Chapter VIII: The Abbasids (2)

Incapable as they were of resisting the incursions of the Greeks, how were the Baghdad caliphs to check the advance of the warrior hordes of Turkestan, whom the Seljuks had gathered under their banner by the promise of spoils to be gained in the lands they were to conquer? The scattered tribes which the Samanids had easily repulsed in 893 were now united under one chief and formed a mighty force that, sweeping down all obstacles, was to subjugate the whole of western Asia and maintain its supremacy there for centuries to come.

THE SELJUK TURKS

[Sidenote: [1055-1092 A.D.]]

The name of Seljuks, applied to the Turks who shared in the conquests of Toghril Beg, must not deceive as to their number; no particular horde was meant by those thus designated, since in the Turkestan as in the Arabian deserts any tribe which succeeded in imposing its sovereignty upon others gave to these the name of its chief. The Turks were of the Scythian race, to which also belonged those ferocious Huns, presented to us under so terrifying an aspect by Greek historians; but a distinction must be made, inasmuch as at the extremity of Asia the Tatars and Mongols lived still in a state of primitive savagery, acknowledging no god but a sword stuck upright in the ground; while the tribes called Turks had learned agriculture and commerce from the Arabs, and were possessed moreover of an overweening vanity and love of power, which made them willing even to be slaves that they might gradually work upon the spirit of their master for his final overthrow and destruction. Moslems themselves and Sunnites, the Seljuks found everywhere brothers in the enemies’ ranks, and took their investiture from the hands of the Abbasids. After they had vanquished the Greeks, from whom they wrested Asia Minor, they extended their dominion from the Indus to the Bosporus. But they had no idea of a strong organisation; their independent chieftains, at rivalry among themselves, disputed with each other the fragments of sovereign power, and these divisions made them fall an easy prey to the Mongols, when, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Jenghiz Khan swept into the western world.

The most brilliant epoch in the history of the Seljuks was the period between 1055 and 1092, when they were united under one single head, and that head was the dispenser of booty. Numerous were the gifts which it was in the power of Toghril Beg to bestow on relatives and followers. Recognised as sultan or supreme ruler by the caliphs, he extended his sovereignty over Jezireh and Armenia, and it was in the midst of further exploits that death surprised him in 1063. His nephew, Alp Arslan, succeeded him and enjoyed a brilliant reign. He vanquished the Roman emperor, Diogenes, destroyed the independence of the Georgians, and had just carried his arms into Turkestan, when he died by the hand of a citizen of Khwarizm. The greater part of Asia had come under his sway, twelve hundred chiefs paid homage to him, and two hundred thousand soldiers marched under his banner; and yet he was not the most brilliant among the princes of his family; that glory was reserved for his son, Malik Shah (1072-1092).

Malik Shah was a ruler endowed with the highest qualities, and his noble projects were ably seconded by his grand vizier, Nizam al-Mulk. Mosques and colleges were erected at Baghdad, and new roads and canals facilitated communication between the most distant points of the empire. While Nizam al-Mulk occupied himself with the details of the administration, the sultan travelled from one of his states to another seeking to make their boundaries recede ever further and further. His name was uttered in prayers from Mecca to Baghdad, from Ispahan to Kashgar; and he ultimately became master of all Asia Minor. By his orders Suleiman, one of his kinsmen, entered the territory of the Greeks and advanced to the Bosporus, after having conquered all the countries situated between Great Armenia, Georgia, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean, Albania, and Lesser Armenia (1081). This was the origin of the sultanate of Iconium and Rum, afterwards Asiatic Turkey, which played so important a rôle in the time of the Crusades. The Greeks were driven out of Asia by the victories of Suleiman; and in spite of their Christian population, Antioch and the cities of Mesopotamia were obliged to submit to the Turkish yoke. In one of these expeditions Malik Shah was taken prisoner, and Nizam al-Mulk freed him in a manner as prudent as it was adroit; but the sultan afterwards turned upon and disgraced this eminent minister, who was to fall at length by the sword of the Ismailians at the age of ninety-three.

[Sidenote: [1092-1218 A.D.]]

At the death of Malik Shah (1092) the Seljuk empire, losing its unity, broke up into several independent principalities. In vain the sultan in Persia strove to exercise a sort of supremacy over the other princes of his family; the four sons of Malik Shah, Mahmud, Barkiyarok, Sinjar, and Muhammed, divided the land among themselves at the close of protracted wars that exhausted the resources of the Seljuks without procuring any beneficial results either to Islam or the Turkish race. From this point the various countries and provinces that had once formed one realm drifted further and further asunder. In 1096 the emir Ortok established himself in Jerusalem with the intention of founding there a hereditary sovereignty and a governor of Khwarizm; profiting by the intestine troubles of the Seljuks, he declared his independence, and his successors, commencing a series of conquests which were to include Mawarannahar, Khorasan, Irak, and Kerman, renewed the empire of the Ghaznevids. Certain princes of that race had retained the provinces contiguous to the two banks of the Indus up to the time when the Ghurids, first at Lahore (1183-1205) and then at Delhi, undertook the siege of India, ravaging Benares, subjugating Bengal, and giving birth to the Afghan dynasty in the ancient Paropamisus.

The Ghurids had already been established twenty-five years in the dominion left by the last of the Ghaznevids when Muhammed, sultan of Khwarizm, took from them their western provinces, and became nearly as powerful as Malik Shah had been. At the moment of his greatest splendour this prince fell a victim to the Mongol invasion (1208-1218).

We have witnessed the development of the antagonism between the Turkish and Arab races, whereby barbarism threatened to submerge the Moslem states, as it had menaced Europe in the time of the Germanic invasion. But by the law of compensation the Turks, while making felt about them the authority of the sword, imbibed the influence of Arab civilisation, and adopted with their religion and language their respect for science and the arts. A comparison of the decadence of the Arabian and Roman empires offers points of the most striking similarity; in the East the sultans renewed the glories of the reigns of Theodoric and of Charlemagne, and the school of Baghdad continued to shed effulgence over all Asia up to the end of the fifteenth century.

Still without influence, though restored to independence by the weakening of the Seljuks, the Abbasid caliphs remained in the capital, to which their authority was mostly confined. No successors of Kaim had revolted against the tyranny of the Seljuks except Mustarshid (1118-1135) and Rashid (1135-1136), who both committed acts of resistance, the latter even losing his life in defending Baghdad against the sultan Massud, whose supremacy he obstinately refused to recognise.

Massud, grandson of Malik Shah, was still strong enough to command respect, and during his life-time Muktafi, Rashid’s successor, ventured on no open rebellion. But at his death, there being disputes as to the rights of succession, the caliph publicly presented himself as the lawful sovereign, and after repelling all attacks directed against Baghdad, got himself acknowledged throughout Irak-Arabia. Affairs remained in this condition for a century, during which Mustanjid, Mustadi, Nasir, Dhahir, Mustansir, and Mutasim had not to endure the shame of seeing the government in the hands of others. They were at liberty to protect commerce and industry, letters and sciences, without incurring anyone’s censure; and Baghdad, in the midst of the disturbances which broke forth on all sides, was as an inaccessible fortress, into which even the rumour of certain bloody engagements between hot-headed Sunnites and intractable Shiites could penetrate but feebly.

ARABS AND TURKS UNITE AGAINST THE CHRISTIANS

While the power of the Seljuks was gradually declining in the eastern provinces, what was taking place in the western provinces of the Arabian empire? At the death of Malik Shah (1092) three sultanates were formed, those respectively of Aleppo, Iconium, and Damascus, having no connection with each other, nor with the sultanates of Persia or of Kerman. The first of these distinct realms extended over Asia Minor, the other two included the large cities of Jezireh and Syria. A favourable opportunity now presented itself to the Fatimite caliphs to reconquer some of their former possessions in those countries; but so fallen were they from their early greatness that they permitted the names of the Seljuk sultans to be mentioned in the public prayers at Hedjaz. Far from seeking to arm the Arabs against the Turks, Mustali, successor to Mustansir, had had but one aim, that of obtaining certain barren concessions from the Seljuk princes by intervening in their private quarrels; and moreover an unforeseen incident had arisen which diverted all minds from internecine troubles.

[Sidenote: [1097-1171 A.D.]]

The arrival of several armies of Christians, sent to Palestine with the mission of delivering the Holy City, aroused in the Moslems all their religious fanaticism. Arabs and Turks suspended their mutual animosity to make one cause against the common enemy; the danger once past, however, divisions again broke forth that greatly facilitated the progress of the Christians. Before the arrival of Godfrey de Bouillon (1097) the army of Peter the Hermit had perished in the domains of the sultan of Iconium, and the Moslems, thinking they had nothing more to fear from without, recommenced their civil wars; thus the disciplined troops of the first true crusaders found no power to combat stronger than that of the Seljuks divided among themselves, and after having crossed the mountains of Cilicia they took the city of Antioch and made an easy entrance into Palestine.

The Moslems everywhere remained divided and without a common head. To the Fatimite caliphs, Mustali, Emir, Hafidh, Dhafir, Faïz, and Adid, or rather to their grand viziers, it never occurred to unite with the independent princes of Syria for the purpose of repulsing the enemy of their common faith; the main objects of their policy seemed to be to carry on negotiations with the Turkish emirs, the war against the Franks occupying a subordinate place in their concern. At the death of Barkiyarok, however, there suddenly arose a new and powerful defender of Islam.

Imad ad-Din (called “the bloody” by our chroniclers) had distinguished himself at the court of the Seljuks in Aleppo and Mosul. Organising for himself under the name of Atabekm a small independent state, he spread terror among the emirs all about him, and finally attacked the Seljuk sultan at Aleppo and became master of that town (1127). He next proceeded to awake in the Moslems their ancient hatred for the name of “Christian” and commenced against the Franks a sort of guerilla warfare which terminated in the taking of Edessa, after which he forced the kings of Jerusalem to make appeal to Europe.

Zenki was succeeded by his sons Saif ad-Din and Nur ad-Din, the latter of whom proved himself a worthy successor of his father. He harassed the Franks by repeated attacks, and allowed the two monarchs to exhaust their forces by vain efforts to take Damascus, which was still under the power of the Seljuks. When they finally retired, defeated, Nur ad-Din himself assailed the sultan, who was enfeebled by this long, heroic resistance, took from him Damascus, and entered Palestine, which he ravaged in every direction. By a fortunate circumstance he was soon permitted to mingle in the affairs of Egypt, by offering troops to a vizier for the purpose of suppressing the caliph Adid. Not receiving the reward promised for this service, he opened hostilities at once, and several times defeated the kings of Jerusalem, while his lieutenant, Shirkuh, became master of Egypt and forced the caliph to bestow upon him the charge of grand vizier. This was the sentence of death for the Fatimites. Shirkuh’s nephew, Saladin, sharer in his uncle’s secret designs, carried the revolution to a head, and in less than a month prayers were said in the mosque in the name of the Baghdad caliph, Nostadi, and Adid was deposed without a voice being raised in his favour (1171).

SALADIN AND HIS SUCCESSORS AGAINST THE CRUSADERS

[Sidenote: [1171-1229 A.D.]]

Scarcely did Saladin get into his hands the resources of the wealthy land of Egypt than he commenced against the Franks that series of assaults which has made his name famous. He was later elevated to the supreme rank by the universal choice of the Moslems at the death of Nur ad-Din, the latter’s son having been put aside.

The reign of Saladin, who was the most interesting figure in the history of the Crusades, represents for us the highest point of Arab civilisation. Being by birth a Kurd, he cannot be said to belong to the Turkish race, though he possessed the warlike instincts of a Turk, joined to a superior intelligence. In Godfrey de Bouillon and Richard the Lion-hearted are personified the piety, generosity, and valour of Christian chivalry; Saladin is no less the hero of the Moslem world. Unfaltering courage, magnanimity, a spirit of strict justice, and unshakable fidelity to his plighted word were among his principal virtues. Passing his life as he did in the midst of wars, he had little opportunity to foster the arts of peace; yet he was no stranger to letters and the sciences, and he neglected no opportunity to elevate himself in the esteem of his people. Saladin was the first to unite under one control the forces of Syria and Egypt, and therein lies the secret of his success against the crusaders.

At his entrance into Palestine, Jerusalem was a prey to the worst disorders, owing to the chiefs of the Crusade not being content to guard the sacred places that had been entrusted to them, but aspiring to govern all the cities and strongholds. The Holy City fell immediately into his power. The Moslems took possession of the temples as mosques, and besieged all the maritime towns; but a check inflicted upon them at Tyre revived the courage of the Franks and enabled them to await the arrival of Richard and Philip Augustus. The Third Crusade followed in 1187-1192, but Jerusalem could not be conquered by the Christians in spite of the bravery of the English king. The magnanimity shown by the sultan of Egypt in the treatment of his prisoners is well known; he set all the foreign knights at liberty, merely stipulating that each should bestow his name upon some newborn child.

Several months after the departure of Richard, Saladin died at Damascus, admired by his enemies and regretted by Moslems, who foresaw that new divisions would arise. Indeed three Eyyubid states at once came into being; one in Egypt, another in Damascus, Jerusalem, and Lower Syria, and the third in Aleppo and Upper Syria. Three sons of Saladin had divided the states left by their father, two of them being despoiled by their uncle Adil Saif ad-Din, who remained master of Egypt and Damascus. Malik Adil, called Saphedin in our chronicles, was the sworn enemy of the Franks; he took from them the city of Tripolis, and was the determining cause of the Fifth Crusade.

Malik al-Kamil, his son, became sultan of Egypt in 1218, and graciously received presents from Frederick II, when that prince entered Palestine at the head of the Sixth Crusade, and received from him the city of Jerusalem that had cost the Moslems so many lives. The Eyyubid sultans that succeeded Malik looked upon the Franks as enemies who must be driven from Asia at any cost; and so Jerusalem fell again into infidel hands and became in turn the possession of the sultans of Egypt and of Damascus.

Thus we find, at the commencement of the thirteenth century, the posterity of Saladin wielding power over almost the whole of the western part of the Arabian empire. A descendant of Nur ad-Din, it is true, possessed a part of Jezireh, and certain Eyyub princes reigned over provinces of the peninsula; while the name of the Abbasids, last representatives of the former Arab supremacy, was still proclaimed in public prayers. The Alids and Fatimites formed a single sect, without unity or political influence. Armenia and Georgia had reverted to Christianity, and a considerable faction known in history as the Ismailians, Bathenians, or Assassins had still retained a certain prominence.

[Sidenote: [1090-1250 A.D.]]

This sect was founded toward the close of the eleventh century by Hassan Sabba, who succeeded in gaining an absolute ascendency over the minds of his followers. An enemy alike to Christianity and Islam, he promulgated a doctrine which was similar to that of the Karmathians, and among his possessions were several fortresses, in one of which he resided. The name “assassins” is a corruption of the word _hashish_, a sort of intoxicating drink by means of which Hassan Sabba persuaded his followers that he could initiate them in all the joys of paradise. Hassan assumed the character of a lesser providence charged with redressing wrongs and punishing untruth; and as he at the same time permitted all sorts of brigandage on the part of his sectarians, the dynasty he established terrorised all western Asia for more than two centuries. They carried their arms into Syria, where they erected fortifications and pillaged all the caravans that passed through. As late as the thirteenth century they possessed stations in Irak and Syria, not far from Damascus and Aleppo.

THE MONGOLS UNDER JENGHIZ KHAN INVADE WESTERN ASIA

[Sidenote: [1220-1258 A.D.]]

Such was the situation of the oriental world when a new race of conquerors, the Mongols, descended upon western Asia. Like the Turks the Mongols formed one particular branch of the Scythian race, but had preserved, in the depths of Tatary, their primitive customs and religion. Their life was nomadic, their organisation tribal, and obedience to their chiefs, together with love of war and pillage, were their distinguishing characteristics.

Jenghiz Khan was already ruler of Tatary and Northern China when he directed his movements westward and menaced Mawarannahar (1219). This province belonged at the time to Muhammed, sultan of Khwarizm, who was at war with Nasir, caliph of Baghdad, for a very serious cause. Nasir, alarmed at the growing power of Muhammed, had armed the Ghurid princes against him; whereat Muhammed had summoned to a grand council in his palace a number of doctors and jurists whose decision could not be doubtful, and had declared the reign of the Abbasids, usurpers of the caliphate, to be at an end. A descendant of Ali, Ala ad-Din, was proclaimed caliph in place of Nasir, and a mighty expedition was prepared against Baghdad. Nasir was saved by the arrival of the Mongols at that juncture, the sultan being obliged to direct his entire force toward Mawarannahar, where it was cut to pieces. Muhammed himself fled to an island in the Caspian Sea, leaving his son Jelal ad-Din to meet and resist the invaders as best he might (1220). Courageous to foolhardiness, this prince would actually have opposed a successful resistance to the terrible enemy had he been supported by a people determined to defend their homes at any cost; but betrayed and abandoned by those upon whom he should have been able to rely, he experienced the sorrow of seeing the hordes of Jenghiz Khan sweep devastatingly through Mawarannahar, Khwarizm, Gilan, and Aderbaijan. When the conqueror, master of 1,700 square leagues, retired to his own capital, Karakorum (1220-1227), Jelal ad-Din, who had taken refuge in India, returned, and all the populations who had escaped subjugation flocked to his banners. Out of the remains of his father’s possessions he formed a new empire which extended from the source of the Ganges to Mosul, and for yet a little while Baghdad was secure against attack by the Mongols. But Ogdai became khan by the consent of his father, Jenghiz, and all the greatest chiefs immediately set out to invade the domains of Jelal ad-Din, so that the latter was again reduced to flight, and later found death at the hands of an assassin.

Ogdai was less fortunate in his attempts against the sultan of Iconium and against Baghdad, which was ably defended by the caliph Mustansir (1235-1241). Kuyuk his successor (1241-1251) also made but little progress and had to be content with driving from his court the ambassadors of the caliph and of the sultan. Mangu Khan, who reigned next, was seized with a desire for conquest, and sent his brothers Kublai and Hulagu on missions of aggrandisement. While Kublai was occupied in completing the submission of China, Hulagu left Karakorum at the head of a numerous army and besieged Baghdad, with which he had already held secret communication. The caliph Mustasim, informed of his approach, made no attempt at resistance, and for seven days his capital was at the mercy of the Mongols, who pillaged and destroyed on all sides, burning many priceless manuscripts that they found in the libraries and colleges. Mustasim was strangled and his corpse dragged around the walls of Baghdad, which had been witnesses of all the different phases of the Abbasids’ rise and fall--their grandeur, their decadence, and their closing ignominy.

The Mongols had now only a step to take to seek the conquest of Egypt and Syria; but they encountered the mamelukes, whom they were unable to vanquish. As their name indicates, the mamelukes were Circassian slaves whom Saladin’s successors had imported to their palaces, and who renewed at Cairo the insubordination and excesses of which the Turkish soldiery had been guilty at Baghdad.

When the Khwarizmians fled to Syria before Jenghiz Khan, the sultan of Damascus gave to the Franks Tiberius, Jerusalem, and Ascalon in return for their aid. Now the sultan of Egypt and his mamelukes joined forces with the Khwarizmians, and during a series of combats in which Jerusalem was taken and retaken several times, they concluded by turning upon their own allies and almost destroying them (1240-1245). Three years later they repulsed at Massur the attack of St. Louis, who had begun an invasion of Egypt. In 1250 a revolution occurred which changed the whole face of the country.

[Sidenote: [1258-1517 A.D.]]

The mamelukes, dissatisfied with the treaty they had concluded with the king of France, their prisoner, rose in revolt and proclaimed one of their chiefs, Muiz ad-Din, sultan. St. Louis, who had retired to Palestine, sought in vain to raise up enemies against the mamelukes by entering into relations with the khan of the Mongols, and the leader of the Ismailians. Syria, after having been briefly occupied by Hulagu, who put an end to the sultanates of Aleppo and Damascus (1258), remained permanently, together with Jezireh, in the hands of the mamelukes. The Franks lost successively their remaining possessions and a new dynasty of Abbasid caliphs arose, who for over two centuries exercised no higher function than that of bestowing a sort of religious consecration upon the sovereigns of Egypt. In 1517 the Ottoman Turks, already masters of Constantinople and Asia Minor, exterminated the mamelukes, and extended their authority over all the countries known to-day under the name of Asiatic Turkey.

Situated as they were in the midst of incessant revolutions, and suffering from the onslaught of barbarian races from the north, the Arabs began gradually to disappear; but the great movement they imparted to civilisation has never been lost in Asia, and traces of their beneficent influence are still everywhere apparent. We have seen the Seljuk, Malik Shah, borrow from the school of Baghdad the reforms he introduced into the Persian calendar; before him Mahmud, the Ghaznevid, had called to his councils a universal genius--Albiruni, who exercised a remarkable influence upon the century in which he lived; the Mongul, Hulagu, who could not save from the flames the precious instruments and records that had been the result of years of enlightened research, permitted the celebrated mathematician, Nasir ad-Din Thusi, to build a magnificent observatory at Meraga; and lastly his brother Kublai, when he became emperor of China, carried with him into the celestial empire all the lore and wisdom of the Occident.

Under the first Ottoman emperors we shall note the use by eminent writers of the old dialect of the Abbasids; but this is the last faint effulgence of a protracted period of glory. The tyranny of the sword is to usurp power over all the Asiatic continent--among the Manchurian Tatars in the east, the Usbegs in the north, the Sophia in Persia, and the Ottoman Turks in the west. From an intellectual point of view the Orient is to fall again into immobility and torpor, until the nations of the west, carrying out on a grander scale the work begun by the Arabs, shall so develop all the forces of science and of human industry as to react on Asia, and infuse into the swarming populations of those vast spaces the spirit of a new life.[b]

We have now seen the sceptre of Mohammed pass from his own race. It remains to resume the story of the Arabs in Spain.[a]

FOOTNOTES

[40] [Also spelled Harun-er-Rashid and Harun al-Rashid.]