Sasanian empires ruled vast territories and commanded huge
resources to pursue their political and commercial interests in Arabia.
The Byzantine Empire promoted Christianity and the Sasanian empire
patronised Zoroastrianism, the ancient religion of Iran. On the eve
of the Arab invasions, these two empires had declined in strength
due to religious conflicts and revolts by the aristocracy. This made it

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 82 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

• Ghazni

• Cairo
• Fustat

• Medina
• Mecca

Expansion of Islam under Muhammad

MAP 1: The Islamic Central Islamic lands c. 750
Lands

easier for the Arabs to annex territories through wars and treaties.
In three successful campaigns (637-642), the Arabs brought Syria,
Iraq, Iran and Egypt under the control of Medina. Military strategy,
religious fervour and the weakness of the opposition contributed
to the success of the Arabs. Further campaigns were launched
by the third caliph, Uthman, to extend the control to Central
Asia. Within a decade of the death of Muhammad, the Arab-
Islamic state controlled the vast territory between the Nile and
the Oxus. These lands remain under Muslim rule to this day.
In all the conquered provinces, the caliphs imposed a new
administrative structure headed by governors (amirs) and tribal
chieftains (ashraf ). The central treasury (bait al-mal) obtained its
revenue from taxes paid by Muslims as well as its share of the booty
from raids. The caliph’s soldiers, mostly Bedouins, settled in camp
cities at the edge of the desert, such as Kufa and Basra, to remain
within reach of their natural habitat as well as the caliph’s command.
The ruling class and soldiers received shares of the booty and monthly
payments (ata). The non-Muslim population retained their rights to
property and religious practices on payment of taxes (kharaj and jiziya).
Jews and Christians were declared protected subjects of the state
(dhimmis) and given a large measure of autonomy in the conduct of
their communal affairs.

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 83

Political expansion and unification did not come easily to the Arab
tribesmen. With territorial expansion, the unity of the umma became
threatened by conflicts over the distribution of resources and offices.
The ruling class of the early Islamic state comprised almost entirely
the Quraysh of Mecca. The third caliph, Uthman (644-56), also a
Quraysh, packed his administration with his own men to secure greater
control. This further intensified the Meccan character of the state
and the conflict with the other tribesmen. Opposition in Iraq and
Egypt, combined with opposition in Medina, led to the assassination
of Uthman. With Uthman’s death, Ali became the fourth caliph.
The rifts among the Muslims deepened after Ali (656-61) fought
two wars against those who represented the Meccan aristocracy.
Ali established himself at Kufa and defeated an army led by
Muhammad’s wife, Aisha, in the Battle of the Camel (657). He was,
however, not able to suppress the faction led by Muawiya, a
kinsman of Uthman and the governor of Syria. Ali’s second battle,
at Siffin (northern Mesopotamia), ended in a truce which split his
followers into two groups: some remained loyal to him, while others
left the camp and came to be known as Kharjis. Soon after, Ali was
assassinated by a Kharji in a mosque at Kufa. After his death, his
followers paid allegiance to his son, Hussain, and his descendants.
Muawiya made himself the next caliph in 661, founding the
Umayyad dynasty which lasted till 750.
After the civil wars, it appeared as if Arab domination would
disintegrate. There were also signs that the tribal conquerors
were adopting the sophisticated culture of their subjects. It was
under the Umayyads, a prosperous clan of the Quraysh tribe,
that a second round of consolidation took place.


The conquest of large territories destroyed the caliphate based in
Medina and replaced it with an increasingly authoritarian polity. The
Umayyads implemented a series of political measures which
consolidated their leadership within the umma. The first Umayyad
caliph, Muawiya, moved his capital to Damascus and adopted the
court ceremonies and administrative institutions of the Byzantine
Empire. He also introduced hereditary succession and persuaded the
leading Muslims to accept his son as his heir. These innovations were
adopted by the caliphs who followed him, and allowed the Umayyads
to retain power for 90 years and the Abbasids, for two centuries.
The Umayyad state was now an imperial power, no longer based
directly on Islam but on statecraft and the loyalty of Syrian troops.
There were Christian advisers in the administration, as well as
Zoroastrian scribes and bureaucrats. However, Islam continued to
provide legitimacy to their rule. The Umayyads always appealed for

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unity and suppressed rebellions

in the name of Islam. They also
retained their Arab social
identity. During the reign of
Abd al-Malik (685-705) and his
successors, both the Arab and
Islamic identities were
strongly emphasised. Among
the measures Abd al-Malik
took were the adoption of
Arabic as the language of
administration and the
introduction of an Islamic
coinage. The gold dinar and
silver dirham that had been
circulating in the caliphate
The Dome of the Rock, were copies of Byzantine and Iranian coins (denarius and drachm),
built over a rocky with symbols of crosses and fire altars and Greek and Pahlavi
mound by Abd al-
Malik, is the earliest
(the language of Iran) inscriptions. These symbols were removed
major work of Islamic and the coins now carried Arabic inscriptions. Abd al-Malik also
architecture. Created made a highly visible contribution to the development of an Arab-
as a monument to the Islamic identity, by building the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem.
Muslim presence in
the city of Jerusalem,
it acquired a mystical
association connected 
with the Night Journey
of the Prophet to          
Heaven (miraj).          

             
       





Byzantine gold solidus

(denarius aureus) showing
the emperor Heraclius and
his two sons.

Portrait gold dinar struck The reformed dinar was purely epigraphic.
by Abd al-Malik with his It carries the kalima: ‘There is no God but
name and image. Allah and He has no partner (sharik)’

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC L ANDS 85


For their success in centralising the Muslim polity, the Umayyads
paid a heavy price. A well-organised movement, called dawa, brought
down the Umayyads and replaced them with another family of
Meccan origin, the Abbasids, in 750. The Abbasids portrayed the The Great Mosque of
Umayyad regime as evil and promised a restoration of the original al-Mutawwakil in
Islam of the Prophet. The revolution led not only to a change of Samarra (the second
dynasty but changes in the political structure and culture of Islam. Abbasid capital) built
in 850. The minar is
The Abbasid uprising broke out in the distant region of
50 metres high, and is
Khurasan (eastern Iran), a 20-day journey from Damascus on a made of brick.
fast horse. Khurasan had a mixed Arab-Iranian population which Inspired by
could be mobilised for various reasons. The Arab soldiers here Mesopotamian
were mostly from Iraq and resented the dominance of the Syrians. architectural
traditions, this was
The civilian Arabs of Khurasan disliked the Umayyad regime the largest mosque in
for having made promises of tax concessions and the world for
privileges which were never fulfilled. As for the Iranian centuries.
Muslims (mawali), they were exposed to the scorn of
the race-conscious Arabs and were eager to join any
campaign to oust the Umayyads.
The Abbasids, descendants of Abbas, the Prophet’s
uncle, mustered the support of the various dissident
groups and legitimised their bid for power by promising
that a messiah (mahdi) from the family of the Prophet
(ahl al-bayt) would liberate them from the oppressive
Umayyad regime. Their army was led by an Iranian
slave, Abu Muslim, who defeated the last Umayyad
caliph, Marwan, in a battle at the river Zab.
Under Abbasid rule, Arab influence declined,
while the importance of Iranian culture increased.
The Abbasids established their capital at Baghdad,
near the ruins of the ancient Iranian metropolis,
Ctesiphon. The army and bureaucracy were
reorganised on a non-tribal basis to ensure
greater participation by Iraq and Khurasan.
The Abbasid rulers strengthened the religious
status and functions of the caliphate and
patronised Islamic institutions and
scholars. But they were forced by the
needs of government and empire to
retain the centralised nature of the
state. They maintained the magnificent
imperial architecture and elaborate
court ceremonials of the Umayyads.
The regime which took pride in having
brought down the monarchy found
itself compelled to establish it again.

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
ACTIVITY 1 
Identify the The Abbasid state became weaker from the ninth century because
changing Baghdad’s control over the distant provinces declined, and because of
locations of the conflict between pro-Arab and pro-Iranian factions in the army and
caliphate’s bureaucracy. In 810, a civil war broke out between supporters of Amin
capital. Which
and Mamun, sons of the caliph Harun al-Rashid, which deepened the
would you say
was most
factionalism and created a new power bloc of Turkish slave officers
centrally (mamluk). Shiism once again competed with Sunni orthodoxy for power.
situated? A number of minor dynasties arose, such as the Tahirids and Samanids
in Khurasan and Transoxiana (Turan or lands beyond the Oxus), and
the Tulunids in Egypt and Syria. Abbasid power was soon limited to
central Iraq and western Iran. That too was lost in 945 when the
Buyids, a Shiite clan from the Caspian region of Iran (Daylam), captured
Baghdad. The Buyid rulers assumed various titles, including the ancient
Iranian title shahanshah (king of kings), but not that of caliph. They
kept the Abbasid caliph as the symbolic head of their Sunni subjects.
The decision not to abolish the caliphate was a shrewd one,
because another Shiite dynasty, the Fatimids, had ambitions to
rule the Islamic world. The Fatimids belonged to the Ismaili sub-
sect of Shiism and claimed to be descended from the Prophet’s
daughter, Fatima, and hence, the sole rightful rulers of Islam. From
their base in North Africa, they conquered Egypt in 969 and
established the Fatimid caliphate. The old capital of Egypt, Fustat,
was replaced by a new city, Qahira (Cairo), founded on the day of
the rise of the planet Mars (Mirrikh, also called al-Qahir). The two
rival dynasties patronised Shiite administrators, poets and scholars.
Between 950 and 1200, Islamic society was held together not by a
single political order or a single language of culture (Arabic) but by
common economic and cultural patterns. Unity in the face of political
divisions was maintained by the separation between state and society,
the development of Persian as a language of Islamic high culture, and
the maturity of the dialogue between intellectual traditions. Scholars,
artists and merchants moved freely within the central Islamic lands
and assured the circulation of ideas and manners. Some of these also
percolated down to the level of villages due to conversion. The Muslim
population, less than 10 per cent in the Umayyad and early Abbasid
periods, increased enormously. The identity of Islam as a religion and
a cultural system separate from other religions became much sharper,
which made conversion possible and meaningful.
A third ethnic group was added to the Arabs and Iranians, with the
rise of the Turkish sultanates in the tenth and eleventh centuries. The
Turks were nomadic tribes from the Central Asian steppes (grasslands)
of Turkistan (north-east of the Aral Sea up to the borders of China) who
gradually converted to Islam (see Theme 5). They were skilled riders
and warriors and entered the Abbasid, Samanid and Buyid

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC L ANDS 87

administrations as slaves and soldiers, rising to high positions on

account of their loyalty and military abilities. The Ghaznavid
sultanate was established by Alptegin (961) and consolidated by
Mahmud of Ghazni (998-1030). Like the Buyids, the Ghaznavids
were a military dynasty with a professional army of Turks and
Indians (one of the generals of Mahmud was an Indian named
Tilak). But their centre of power was in Khurasan and Afghanistan
and for them, the Abbasid caliphs were not rivals but a source of
legitimacy. Mahmud was conscious of being the son of a slave and
was especially eager to receive the title of Sultan from the caliph.
The caliph was willing to support the Sunni Ghaznavid as a
counterweight to Shiite power.
The Saljuq Turks entered Turan as soldiers in the armies of the
Samanids and Qarakhanids (non-Muslim Turks from further east).
They later established themselves as a powerful group under the
leadership of two brothers, Tughril and Chaghri Beg. Taking advantage
of the chaos following the death of Mahmud of Ghazni, the Saljuqs *An important Perso-
conquered Khurasan in 1037 and made Nishapur* their first capital. Islamic centre of
learning and the
The Saljuqs next turned their attention to western Persia and Iraq birthplace of Umar
(ruled by the Buyids) and in 1055, restored Baghdad to Sunni rule. Khayyam.
The caliph, al-Qaim, conferred on Tughril Beg the title of Sultan in a
move that marked the separation of religious and political authority.
The two Saljuq brothers ruled together in accordance with the tribal
notion of rule by the family as a whole. Tughril (d. 1064) was succeeded
by his nephew, Alp Arsalan. During Alp Arsalan’s reign, the Saljuq
empire expanded to Anatolia (modern Turkey).
From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, there was a series
of conflicts between European Christians and the Arab states.
This is discussed below. Then, at the start of the thirteenth century,
the Muslim world found itself on the verge of a great disaster. This
was the threat from the Mongols, the last but most decisive of all
nomadic assaults on settled civilisations (see Theme 5).


In medieval Islamic societies, Christians were regarded as the
People of the Book (ahl al-kitab) since they had their own scripture
(the New Testament or Injil). Christians were granted safe conduct
(aman) while venturing into Muslim states as merchants, pilgrims,
ambassadors and travellers. These territories also included those
which were once held by the Byzantine Empire, notably the Holy
Land of Palestine. Jerusalem was conquered by the Arabs in 638
but it was ever-present in the Christian imagination as the place
of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. This was an important factor
in the formation of the image of Muslims in Christian Europe.
Hostility towards the Muslim world became more pronounced in
the eleventh century. Normans, Hungarians and some Slavs had

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been converted to Christianity, and the Muslims alone remained

as the main enemy. There was also a change in the social and
Aleppo, a Hittite, economic organisation of western Europe in the eleventh century
Assyrian and
Hellenistic site, which which contributed to the hostility between Christendom and the
was occupied by the Islamic world. The clergy and the warrior class (the first two
Arabs in 636. It was orders – see Theme 6) were making efforts to ensure political
fought over for the stability as well as economic growth based on agriculture and
next 1,000 years; note
the Crusaders seen in
trade. The possibilities of military confrontation between competing
action. feudal principalities and a return to economic organisation based
–Nasuh al-Matraki’s on plunder were contained by the Peace of God movement. All
Itinerary, 1534-36. military violence was forbidden inside certain areas, near places
of worship, during certain
periods considered sacred in
the Church’s calendar, and
against certain vulnerable
social groups, such as
churchmen and the common
people. The Peace of God
deflected the aggressive
tendencies of feudal society
away from the Christian
world and towards the
‘enemies’ of God. It built a
climate in which fighting
against the infidels (non-
believers) became not only
permissible but also
commendable.
The death in 1092 of Malik
Shah, the Saljuq sultan of
Baghdad, was followed by the
disintegration of his empire.
This offered the Byzantine
emperor, Alexius I, a chance
to regain Asia Minor and
northern Syria. For Pope
Urban II, this was an
opportunity to revive the spirit
of Christianity. In 1095, the
Pope joined the Byzantine
emperor in calling for a war
in the name of God to liberate
the Holy Land. Between 1095
and 1291, western European
Christians planned and fought

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 89

wars against Muslim cities on the coastal plains of the eastern

Mediterranean (Levant). These wars were later designated as * The Pope ordered the
Crusades*. ceremonial granting of
crosses to those who
In the first crusade (1098-99), soldiers from France and Italy
had sworn to fight.
captured Antioch in Syria, and claimed Jerusalem. Their victory
was accompanied by the slaughter of Muslims and Jews in the
city, chronicled by both Christians and Muslims. Muslim
writers referred to the arrival of the Christians (called ifrinji or
firangi) as a Frankish invasion. The Franks quickly established
four crusader states in the region of Syria-Palestine.
Collectively, these territories were known as Outremer (the
land overseas) and later crusades were directed at its defence
and expansion.
The Outremer survived well for some time, but when the Turks
captured Edessa in 1144, an appeal was made by the Pope for a
second crusade (1145-49). A combined German and French army
made an attempt to capture Damascus but they were defeated
and forced to return home. After this, there was a gradual erosion
of the strength of Outremer. Crusader zeal gave way to living in
luxury and to battles over territory among the Christian rulers.
Salah al-Din (Saladin) created an Egypto-Syrian empire and
gave the call for jihad or holy war against the Christians, and
defeated them in 1187. He regained Jerusalem, nearly a century
after the first crusade. Records of the time indicate that Salah
al-Din’s treatment of the Christian population was humane, in
marked contrast to the way in which Christians had earlier dealt
with Muslims and Jews. Although he gave custody of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre to the Christians, a number of churches
were turned into mosques, and Jerusalem once again became a
Muslim city.
The loss of the city prompted a third crusade in 1189, but the
crusaders gained little except for some coastal towns in Palestine
and free access to Jerusalem for Christian pilgrims. The Mamluks,
the rulers of Egypt, finally drove the crusading Christians from
all of Palestine in 1291. Europe gradually lost military interest in
Islam and focused on its internal political and cultural
development.
The Crusades left a lasting impact on two aspects of Christian-
Muslim relations. One was the harsher attitude of the Muslim
state towards its Christian subjects which resulted from the bitter
memories of the conflict as well as the needs for security in areas
of mixed populations. The other was the greater influence of Italian
mercantile communities (from Pisa, Genoa and Venice) in the
trade between the East and the West even after the restoration of
Muslim power.

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
          

            

      
             
           

               
   
    

     
       
    
      

      
      

   
    
    
A crusader castle in Syria. Built during the     
crusades (1110), it was an important base to 
attack Arab-controlled areas. The towers and
     
aqueducts were built by the Mamluk sultan,
Baybars, when he captured it in 1271. 
      



           
             
             


         
             
              





2018-19
 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 91



Agriculture was the principal occupation of the settled populations
in the newly conquered territories. The Islamic state made no changes
in this. Land was owned by big and small peasants and, in some
cases, by the state. In Iraq and Iran, land existed in fairly large
units cultivated by peasants. The estate owners collected taxes on
behalf of the state during the Sasanian as well as Islamic periods. In
areas that had moved from a pastoral to a settled agricultural system,
land was the common property of the village. Finally, big estates
that were abandoned by their owners after the Islamic conquests
were acquired by the state and handed over mainly to the Muslim
elites of the empire, particularly members of the caliph’s family.
The state had overall control of agricultural lands, deriving the
bulk of its income from land revenue once the conquests were over.
The lands conquered by the Arabs that remained in the hands of the
owners were subject to a tax (kharaj),
which varied from half to a fifth of
the produce, according to the
conditions of cultivation. On land
held or cultivated by Muslims, the
tax levied was one-tenth (ushr) of the
produce. When non-Muslims started
to convert to Islam to pay lower taxes,
this reduced the income of the state.
To address the shortfall, the caliphs
first discouraged conversions
and later adopted a uniform policy
of taxation. From the tenth century
onwards, the state authorised its
officials to claim their salaries
from agricultural revenues from
territories, called iqtas (revenue
assignments).
Agricultural prosperity went
hand in hand with political
stability. In many areas, especially
Grain harvesting; the
in the Nile valley, the state supported irrigation systems, the labourers’ lunch is
construction of dams and canals, and the digging of wells (often being brought on a
equipped with waterwheels or noria), all of which were crucial for tray.
good harvests. Islamic law gave tax concessions to people who –Arabic version of the
Pseudo-Galen’s Book
brought land under cultivation. Through peasant initiatives and
of Antidotes, 1199
state support, cultivable land expanded and productivity rose, (see the story of
even in the absence of major technological changes. Many new Doctor Galen, p. 63).
crops such as cotton, oranges, bananas, watermelons, spinach
and brinjals (badinjan) were grown and even exported to Europe.

2018-19
 92 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

Islamic civilisation flourished as the number of cities grew

phenomenally. Many new cities were founded, mainly to settle Arab
soldiers (jund) who formed the backbone of the local administration.
Among this class of garrison-cities, called misr (the Arabic name for
Egypt), were Kufa and Basra in Iraq, and Fustat and Cairo in Egypt.
Within half a century of its establishment as the capital of the
Abbasid caliphate (800), the population of Baghdad had reached
around 1 million. Alongside these cities were older towns such as
Damascus, Isfahan and Samarqand, which received a new lease of
life. Their size and population surged, supported by an expansion in
the production of foodgrains and raw materials such as cotton and
A boat sailing to
Basra. The crew are sugar for urban manufactures. A vast urban network developed,
Indian and the linking one town with another and forming a circuit.
passengers Arab. The At the heart of the city were two building complexes radiating cultural
transport of goods and and economic power: the congregational mosque (masjid al-jami), big
passengers by water
enough to be seen from a distance, and the central marketplace (suq),
was cheaper, quicker
and safer in pre- with shops in a row, merchants’ lodgings (fanduq) and the office of the
modern times. money-changer. The cities were homes to administrators (ayan or eyes
Illustration from the of the state), and scholars and merchants (tujjar) who lived close to the
Maqamat written by centre. Ordinary citizens and soldiers had their living quarters in the
Hariri (twelfth-century
manuscript). The outer circle, each fitted with its own mosque, church or synagogue
Maqamat (Assemblies) (Jewish temple), subsidiary market and public bath (hammam), an
were a genre of important meeting place. At the outskirts were the houses of the urban
popular Arabic poor, a market for green vegetables and fruits brought from the
literature in which a
countryside, caravan stations and ‘unclean’ shops, such as those dealing
narrator tells stories of
a trickster and his in tanning or butchering. Beyond the city walls were inns for people to
escapades. rest when the city gates were shut and cemeteries. There were variations
on this typology depending on the nature
of the landscape, political traditions and
historical events.
Political unification and urban
demand for foodstuffs and luxuries
enlarged the circuit of exchange.
Geography favoured the Muslim empire,
which spread between the trading
zones of the Indian Ocean and the
Mediterranean. For five centuries, Arab
and Iranian traders monopolised the
maritime trade between China, India and
Europe. This trade passed through two
major routes, namely, the Red Sea and
the Persian Gulf. High-value goods
suitable for long-distance trade, such as
spices, textile, porcelain and gunpowder,
were shipped from India and China to
the Red Sea ports of Aden and Aydhab
and the Gulf ports of Siraf and Basra.

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 93

From here, the merchandise was carried overland in camel caravans

to the warehouses (makhazin, origin of the word magazine which ACTIVITY 2
has a similar collection of articles) of Baghdad, Damascus and
Aleppo for local consumption or onward transmission. The caravans Describe a
passing through Mecca got bigger whenever the hajj coincided with morning scene
the sailing seasons (mawasim, origin of the word monsoon) in the in Basra.
Indian Ocean. At the Mediterranean end of these trade routes,
exports to Europe from the port of Alexandria were handled by
Jewish merchants, some of whom traded directly with India, as can
be seen from their letters preserved in the Geniza collection. However,
from the tenth century, the Red Sea route gained greater importance
due to the rise of Cairo as a centre of commerce and power and
growing demand for eastern goods from the trading cities of Italy.


           
           


           
          

             




           
             

            
              



          
            

         


           
          
           


2018-19
94 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

Towards the eastern end, caravans of Iranian merchants set

out from Baghdad along the Silk Route to China, via the oasis
cities of Bukhara and Samarqand (Transoxiana), to bring Central
Asian and Chinese goods, including paper. Transoxiana also
formed an important link in the commercial network which
extended north to Russia and Scandinavia for the exchange of
European goods, (mainly fur) and Slavic captives (hence the
word, slave). Islamic coins, used for the payment of these goods,
were found in hoards discovered along the Volga river and in
the Baltic region. Male and female Turkish slaves (ghulam) too
were purchased in these markets for the courts of the caliphs
and sultans.
The fiscal system (income and expenditure of the state) and
market exchange increased the importance of money in the
central Islamic lands. Coins of gold, silver and copper (fulus)
were minted and circulated, often in bags sealed by money-
changers, to pay for goods and services. Gold came from Africa
(Sudan) and silver from Central Asia (Zarafshan valley).
Precious metals and coins also came from Europe, which used
these to pay for its trade with the East. Rising demand for
money forced people to release their accumulated reserves and
idle wealth into circulation. Credit combined with currencies
to oil the wheels of commerce. The greatest contribution of the
Muslim world to medieval economic life was the development
of superior methods of payment and business organisation.
Letters of credit (sakk, origin of the word cheque) and bills of
exchange (suftaja) were used by merchants and bankers to
transfer money from one place or individual to another. The
widespread use of commercial papers freed merchants from
the need to carry cash everywhere and also made their journeys
safer. The caliph too used the sakk to pay salaries or reward
poets and minstrels.
Although it was customary for merchants to set up family
businesses or employ slaves to run their affairs, formal business
arrangements (muzarba) were also common in which sleeping
partners entrusted capital to travelling merchants and shared
profits and losses in an agreed proportion. Islam did not stop
people from making money so long as certain prohibitions were
respected. For instance, interest-bearing transactions (riba) were
unlawful, although people circumvented usury in ingenious ways
(hiyal), such as borrowing money in one type of coin and paying
in another while disguising the interest as a commission on
currency exchange (the origin of the bill of exchange).
Many tales from the Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla wa
Layla) give us a picture of medieval Islamic society, featuring
characters such as sailors, slaves, merchants and money-changers.

2018-19
 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC L ANDS 95


As the religious and social experiences of the Muslims deepened
through contact with other people, the community was obliged to
reflect on itself and confront issues pertaining to God and the
world. What should be the ideal conduct of a Muslim in public
and private? What is the object of Creation and how does one
know what God wants from His creatures? How can one
understand the mysteries of the universe? Answers to such
questions came from learned Muslims who acquired and organised
knowledge of different kinds to strengthen the social identity of
the community as well as to satisfy their intellectual curiosity.
For religious scholars (ulama), knowledge (ilm) derived from the
Quran and the model behaviour of the Prophet (sunna) was the
only way to know the will of God and provide guidance in this
world. The ulama in medieval times devoted themselves to writing
tafsir and documenting Muhammad’s authentic hadith. Some went
on to prepare a body of laws or sharia (the straight path) to govern
the relationship of Muslims with God through rituals (ibadat) and
with the rest of the humanity through social affairs (muamalat). In
framing Islamic law, jurists also made use of reasoning (qiyas) Courtyard of
since not everything was apparent in the Quran or hadith and life Mustansiriya Madrasa
had become increasingly complex with urbanisation. Differences of Baghdad, founded
in the interpretation of the sources and methods of jurisprudence in 1233. The madrasa
was a college of
led to the formation of four schools of law (mazhab) in the eight and learning for students
ninth centuries. These were the Maliki, Hanafi, Shafii and Hanbali who had finished their
schools, each named after a leading jurist (faqih), the last being schooling in maktab.
the most conservative. The sharia provided guidance on all possible Madrasas were
attached to mosques
legal issues within Sunni society, though it was more precise on
but big madrasas had
questions of personal status (marriage, divorce and inheritance) a mosque attached to
than on commercial matters or penal and constitutional issues. them.

2018-19
 96 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY





    

Page from a Quran

written on vellum in the
ninth century. It is the
beginning of Sura 18,
‘al-Kahf’ (The Cave)
which refers to Moses,
the Seven Sleepers of
Ephesus and Alexander
(Zulqar Nayn). The
angular Kufi script has
vowel signs in red for
the correct pronunciation
of the language.












          

          
               
             
           
        
             
   

2018-19
 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC L ANDS 97

Before it took its final form, the sharia was adjusted to take into
account the customary laws (urf) of the various regions as well as
the laws of the state on political and social order (siyasa sharia).
Customary laws, however, retained their strength in large parts of
the countryside and continued to bypass the sharia in matters
such as the inheritance of land by daughters. In most regimes, the
ruler or his officials dealt routinely with matters of state security
and sent only selected cases to the qazi (judge). The qazi, appointed
by the state in each city or locality, often acted as an arbitrator in
disputes, rather than as a strict enforcer of the sharia.
Painting of whirling
A group of religious-minded people in medieval Islam, known dervishes, Iranian
as Sufis, sought a deeper and more personal knowledge of God manuscript, 1490. Of
through asceticism (rahbaniya) and mysticism. The more society the four men dancing,
gave itself up to material pursuits and pleasures, the more the only one is shown
with his hands in the
Sufis sought to renounce the world (zuhd) and rely on God alone ‘correct’ position.
(tawakkul). In the eighth and ninth centuries, ascetic inclinations Some have succumbed
were elevated to the higher stage of mysticism (tasawwuf) by the to vertigo and are
ideas of pantheism and love. Pantheism is the idea of oneness of being led away.
God and His creation which implies that
the human soul must be united with
its Maker. Unity with God can be
achieved through an intense love for
God (ishq), which the woman-saint
Rabia of Basra (d. 891) preached in her
poems. Bayazid Bistami (d. 874), an
Iranian Sufi, was the first to teach the
importance of submerging the self
(fana) in God. Sufis used musical
concerts (sama) to induce ecstasy and
stimulate emotions of love and passion.
Sufism is open to all regardless of
religious affiliation, status and gender.
Dhulnun Misri (d. 861), whose grave
can still be seen near the Pyramids in
Egypt, declared before the Abbasid
caliph, al-Mutawakkil, that he ‘learnt
true Islam from an old woman, and true
chivalry from a water carrier’. By
making religion more personal and less
institutional, Sufism gained popularity
and posed a challenge to orthodox Islam.
An alternative vision of God and the
universe was developed by Islamic
philosophers and scientists under the
influence of Greek philosophy and
science. During the seventh century,
remnants of late Greek culture could still

2018-19
 98 THEMES IN WORLD H ISTORY

be found in the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, although they

were slowly dying. In the schools of Alexandria, Syria and
Mesopotamia, once part of Alexander’s empire, Greek philosophy,
mathematics and medicine were taught along with other subjects.
The Umayyad and Abbasid caliphs commissioned the translation
of Greek and Syriac books into Arabic by Christian scholars.
Translation became a well-organised activity under al-Mamun,
who supported the Library cum Institute of Science (Bayt
al-Hikma) in Baghdad where the scholars worked. The works of
Aristotle, the Elements of Euclid and Ptolemy’s Almagest were
brought to the attention of Arabic-reading scholars. Indian works
on astronomy, mathematics and medicine were also translated
into Arabic during the same period. These works reached Europe
and kindled interest in philosophy and science.

ACTIVITY 3 
Comment on         
this passage. 
Would it be 
relevant to a 
student today?           
           
         
          
           
          




          
         

          
         
          


          
            
           
      


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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 99

The study of new subjects promoted critical inquiry and had a

profound influence on Islamic intellectual life. Scholars with a
theological bent of mind, such as the group known as Mutazila, used
Greek logic and methods of reasoning (kalam) to defend Islamic
beliefs. Philosophers (falasifa) posed wider questions and provided
fresh answers. Ibn Sina (980-1037), a doctor by profession and a
philosopher, did not believe in the resurrection of the body on the
Day of Judgement. This was met with strong opposition from
theologians. His medical writings were widely read. The most
influential was al-Qanun fil Tibb (Canon of Medicine), a million-word
manuscript that lists 760 drugs sold by the pharmacists of his day
and includes notes on his own experiments conducted in hospitals
(bimaristan). The Canon points out the importance of dietetics (healing
through dietary regulation), the influence of the climate and
environment on health and the contagious nature of some diseases.
The Canon was used as a textbook in Europe, where the author was
known as Avicenna (see Theme 7). Just before his death, the scientist
and poet Umar Khayyam was said to be reading the Canon. His gold
toothpick was found between two pages of the chapter on metaphysics.
In medieval Islamic societies, fine language and a creative
imagination were among the most appreciated qualities in a person.
These qualities raised a person’s communication to the level of adab,
a term which implied literary and cultural refinement. Adab forms
of expressions included poetry (nazm or orderly arrangement) and
prose (nathr or scattered words) which were meant to be memorised
and used when the occasion arose. The most popular poetic
composition of pre-Islamic origin was the ode (qasida), developed by
poets of the Abbasid period to glorify the achievements of their patrons.
Poets of Persian origin revitalised and reinvented Arabic poetry and
challenged the cultural hegemony of the Arabs. Abu Nuwas (d. 815),
who was of Persian origin, broke new ground by composing classical
poetry on new themes such as wine and male love with the intention
of celebrating pleasures forbidden by Islam. After Abu Nuwas, the
poets addressed the object of their passion in the masculine, even if
the latter was a woman. Following the same tradition, the Sufis
glorified the intoxication caused by the wine of mystical love.
By the time the Arabs conquered Iran, Pahlavi, the language of the
sacred books of ancient Iran, was in decay. A version of Pahlavi, known
as New Persian, with a huge Arabic vocabulary, soon developed. The
formation of sultanates in Khurasan and Transoxiana took New Persian
to great cultural heights. The Samanid court poet Rudaki (d. 940) was
considered the father of New Persian poetry, which included new forms
such as the short lyrical poem (ghazal) and the quatrain (rubai, plural
rubaiyyat). The rubai is a four-line stanza in which the first two lines
set the stage, the third is finely poised, and the fourth delivers the
point. In contrast to its form, the subject matter of the rubai is
unrestricted. It can be used to express the beauty of a beloved, praise

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 100 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

a patron, or express the thoughts of the philosopher. The rubai

reached its zenith in the hands of Umar Khayyam (1048-1131),
also an astronomer and mathematician, who lived at various times
in Bukhara, Samarqand and Isfahan.
At the beginning of the eleventh century,
Ghazni became the centre of Persian
literary life. Poets were naturally attracted
by the brilliance of the imperial court.
Rulers, too, realised the importance of
patronising arts and learning for enhancing
their prestige. Mahmud of Ghazni gathered
around him a group of poets who composed
anthologies (diwans) and epic poetry
(mathnavi). The most outstanding was
Firdausi (d. 1020), who took 30 years to
complete the Shahnama (Book of Kings), an
epic of 50,000 couplets which has become
a masterpiece of Islamic literature. The
Shahnama is a collection of traditions and
legends (the most popular being that of
Rustam), which poetically depicts Iran from
Creation up until the Arab conquest. It was
in keeping with the Ghaznavid tradition that
Persian later became the language of
administration and culture in India.
Dimna is talking to the The catalogue (Kitab al-Fihrist) of a Baghdad bookseller, Ibn Nadim
lion (asad) in this
miniature painting of a
(d. 895), describes a large number of works written in prose for the
thirteenth-century moral education and amusement of readers. The oldest of these is a
Arabic manuscript. collection of animal fables called Kalila wa Dimna (the names of the
two jackals who were the leading characters) which is the Arabic
translation of a Pahlavi version of the Panchtantra. The most
widespread and lasting literary works are the stories of hero-
adventurers such as Alexander (al-Iskandar) and Sindbad, or those
of unhappy lovers such as Qays (known as Majnun or the Madman).
These have developed over the centuries into oral and written
traditions. The Thousand and One Nights is another collection of
stories told by a single narrator, Shahrzad, to her husband night
after night. The collection was originally in Indo-Persian and was
translated into Arabic in Baghdad in the eighth century. More stories
were later added in Cairo during the Mamluk period. These stories
depict human beings of different types – the generous, the stupid,
the gullible, the crafty – and were told to educate and entertain. In
his Kitab al-Bukhala (Book of Misers), Jahiz of Basra (d. 868) collected
amusing anecdotes about misers and also analysed greed.
From the ninth century onwards, the scope of adab was expanded
to include biographies, manuals of ethics (akhlaq), Mirrors for Princes
(books on statecraft) and, above all, history (tarikh) and geography.

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 THE CENTRAL ISLAMIC LANDS 101

The tradition of history writing was well established in literate

Muslim societies. History books were read by scholars and students
as well as by the broader literate public. For rulers and officials,
history provided a good record of the glories and achievements of
a dynasty as well as examples of the techniques of administration.
In the two major historical works, Ansab al-Ashraf (Genealogies of
the Nobles) of Baladhuri (d. 892) and Tarikh al-Rusul wal Muluk
(History of Prophets and Kings) of Tabari, the whole of human history
was treated with the Islamic period as the focal point. The tradition
of local history writing developed with the break-up of the caliphate.
Books were written in Persian about dynasties, cities or regions to
explore the unity and variety of the world of Islam.
Geography and travel (rihla) constituted a special branch of adab.
These combined knowledge from Greek, Iranian and Indian books
with the observations of merchants and travellers. In mathematical
geography, the inhabited world was divided into seven climes (singular
iqlim) parallel with the Equator, corresponding to our three
continents. The exact position of each city was determined Mosaic floor in the
bath-house of the
astronomically. Muqaddasi’s (d. 1000) descriptive geography, Ahsan palace at Khirbat al-
al-Taqasim (The Best Divisions) is a comparative study of the countries Mafjar, Palestine,
and peoples of the world and a treasure trove of exotic curiosities. eighth century.
Geography and general history were combined in Muruj al-Dhahab Imagine the caliph
enthroned on the tree;
(Golden Meadows) of Masudi (written in 943) to illustrate the wide
the scene below
variety of worldly cultures. Alberuni’s famous Tahqiq ma lil-Hind depicts peace and
(History of India) was the greatest attempt by an eleventh-century war.
Muslim writer to look beyond the world
of Islam and observe what was of value
in another cultural tradition.
By the tenth century, an Islamic world
had emerged which was easily
recognisable by travellers. Religious
buildings were the greatest external
symbols of this world. Mosques, shrines
and tombs from Spain to Central Asia
showed the same basic design – arches,
domes, minarets and open courtyards –
and expressed the spiritual and
practical needs of Muslims. In the first
Islamic century, the mosque acquired a
distinct architectural form (roof
supported by pillars) which transcended
regional variations. The mosque had an
open courtyard (sahn) where a fountain
or pond was placed, leading to a vaulted
hall which could accommodate long lines
of worshippers and the prayer leader
(imam). Two special features were located

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 102 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

The Islamic decorative inside the hall: a niche (mihrab) in the wall indicating the direction
genius found full of Mecca (qibla), and a pulpit (minbar, pronounced mimbar) from
expression in the art
of metal objects that where sermons were delivered during noon prayers on Friday.
are among the best- Attached to the building was the minaret, a tower used to call
preserved specimens. the faithful to prayer at the appointed times and to symbolise the
This mosque lamp presence of the new faith. Time was marked in cities and villages
from fourteenth-
century Syria has the
by the five daily prayers and weekly sermons.
Light verse inscribed The same pattern of construction – of buildings built around a
on it. central courtyard (iwan) – appeared not only in mosques and
‘God is the Light (nur) mausoleums but also in caravanserais, hospitals and palaces.
of the heavens and The Umayyads built ‘desert palaces’ in oases, such as Khirbat
the earth al-Mafjar in Palestine and Qusayr Amra in Jordan, which served
His light is like a niche as luxurious residences and retreats for hunting and pleasure.
(mishkat) with a lamp
(misbah)
The palaces, modelled on Roman and Sasanian architecture, were
The lamp is in a glass lavishly decorated with sculptures, mosaics and paintings of
which looks as if it people. The Abbasids built a new imperial city in Samarra amidst
were a glittering star gardens and running waters which is mentioned in the stories
Kindled from a
and legends revolving round Harun al-Rashid. The great palaces
blessed olive (zaitun)
tree that is neither of the Abbasid caliphs in Baghdad or the Fatimids in Cairo have
eastern nor western disappeared, leaving only traces in literary texts.
Whose oil would The rejection of representing living beings in the religious art of
always shine even if Islam promoted two art forms: calligraphy (khattati or the art of beautiful
no fire (nar) touched it’
writing) and arabesque (geometric and vegetal designs). Small and big
(Quran, chapter 24, inscriptions, usually of religious quotations, were used to decorate
verse 35).
architecture. Calligraphic art has been best preserved in manuscripts
of the Quran dating from the eighth and ninth centuries. Literary
works, such as the Kitab al-Aghani (Book of Songs), Kalila wa Dimna,
and Maqamat of Hariri, were illustrated with miniature paintings. In
addition, a wide variety of illumination techniques were introduced to
enhance the beauty of a book. Plant and floral designs, based on the
idea of the garden, were used in buildings and book illustrations.
The history of the central Islamic lands brings together three
important aspects of human civilisation: religion, community
and politics. We can see them as three circles which merge and
appear as one in the seventh century. In the next five centuries
the circles separate. Towards the end of our period, the influence
of Islam over state and government was minimal, and politics involved
many things which had no sanction in religion (kingship, civil
wars, etc.). The circles of religion and community overlapped.
The Muslim community was united in its observance of the
sharia in rituals and personal matters. It was no more
governing itself (poltics was a separate circle) but it was
defining its religious identity. The only way the circles of religion
and community could have separated was through the progressive
secularisation of Muslim society. Philosophers and Sufis advocated
this, suggesting that civil society should be made autonomous, and
rituals be replaced by private spirituality.

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 THE CENTRAL I SLAMIC LANDS 103

ACTIVITY 4

Which of the pictures in the chapter

do you like best and why?

         

 
  
       
          
   
 
      
      
       
          

      
 
   


  
 

 
 

 

    

 

 


2018-19

 104 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY



THE term ‘noma1dic empires’ can appear contradictory: nomads

are arguably quintessential wanderers, organised in family
assemblies with a relatively undifferentiated economic life and
rudimentary systems of political organisation. The term ‘empire’,
on the other hand, carries with it the sense of a material location,
a stability derived from complex social and economic structures
and the governance of an extensive territorial dominion through
an elaborate administrative system. But the juxtapositions on
which these definitions are framed may be too narrowly and
ahistorically conceived. They certainly collapse when we study
some imperial formations constructed by nomadic groups.
In Theme 4 we studied state formations in the central Islamic
lands whose origins lay in the Bedouin nomadic traditions of the
Arabian peninsula. This chapter studies a different group of
nomads: the Mongols of Central Asia who established a
transcontinental empire under the leadership of Genghis Khan,
straddling Europe and Asia during the thirteenth and fourteenth
centuries. Relative to the agrarian-based imperial formations in
China, the neighbouring nomads of Mongolia may have inhabited
a humbler, less complex, social and economic world. But the
Central Asian nomadic societies were not insulated ‘islands’ that
were impervious to historical change. These societies interacted,
had an impact on and learnt from the larger world of which they
were very much a part.
This chapter studies the manner in which the Mongols under
Genghis Khan adapted their traditional social and political
customs to create a fearsome military machine and a sophisticated
method of governance. The challenge of ruling a dominion
spanning a melange of people, economies, and confessional
systems meant that the Mongols could not simply impose their
steppe traditions over their recently annexed territories. They
innovated and compromised, creating a nomadic empire that had
a huge impact on the history of Eurasia even as it changed the
character and composition of their own society forever.

The steppe dwellers themselves usually produced no

literature, so our knowledge of nomadic societies comes

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 NOMADIC E MPIRES 105

mainly from chronicles, travelogues and documents produced

by city-based litterateurs. These authors often produced
extremely ignorant and biased reports of nomadic life. The
imperial success of the Mongols, however, attracted many
literati. Some of them produced travelogues of their
experiences; others stayed to serve Mongol masters. These
individuals came from a variety of backgrounds – Buddhist,
Confucian, Christian, Turkish and Muslim. Although not
always familiar with Mongol customs, many of them produced
sympathetic accounts – even eulogies – that challenged and
complicated the otherwise hostile, city-based tirade against
the steppe marauders. The history of the Mongols, therefore,
provides interesting details to question the manner in which
sedentary societies usually characterised nomads as primitive *The term
barbarians*. ‘barbarian’ is
Perhaps the most valuable research on the Mongols was done derived from the
by Russian scholars starting in the eighteenth and nineteenth Greek barbaros
centuries as the Tsarist regime consolidated its control over which meant a non-
Greek, someone
Central Asia. This work was produced within a colonial milieu
whose language
and was largely survey notes produced by travellers, soldiers, sounded like a
merchants and antiquarian scholars. In the early twentieth random noise: ‘bar-
century, after the extension of the soviet republics in the region, bar’. In Greek texts,
a new Marxist historiography argued that the prevalent mode barbarians were
of production determined the nature of social relations. It placed depicted like
Genghis Khan and the emerging Mongol empire within a scale children, unable to
of human evolution that was witnessing a transition from a speak or reason
properly, cowardly,
tribal to a feudal mode of production: from a relatively classless
effeminate,
society to one where there were wide differences between the luxurious, cruel,
lord, the owners of land and the peasant. Despite following slothful, greedy and
such a deterministic interpretation of history, excellent politically unable to
research on Mongol languages, their society and culture was govern themselves.
carried out by scholars such as Boris Yakovlevich Vladimirtsov. The sterotype
Others such as Vasily Vladimirovich Bartold did not quite toe passed to the
Romans who used
the official line. At a time when the Stalinist regime was
the term for the
extremely wary of regional nationalism, Bartold’s sympathetic Germanic tribes,
and positive assessment of the career and achievements of the Gauls and the
the Mongols under Genghis Khan and his successors got him Huns. The Chinese
into trouble with the censors. It severely curtailed the had different terms
circulation of the work of the scholar and it was only in the for the steppe
1960s, during and after the more liberal Khruschev era, that barbarians but none
of them carried a
his writings were published in nine volumes.
positive meaning.
The transcontinental span of the Mongol empire also meant
that the sources available to scholars are written in a vast
number of languages. Perhaps the most crucial are the sources
in Chinese, Mongolian, Persian and Arabic, but vital materials
are also available in Italian, Latin, French and Russian.
Often the same text was produced in two languages with
differing contents. For example, the Mongolian and Chinese
versions of the earliest narrative on Genghis Khan, titled
Mongqol-un niuèa tobèa’an (The Secret History of the

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 106 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

Mongols) are quite different and the Italian and Latin versions
of Marco Polo’s travels to the Mongol court do not match.
Since the Mongols produced little literature on their own and
were instead ‘written about’ by literati from foreign cultural
milieus, historians have to often double as philologists to pick
out the meanings of phrases for their closest approximation
to Mongol usage. The work of scholars like Igor de Rachewiltz
on The Secret History of the Mongols and Gerhard Doerfer on
Mongol and Turkic terminologies that infiltrated into the
Persian language brings out the difficulties involved in
studying the history of the Central Asian nomads. As we will
notice through the remainder of this chapter, despite their
incredible achievements there is much about Genghis Khan
and the Mongol world empire still awaiting the diligent
scholar’s scrutiny.


In the early decades of the thirteenth century the great empires of the
Euro-Asian continent realised the dangers posed to them by the arrival
of a new political power in the steppes of Central Asia: Genghis Khan
MAP 1: The Mongol
(d. 1227) had united the Mongol people. Genghis Khan’s political vision,
Empire however, went far beyond the creation of a confederacy of Mongol

2018-19
 NOMADIC E MPIRES 107

tribes in the steppes of Central Asia: he had a mandate from God

to rule the world. Even though his own lifetime was spent
consolidating his hold over the Mongol tribes, leading and directing
campaigns into adjoining areas in north China, Transoxiana,
Afghanistan, eastern Iran and the Russian steppes, his
descendants travelled further afield to fulfil Genghis Khan’s vision
and create the largest empire the world had ever seen.
It was in the spirit of Genghis Khan’s ideals that his grandson
Mongke (1251-60) warned the French ruler, Louis IX (1226-70): ‘In
Heaven there is only one Eternal Sky, on Earth there is only one
Lord, Genghis Khan, the Son of Heaven… When by the power of
the Eternal Heaven the whole world from the rising of the sun to
its setting shall be at one in joy and peace, then it will be made
clear what we are going to do: if when you have understood the
decree of the Eternal Heaven, you are unwilling to pay attention
and believe it, saying, “Our country is far away, our mountains are
mighty, our sea is vast”, and in this confidence you bring an army
against us, we know what we can do. He who made easy what was
difficult and near what was far off, the Eternal Heaven knows.’
These were not empty threats and the 1236-41 campaigns of
Batu, another grandson of Genghis Khan, devastated Russian
lands up to Moscow, seized Poland and Hungary and camped
outside Vienna. In the thirteenth century it did seem that the
Eternal Sky was on the side of the Mongols and many parts of
China, the Middle East and Europe saw in Genghis Khan’s
conquests of the inhabited world the ‘wrath of God’, the beginning
of the Day of Judgement.


      
           ACTIVITY 1

Assume that
         
Juwaini’s
           account of the
           capture of
 Bukhara is
 accurate.
            Imagine yourself
           as a resident of
          Bukhara and
           Khurasan who
heard the

speeches. What
    
impact would
they have had
on you?
How did the Mongols create an empire that dwarfed the achievements
of the other ‘World Conqueror’, Alexander? In a pre-industrial age of

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poor technological communications, what skills were deployed by the

Mongols to administer and control such a vast dominion? For someone
so self-confidently aware of his moral, divinely-dispensed right to
rule, how did Genghis Khan relate to the diverse social and religious
groups that comprised his dominion? In the making of his imperium
what happened to this plurality? We need to start our discussion,
however, with a humbler set of questions to better comprehend the
social and political background of the Mongols and Genghis Khan:
who were the Mongols? Where did they live? Who did they interact with
and how do we know about their society and politics?


The Mongols were a diverse body of people, linked by similarities of
language to the Tatars, Khitan and Manchus to the east, and the
Turkic tribes to the west. Some of the Mongols were pastoralists
while others were hunter-gatherers. The pastoralists tended horses,
sheep and, to a lesser extent, cattle, goats and camels. They nomadised
in the steppes of Central Asia in a tract of land in the area of the
modern state of Mongolia. This was (and still is) a majestic landscape
with wide horizons, rolling plains, ringed by the snow-capped Altai
mountains to the west, the arid Gobi desert in the south and drained
by the Onon and Selenga rivers and myriad springs from the
melting snows of the hills in the north and the west. Lush, luxuriant
grasses for pasture and considerable small game were available in
a good season. The hunter-gatherers resided to the north of the

Onon river plain in

flood.

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 NOMADIC E MPIRES 109

pastoralists in the Siberian forests. They were a humbler body of 

people than the pastoralists, making a living from trade in furs of 
animals trapped in the summer months. There were extremes of 
temperature in the entire region: harsh, long winters followed by   
brief, dry summers. Agriculture was possible in the pastoral regions 

during short parts of the year but the Mongols (unlike some of the

Turks further west) did not take to farming. Neither the pastoral nor    
the hunting-gathering economies could sustain dense population  
settlements and as a result the region possessed no cities. The 
Mongols lived in tents, gers, and travelled with their herds from their 
winter to summer pasture lands.  
Ethnic and language ties united the Mongol people but the scarce   

resources meant that their society was divided into patrilineal

lineages; the richer families were larger, possessed more animals  
and pasture lands. They therefore had many followers and were 
more influential in local politics. Periodic natural calamities – either 
unusually harsh, cold winters when game and stored provisions  
ran out or drought which parched the grasslands – would force 
families to forage further afield leading to conflict over pasture
lands and predatory raids in search of livestock. Groups of families  
would occasionally ally for offensive and defensive purposes around 
richer and more powerful lineages but, barring the few exceptions,    
these confederacies were usually small and short-lived. The size of 
Genghis Khan’s confederation of Mongol and Turkish tribes was
perhaps matched in size only by that which had been stitched 
together in the fifth century by Attila (d. 453).   
Unlike Attila, however, Genghis Khan’s political system was far  
more durable and survived its founder. It was stable enough to 
counter larger armies with superior equipment in China, Iran and
eastern Europe. And, as they established control over these regions,   
the Mongols administered complex agrarian economies and urban 
settlements – sedentary societies – that were quite distant from
  
their own social experience and habitat.

Although the social and political organisations of the nomadic
and agrarian economies were very different, the two societies
were hardly foreign to each other. In fact, the scant resources of
the steppe lands drove Mongols and other Central Asian nomads
to trade and barter with their sedentary neighbours in China.
This was mutually beneficial to both parties: agricultural produce
and iron utensils from China were exchanged for horses, furs and
game trapped in the steppe. Commerce was not without its tensions,
especially as the two groups unhesitatingly applied military
pressure to enhance profit. When the Mongol lineages allied they
could force their Chinese neighbours to offer better terms and
trade ties were sometimes discarded in favour of outright plunder.
This relationship would alter when the Mongols were in disarray.
The Chinese would then confidently assert their influence in the
steppe. These frontier wars were more debilitating to settled
societies. They dislocated agriculture and plundered cities. Nomads,
on the other hand, could retreat away from the zone of conflict with

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marginal losses. Throughout its history, China suffered extensively

from nomad intrusion and different regimes – even as early as the
eighth century BCE – built fortifications to protect their subjects.
Starting from the third century BCE, these fortifications started to
be integrated into a common defensive outwork known today as
the ‘Great Wall of China’ a dramatic visual testament to the
disturbance and fear perpetrated by nomadic raids on the agrarian
societies of north China.

The Great Wall of

China.


Genghis Khan was born some time around 1162 near the Onon
river in the north of present-day Mongolia. Named Temujin, he
was the son of Yesugei, the chieftain of the Kiyat, a group of
families related to the Borjigid clan. His father was murdered at
an early age and his mother, Oelun-eke, raised Temujin, his
brothers and step-brothers in great hardship. The following decade
was full of reversals – Temujin was captured and enslaved and
soon after his marriage, his wife, Borte, was kidnapped, and he
had to fight to recover her. During these years of hardship he also
managed to make important friends. The young Boghurchu was
his first ally and remained a trusted friend; Jamuqa, his blood-
brother (anda), was another. Temujin also restored old alliances
with the ruler of the Kereyits, Tughril/Ong Khan, his father’s old
blood-brother.
Through the 1180s and 1190s, Temujin remained an ally of Ong
Khan and used the alliance to defeat powerful adversaries like Jamuqa,
his old friend who had become a hostile foe. It was after defeating him

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 NOMADIC EMPIRES 111

that Temujin felt confident enough to move against other tribes:

the powerful Tatars (his father’s assassins), the Kereyits and Ong
Khan himself in 1203. The final defeat of the Naiman people and
the powerful Jamuqa in 1206, left Temujin as the dominant
personality in the politics of the steppe lands, a position that was
recognised at an assembly of Mongol chieftains (quriltai) where he
was proclaimed the ‘Great Khan of the Mongols’ (Qa’an) with the
title Genghis Khan, the ‘Oceanic Khan’ or ‘Universal Ruler’.
Just before the quriltai of 1206, Genghis Khan had reorganised
the Mongol people into a more effective, disciplined military force
(see following sections) that facilitated the success of his future
campaigns. The first of his concerns was to conquer China, divided
at this time into three realms: the Hsi Hsia people of Tibetan origin
in the north-western provinces; the Jurchen whose Chin dynasty
ruled north China from Peking; the Sung dynasty who controlled
south China. By 1209, the Hsi Hsia were defeated, the ‘Great Wall
of China’ was breached in 1213 and Peking sacked in 1215. Long-
drawn-out battles against the Chin continued until 1234 but Genghis
Khan was satisfied enough with the progress of his campaigns to
return to his Mongolian homeland in 1216 and leave the military
affairs of the region to his subordinates.
After the defeat in 1218 of the Qara Khita who controlled the
Tien Shan mountains north-west of China, Mongol dominions
reached the Amu Darya, and the states of Transoxiana and
Khwarazm. Sultan Muhammad, the ruler of Khwarazm, felt the
fury of Genghis Khan’s rage when he executed Mongol envoys. In
the campaigns between 1219 and 1221 the great cities – Otrar,
Bukhara, Samarqand, Balkh, Gurganj, Merv, Nishapur and Herat
– surrendered to the Mongol forces. Towns that resisted were
devastated. At Nishapur, where a Mongol prince was killed during
the siege operation, Genghis Khan commanded that the ‘town
should be laid waste in such a manner that the site could be
ploughed upon; and that in the exaction of vengeance [for the
death of the prince] not even cats and dogs should be left alive’.


           

          
           
         
         
       
       




2018-19
 112 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

Opp. page: Mongol forces in pursuit of Sultan Muhammad pushed into

‘Barbarians’ as Azerbaijan, defeated Russian forces at the Crimea and encircled
imagined by a
the Caspian Sea. Another wing followed the Sultan’s son,
European artist.
Jalaluddin, into Afghanistan and the Sindh province. At the banks
of the Indus, Genghis Khan considered returning to Mongolia
through North India and Assam, but the heat, the natural habitat
and the ill portents reported by his Shaman soothsayer made him
change his mind.
Genghis Khan died in 1227, having spent most of his life in
military combat. His military achievements were astounding
and they were largely a result of his ability to innovate and
transform different aspects of steppe combat into extremely
effective military strategies. The horse-riding skills of the
Mongols and the Turks provided speed and mobility to the army;
their abilities as rapid-shooting archers from horseback were
further perfected during regular hunting expeditions which
doubled as field manoeuvres. The steppe cavalry had always
travelled light and moved quickly, but now it brought all its
knowledge of the terrain and the weather to do the unimaginable:
they carried out campaigns in the depths of winter, treating
frozen rivers as highways to enemy cities and camps. Nomads
were conventionally at a loss against fortified encampments
but Genghis Khan learnt the importance of siege engines and
naphtha bombardment very quickly. His engineers prepared
lightportable equipment, which was used against opponents
with devastating effect.

 
 

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 



2018-19
 NOMADIC EMPIRES 113

 
 







 


 


 
 





 



 




 

 

2018-19
114 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY


We can divide Mongol expansion after Genghis Khan’s death into
two distinct phases: the first which spanned the years 1236-42
when the major gains were in the Russian steppes, Bulghar, Kiev,
Poland and Hungary. The second phase including the years 1255-
1300 led to the conquest of all of China (1279), Iran, Iraq and
Syria. The frontier of the empire stabilised after these campaign.
The Mongol military forces met with few reversals in the decades
after 1203 but, quite noticeably, after the 1260s the original impetus
of campaigns could not be sustained in the West. Although Vienna,
and beyond it western Europe, as well as Egypt was within the
grasp of Mongol forces, their retreat from the Hungarian steppes
and defeat at the hands of the Egyptian forces signalled the
emergence of new political trends. There were two facets to this:
the first was a consequence of the internal politics of succession
within the Mongol family where the descendants of Jochi and
Ogodei allied to control the office of the great Khan in the first two
generations. These interests were more important than the pursuit
of campaigns in Europe. The second compulsion occurred as the
Jochi and Ogodei lineages were marginalised by the Toluyid branch
of Genghis Khanid descendants. With the accession of Mongke, a
descendant of Toluy, Genghis Khan’s youngest son, military
campaigns were pursued energetically in Iran during the 1250s.
But as Toluyid interests in the conquest of China increased during
the 1260s, forces and supplies were increasingly diverted into the
heartlands of the Mongol dominion. As a result, the Mongols fielded
a small, understaffed force against the Egyptian military. Their
defeat and the increasing preoccupation with China of the Toluyid
family marked the end of western expansion of the Mongols.
Concurrently, conflict between the Jochid and Toluyid descendants
along the Russian-Iranian frontier diverted the Jochids away from
further European campaigns.
The suspension of Mongol expansion in the West did not arrest
their campaigns in China which was reunited under the Mongols.
Paradoxically, it was at the moment of its greatest successes that
internal turbulence between members of the ruling family
manifested itself. The next section discusses the factors that led
to some of the greatest successes of the Mongol political enterprise
but also inhibited its progress.


Among the Mongols, and many other nomadic societies as well, all the
able-bodied, adult males of the tribe bore arms: they constituted the
armed forces when the occasion demanded. The unification of the
different Mongol tribes and subsequent campaigns against diverse
people introduced new members into Genghis Khan’s army complicating
the composition of this relatively small, undifferentiated body into an

2018-19
 NOMADIC E MPIRES 115

incredibly heterogeneous mass of people. It included groups like

the Turkic Uighurs, who had accepted his authority willingly. It
also included defeated people, like the Kereyits, who were
accommodated in the confederacy despite their earlier hostility.
Genghis Khan worked to systematically erase the old tribal
identities of the different groups who joined his confederacy. His
army was organised according to the old steppe system of decimal
units: in divisions of 10s, 100s, 1,000s and [notionally] 10,000
soldiers. In the old system the clan and the tribe would have coexisted
within the decimal units. Genghis Khan stopped this practice. He
divided the old tribal groupings and distributed their members into
new military units. Any individual who tried to move from his/her
allotted group without permission received harsh punishment. The
largest unit of soldiers, approximating 10,000 soldiers (tuman) now
included fragmented groups of people from a variety of different
tribes and clans. This altered the old steppe social order integrating
different lineages and clans and providing them with a new identity
derived from its progenitor, Genghis Khan.
The new military contingents were required to serve under his
four sons and specially chosen captains of his army units called
noyan. Also important within the new realm were a band of followers
who had served Genghis Khan loyally through grave adversity for
many years. Genghis Khan publicly honoured some of these
individuals as his ‘blood-brothers’ (anda); yet others, freemen of a
humbler rank, were given special ranking as his bondsmen (naukar),
a title that marked their close relationship with their master. This
ranking did not preserve the rights of the old clan chieftains; the
new aristocracy derived its status from a close relationship with
the Great Khan of the Mongols.
In this new hierarchy, Genghis Khan assigned the responsibility
of governing the newly conquered people to his four sons. These
comprised the four ulus, a term that did not originally mean fixed
territories. Genghis Khan’s lifetime was still the age of rapid conquests
and expanding domains, where frontiers were still extremely fluid. For
example, the eldest son, Jochi, received the Russian steppes but the
farthest extent of his territory, ulus, was indeterminate: it extended
as far west as his horses could roam. The second son, Chaghatai, was
given the Transoxianian steppe and lands north of the Pamir mountains
adjacent to those of his brother. Presumably, these lands would shift
as Jochi marched westward. Genghis Khan had indicated that his
third son, Ogodei, would succeed him as the Great Khan and on
accession the Prince established his capital at Karakorum. The youngest
son, Toluy, received the ancestral lands of Mongolia. Genghis Khan
envisaged that his sons would rule the empire collectively, and to
underline this point, military contingents (tama) of the individual
princes were placed in each ulus. The sense of a dominion shared by
the members of the family was underlined at the assembly of chieftains,
quriltais, where all decisions relating to the family or the state for the
forthcoming season – campaigns, distribution of plunder, pasture
lands and succession – were collectively taken.

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 116 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

Genghis Khan had already

fashioned a rapid courier
system that connected the
distant areas of his regime.
Fresh mounts and despatch
riders were placed in outposts
at regularly spaced distances.
For the maintenance of this
communication system the
Mongol nomads contributed a
tenth of their herd – either
horses or livestock – as
provisions. This was called
the qubcur tax, a levy that the
nomads paid willingly for the
multiple benefits that it
brought. The courier system
(yam) was further refined
after Genghis Khan’s death
and its speed and reliability
surprised travellers. It
enabled the Great Khans to
keep a check on developments
at the farthest end of their
regime across the continental
landmass.
The conquered people,
however, hardly felt a sense
of affinity with their new
nomadic masters. During the
campaigns in the first half
of the thirteenth century,
cities were destroyed,
agricultural lands laid waste,
trade and handicraft
production disrupted. Tens of
thousands of people – the
Family tree of Genghis exact figures are lost in the exaggerated reports of the time –
Khan. were killed, even more enslaved. All classes of people, from the
elites to the peasantry suffered. In the resulting instability, the
underground canals, called qanats, in the arid Iranian plateau
could no longer receive periodic maintenance. As they fell into
disrepair, the desert crept in. This led to an ecological devastation
from which parts of Khurasan never recovered.
Once the dust from the campaigns had settled, Europe and China
were territorially linked. In the peace ushered in by Mongol conquest

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 NOMADIC EMPIRES 117

(Pax Mongolica) trade connections matured. Commerce and travel

along the Silk Route reached its peak under the Mongols but, unlike
before, the trade routes did not terminate in China.
They continued north into Mongolia and to Karakorum, the heart
of the new empire. Communication and ease of travel was vital to
retain the coherence of the Mongol regime and travellers were given

MAP 2: The Mongol

Campaigns

ACTIVITY 2

Note the areas

traversed by the
Silk Route and
the goods that
were available to
traders along the
a pass (paiza in Persian; gerege in Mongolian) for safe conduct. way. This map
Traders paid the baj tax for the same purpose, all acknowledging does not reflect
thereby the authority of the Mongol Khan. one of the
The contradictions between the nomadic and sedentary eastern terminal
elements within the Mongol empire eased through the thirteenth points of the silk
century. In the 1230s, for example, as the Mongols waged their route during the
successful war against the Chin dynasty in north China, there height of Mongol
power.
was a strong pressure group within the Mongol leadership that
advocated the massacre of all peasantry and the conversion of
Can you place
their fields into pasture lands. But by the 1270s, when south
the missing city?
China was annexed to the Mongol empire after the defeat of the
Could it have
Sung dynasty, Genghis Khan’s grandson, Qubilai Khan (d. 1294), been on the Silk
appeared as the protector of the peasants and the cities. In the Route in the
1290s, the Mongol ruler of Iran, Ghazan Khan (d. 1304), a twelfth century?
descendant of Genghis Khan’s youngest son Toluy, warned Why not?
family members and other generals to avoid pillaging the
peasantry. It did not lead to a stable prosperous realm, he
advised in a speech whose sedentary overtones would have made
Genghis Khan shudder.

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 118 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

ACTIVITY 3 

Why was there a
conflict of          
interests 
between 
pastoralists and              
peasants?            
Would Genghis 
Khan have 
expressed 
sentiments of

this nature in a

speech to his
nomad         
commanders? 

From Genghis Khan’s reign itself, the Mongols had recruited civil
administrators from the conquered societies. They were sometimes
moved around: Chinese secretaries deployed in Iran and Persians
in China. They helped in integrating the distant dominions and
their backgrounds and training were always useful in blunting the
harsher edges of nomadic predation on sedentary life. The Mongol
Khans trusted them as long as they continued to raise revenue for
their masters and these administrators could sometimes command
considerable influence. In the 1230s, the Chinese minister Yeh-lu
Ch’u-ts’ai, muted some of Ogedei’s more rapacious instincts; the
Juwaini family played a similar role in Iran through the latter half
of the thirteenth century and at the end of the century, the wazir,
Rashiduddin, drafted the speech that Ghazan Khan delivered to his
Mongol compatriots asking them to protect, not harass, the peasantry.
The pressure to sedentarise was greater in the new areas of Mongol
domicile, areas distant from the original steppe habitat of the
nomads. By the middle of the thirteenth century the sense of a
common patrimony shared by all the brothers was gradually replaced
by individual dynasties each ruling their separate ulus, a term which
now carried the sense of a territorial dominion. This was, in part, a
result of succession struggles, where Genghis Khanid descendants
competed for the office of Great Khan and prized pastoral lands.
Descendants of Toluy had come to rule both China and Iran where
they had formed the Yuan and Il-Khanid dynasties. Descendants of
Jochi formed the Golden Horde and ruled the Russian steppes;
Chaghatai’s successors ruled the steppes of Transoxiana and the
lands called Turkistan today. Noticeably, nomadic traditions
persisted longest amongst the steppe dwellers in Central Asia
(descendants of Chaghatai) and Russia (the Golden Horde).
The gradual separation of the descendants of Genghis Khan into
separate lineage groups implied that their connections with the memory

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and traditions of a past family concordance also altered. At an

obvious level this was the result of competition amongst the cousin
clans and here the Toluyid branch was more adept in presenting
their version of the family disagreements in the histories produced
under their patronage. To a large extent this was a consequence
of their control of China and Iran and the large number of literati
that its family members could recruit. At a more sophisticated
level, the disengagement with the past also meant underlining the
merits of the regnant rulers as a contrast to other past monarchs.
This exercise in comparison did not exclude Genghis Khan himself.
Persian chronicles produced in Il-Khanid Iran during the late
thirteenth century detailed the gory killings of the Great Khan and
greatly exaggerated the numbers killed. For example, in contrast
to an eyewitness report that 400 soldiers defended the citadel of
Bukhara, an Il-Khanid chronicle reported that 30,000 soldiers
were killed in the attack on the citadel. Although Il-Khanid reports
still eulogised Genghis Khan, they also carried a statement of relief
that times had changed and the great killings of the past were over.
The Genghis Khanid legacy was important, but for his descendants
to appear as convincing heroes to a sedentary audience, they could
no longer appear in quite the same way as their ancestor.
Following the research of David Ayalon, recent work on the
yasa, the code of law that Genghis Khan was supposed to have
promulgated at the quriltai of 1206, has elaborated on the complex
ways in which the memory of the Great Khan was fashioned by
his successors. In its earliest formulation the term was written
as yasaq which meant ‘law’, ‘decree’ or ‘order’. Indeed, the few
details that we possess about the yasaq concern administrative
regulations: the organisation of the hunt, the army and the postal
system. By the middle of the thirteenth century, however, the
Mongols had started using the related term yasa in a more general
sense to mean the ‘legal code of Genghis Khan’.
We may be able to understand the changes in the meaning of
the term if we take a look at some of the other developments that
occurred at the same time. By the middle of the thirteenth century
the Mongols had emerged as a unified people and just created the
largest empire the world had ever seen. They ruled over very
sophisticated urban societies, with their respective histories,
cultures and laws. Although the Mongols dominated the region
politically, they were a numerical minority. The one way in which
they could protect their identity and distinctiveness was through a
claim to a sacred law given to them by their ancestor. The yasa was
in all probability a compilation of the customary traditions of the
Mongol tribes but in referring to it as Genghis Khan’s code of law, the
Mongol people also laid claim to a ‘lawgiver’ like Moses and Solomon,
whose authoritative code could be imposed on their subjects. The
yasa served to cohere the Mongol people around a body of shared
beliefs, it acknowledged their affinity to Genghis Khan and his
descendants and, even as they absorbed different aspects of a
sedentary lifestyle, gave them the confidence to retain their ethnic

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identity and impose their ‘law’ upon their defeated subjects. It was
an extremely empowering ideology and although Genghis Khan may
not have planned such a legal code, it was certainly inspired by his
vision and was vital in the construction of a Mongol universal dominion.


ACTIVITY 4
         
Did the meaning          
of yasa alter 
over the four 
centuries
           
separating
Genghis Khan

from ‘Abdullah 
Khan? Why did           
Hafiz-i Tanish        
make a         
reference to 
Genghis Khan’s 
yasa in 
connection with
‘Abdullah
Khan’s prayer at
the Muslim 
festival ground?

When we remember Genghis Khan today the only images that
appear in our imagination are those of the conqueror, the
destroyer of cities, and an individual who was responsible for
the death of thousands of people. Many thirteenth-century
residents of towns in China, Iran and eastern Europe looked
at the hordes from the steppes with fear and distaste. And yet,
for the Mongols, Genghis Khan was the greatest leader of all
time: he united the Mongol people, freed them from interminable
tribal wars and Chinese exploitation, brought them prosperity,
fashioned a grand transcontinental empire and restored trade
routes and markets that attracted distant travellers like the
Venetian Marco Polo. The contrasting images are not simply a
case of dissimilar perspectives; they should make us pause
and reflect on how one (dominant) perspective can completely
erase all others.
Beyond the opinions of the defeated sedentary people, consider
for a moment the sheer size of the Mongol dominion in the thirteenth
century and the diverse body of people and faiths that it embraced.
Although the Mongol Khans themselves belonged to a variety of

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different faiths – Shaman, Buddhist, Christian and eventually

Islam – they never let their personal beliefs dictate public policy.
The Mongol rulers recruited administrators and armed contingents
from people of all ethnic groups and religions. Theirs was a multi-
ethnic, multilingual, multi-religious regime that did not feel
threatened by its pluralistic constitution. This was utterly unusual
for the time, and historians
are only now studying the
ways in which the Mongols
provided ideological models for
later regimes (like the Mughals
of India) to follow.
The nature of the
documentation on the Mongols
– and any nomadic regime –
makes it virtually impossible to
understand the inspiration
that led to the confederation
of fragmented groups of people
in the pursuit of an ambition
to create an empire. The
Mongol empire eventually
altered in its different milieus,
but the inspiration of its
founder remained a powerful
force. At the end of the
fourteenth century, T imur,
another monarch who aspired
to universal dominion,
hesitated to declare himself
monarch because he was not
of Genghis Khanid descent.
When he did declare his
independent sovereignty it was
as the son-in-law (guregen) of
the Genghis Khanid family.
Today, after decades of Soviet
control, the country of Mongolia
is recreating its identity as an The Capture of
independent nation. It has seized upon Genghis Khan as a great Baghdad by the
national hero who is publicly venerated and whose achievements Mongols, a miniature
are recounted with pride. At a crucial juncture in the history of painting in the
Chronicles of Rashid
Mongolia, Genghis Khan has once again appeared as an iconic al-Din, Tabriz,
figure for the Mongol people, mobilising memories of a great past fourteenth century.
in the forging of national identity that can carry the nation into
the future.

2018-19
122 THEMES IN W ORLD HISTORY

Qubilai Khan and

Chabi in camp.



 
           
      
 

 
       


   


         
         
      
    
 

 



         

           
        
           


           


2018-19