The Caliphs: Recent Episodes
Zayd
A podcast tracing the rise and fall of Arab power in the first three centuries following the advent of Islam
The Abbasid fall from grace was long and messy. It’s been a while since the dynasty produced a powerful caliph, the last one being the almighty restorer al Mu’tadid who reigned until the opening years of the 10th century. The subsequent decades saw a sustained and accelerating erosion of the state’s wealth, prestige, and authority. Whenever things looked like they couldn’t get any worse, what was thought to be rock-bottom gave way to reveal a deeper abyss. The ruling clan’s enfeeblement crescendoed in the 940’s, until it became a simple matter for another dynasty to swoop in and take all that the Abbasids had inherited.
The creation of the role of amir al umara’ transformed the political landscape in Baghdad. It attracted men of influence to court, and they did not come seeking to serve the caliph, but to dominate his metropolis. Ibn Ra’iq was the first such aspirants, but he and others soon learned how difficult it was to rule a city surrounded by enemies on all sides. Their feuding weakened and impoverished all sides in this conflict, sapping Iraq’s ability to defend itself from invading forces.
We’ve reached the end of the road as far as Abbasid authority is concerned. Although it had waxed and waned before, there would be no recovering from the lows it had fell to this time. The caliph had no independent authority, helpful counselors, loyal generals, powerful armies, not even any money; all he had was the inherited legitimacy of his lineage. He largely served as a symbolic head of state while the more powerful men around him jockeyed for wealth and control. In many ways, this caliph will be the very last one.
A chaotic period followed al Muqtadir’s death in battle. Although officials quickly reached a consensus on the elevation of his successor, the very fact that the last caliph had been killed meant that more political violence was to be expected. Al Qaher managed to best the men who installed him but his gratuitous brutality and empty pockets lost him what little support he had. It didn’t take long for his troops to turn on him, propagating the Abbasid predicament for another generation.
Considering the absurd levels of official mismanagement, it’s astounding how long the caliphate survived during al Muqtadir’s inept administration. Although it never collapsed, over the course of two dozen years the state’s power steadily declined in meaningful ways. It collected less taxes, had smaller armies, and lost territory to the Fatimids, the Byzantines, and the Qaramita. An assault on the capital province revealed how far Abbasid power had withered, prompting the military to assert itself over the civil bureaucracy. What started out as an attempt to address the root cause of the state’s weakness eventually devolved into violence, with terrible consequences for the caliph and his dynasty.
Having discussed the disorder in the caliphate’s civil bureaucracy we’ll turn our attention to the state of its military. The sharp contrast between the state of the two is in large part thanks to the figure of Mu’nis, the general who led Abbasid armies to one victory after another. His heroic efforts preserved the caliph’s authority over lands that would have otherwise broken away, and Mu’nis kept it up for as long as he could.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/3xottY-7m3k?si=EGZuBa-wgl3NGieUOne of my childhood magazines. The first panel identifies the round ball as Netenyahu, and says, 'A war erupts between Palestine and Israel after Netenyahu says something silly'. The second panel continues, 'Palestine covers Israel in a rain of stones'.Picture I snapped of the Israeli warship on Friday July 14th 2006 with my Nokia phone. It would be damaged in a daring attack by Hezbollah that same night.https://www.youtube.com/embed/tRRrCYX5hJ0?si=q7L8ok9VDa71P4P_
For the very first time in Arab history, a child became the umma’s caliph. The 13 year old had not yet left his royal harem and was totally under his mother’s control. She used her influence over al Muqtadir to to extend her personal wealth and authority. It was a fundamentally corrupt setup that encouraged the worst types of administrative abuses. This cancer at the very top of official power lasted so long it devastated the caliphate far more than any war with a foreign enemy; it was a fall the Abbasids never recovered from.
After all our recent foreshadowing, we’ve finally arrived at the period of Abbasid collapse. It’s a relatively long period, stretching from the start of al Muqtadir’s reign in 908 until around the middle of that century, when the Abbasids were reduced to figureheads by a more commanding dynasty. In an effort to better understand how the ruling clan lost control we’ll take things a bit at a time. A good place to start is with introducing the new caliph and some of the personalities who will play a leading part during his reign.
Cataloguing the tapestry of Islamic traditions is a task that lies well beyond our scope, but every now and again the topic overlaps with the subjects we are interested in. It’s important to understand where the Qaramita and Fatimids came from, because these two foes will face the Abbasid Caliphate until its effective takeover by a rival dynasty. As these two communities emerged from Ismaili Shi’ism, we’ll take the time to properly define and ground these terms before moving on. Please keep in mind that you are in no way getting a round-up of the religious or sectarian situation at the time; there were many more groups than the ones we’re discussing. Refer back to the start of this paragraph for more information.
Reading about this caliph’s reign in our sources is a bewildering experience: everything is simultaneously great and on the brink of destruction. Later histories pick apart developments in the administration throughout al Muktafi’s time in charge in search of a crack or culprit. Meanwhile, the caliphate was going strong, and the Abbasids had no trouble coasting off the considerable momentum al Mu’tadid had established. In the midst of all this, we find al Muktafi, hidden away from sight, doing his thing in the background. He plays such a small part in his own reign that he can hardly be credited with its good or blamed for its bad.
Before you even hit play it should already be clear to you that the caliphate is only going to get stronger over the course of our discussion today. Al Mu’tadid seems to have been incapable of doing any wrong; his decisive leadership reinvigorated the state far beyond what his predecessors had managed. He displayed both courage and cunning during his time in charge, a potent mix that reduced his rivals without the need for open conflict. Although he possessed some disturbing traits al Mu’tadid remains one of the best caliphs to grace the Abbasid throne.
Get ready for a blast from the past! Perhaps I should have prepared you for a weak pun instead. Hearing about this caliph’s reign will transport us back to his great-grandfather al Mu’tasim’s days. Much like his esteemed ancestor, the energetic new leader commanded his armies in person and used them to restore his caliphate to a lost glory. Our sources are effusive in their praise of this caliph, and he’s easily the most popular Abbasid figure we’ve come across in many generations.
Al Mu’tamid’s reign lasted from 870 to 892. The Abbasid Caliphate was reborn during these decades, midwifed by the caliph’s brother Talha, better known in history by his title al Muwaffaq. The new Abbasid state understood its limits and adopted a pragmatic but uncompromising approach towards rebuilding its power. It developed formidable armies to fight off the many existential threats that faced it, then used this military edge to force its neighbors into relative submission.
Having covered the caliphate’s East last time, we must now do the same for its west. The anarchy left such a deep impact on the caliphate that we really need to take our time discovering its aftermath. The situation in Egypt, Syria, Mesopotamia, and the North was very messy, but we’ll look at them through the lens of one remarkable soldier. His journey started in Egypt, but spanned the caliphate’s west, giving us a window into the entire region’s politics at the time.
We have been focused exclusively on the capital province of Iraq ever since the outbreak of anarchy. While we had good reasons to keep a close eye on developments there, Khurasan can no longer be ignored. Not only had it always been a vital part of the Abbasid realm, but the relationship between the Arabs and their neighbors to the East practically defined Arab power. The collapse of imperial authority had consequences in Nisapur, and when the Tahirids faltered kharijites stood ready to pounce.
Now that the anarchy was over, a reduced but reunited Abbasid military could finally face up to the multitude of threats facing the caliphate. A slave insurrection in the south of Iraq was one of the earliest challenges it had to contend with, and the state’s slow and faltering response revealed the extent of the decline of Abbasid power. The caliphate did ultimately come out on top, thanks to the assiduous regent general Talha, and his worthy son Ahmad.
The death of Salih ibn Waseef left Musa ibn Bugha in charge of the caliphate’s armies. This newfound unity effectively ended the Anarchy in Samarra which had plagued the Abbasid state for almost a decade. While the dark period of civil war was over, the Abbasid state now had to contend with its consequences and the many dangers it spawned.
Dilapidated by years of internal conflict and ruinous mismanagement, the caliphate was a mere shadow of its former self. The void left by its collapse had led to the rise of adversaries which now surrounded the capital province and threatened the state’s very existence. Not only was the treasury empty, but the state’s armies were divided and their leaders still quarreled over scraps. These were the unfortunate conditions of al Muhtadi’s reign, and the powerless caliph could do little to reform the situation.
Instead of bringing about a measure of peace, the end of the civil war signaled a return to the anarchy that had preceded it. The new caliph was restricted by the same men whose influence had checked his predecessor’s. Furthermore, by accepting the role of a puppet, al Musta’in had sullied the Abbasid name and done irreparable damage to the caliph’s authority in the eyes of the umma, and more critically, the troops. Also did I mention that the caliphate was broke?
As the last vestiges of Abbasid authority crumbled, the caliphate spiraled further into chaos. It wasn’t too long before an unremarkable conflict sparked a much wider conflagration and the umma was engulfed by civil war. The turks treated the Abbasids as little more than a banner, and each side rallied behind the candidate they understood would look after their interests the best. The fitna of 865 proved disastrous to Baghdad and Iraq, but the rest of the umma seemed to enjoy the downfall of the unpopular Turks, and they capitalized on their absence by exercising more independence.
Al Muntasir’s sudden passing took the caliphate into uncharted political territory. It had only been six months since the plot against his father had succeeded, and he was still much too young for succession planning. The Turks tried to capitalize on this disaster: in an attempt to make the most out of the situation they installed a figurehead in command, one they could control with impunity. Little did they know that in doing so they were kicking Pandora’s box wide open.
It’s difficult to overstate the impact al Mutawakkil’s usurpation had on the political reality of the caliphate. Not only did it completely hijack control of the state, but it also had decisive implications for the nature and locus of official authority. We’ll kick off our journey into this brave new world with the short reign of al Muntasir. Its unexpected end will unfortunately only make the umma’s politics more volatile. Things were bad, but they’re about to become a whole lot worse.
Succession planning presented a sporadic problem for the caliphate. The great fitna was the last disaster spawned by ill-conceived designs, and it proved absolutely ruinous to the state. Al Mutawakkil’s arrangement was so bad that it became the first to snare the caliph himself in its chaos. As with most things about him, there’s no consensus on what happened or why. Al Mutawakkil’s reign and character are subjects of considerable disagreement, complicating any assessment of this caliph’s legacy.
Despite the religious overtones of the caliphate, there was nothing very islamic about the state when it came to policy. The inquisition marked the first time an administration tried to interfere in matters of faith, and it intensified over the reigns of three caliphs. Al Mutawakkil put an end to the mihna, and reversed the state’s position on a slew of related matters. His new direction proved popular with the masses, but it discriminated heavily against a wide range of communities.
Considering their invincibility on the battlefield, the caliphate’s armies probably felt assured that they would remain the state’s number one priority. Al Mutawakkil’s purge of the administration only touched one member of the military hierarchy, and the caliph could not kill off its leadership if he required an effective fighting force. Although he sought to weaken the Turkish grip on the military, al Mutawakkil still needed them to win his many, many wars. Neither side could do without the other, but it was an uneasy relationship as the caliph looked for ways out of it.
For the first time in Arab history, a council of administrator had selected the man who would become the next caliph. The umma had come a long way since it was first united by the prophet and this development seemed to signal its capture by the state. One would expect the bunch of bureaucrats to pick someone supportive of their interests but al Mutawakkil turned out to be quite a maverick, the first of several surprises we’ll come across during this caliph’s long reign.
Despite the general unpopularity of al Mu’tasim’s Turkish inner-circle, the paradigm he established proved so stable that it endured throughout the reign of his son and successor, Haoon al Watheq. The new caliph wasn’t very keen on administration: he left his father’s loyalists in their positions and expected the bureaucratic machinery to keep ticking away without his input. His light touch meant that he barely left a trace in our histories.
Al Mu’tasim’s armies were among the strongest ever fielded by the caliphate. They reliably triumphed over their foes and faced no problems putting down any resistance to the caliph’s authority. Al Afshin and the Ushrusania were some of their most important elements, responsible for some of the umma’s most celebrated victories. Their reputation took a nosedive in the last few years of the caliph’s reign after al Afshin’s ambition got the best of him.
For the third time in a row, a son of Harun al Rashid took control of the umma. Al Mu’tasim is remembered for his close association with the Turkic peoples of the East, an interest supposedly nurtured by his Sogdian mother. Of these men he amassed a personal army during the reigns of his brothers and used it to become an important part of al Ma’mun’s military. The new caliph spent great sums to support and grow his armed forces, leading to a far more martial Abbasid caliphate.
It’s hard to identify a single aspect of the umma left unchanged by al Ma’mun’s long reign: he had a major impact politically, socially, intellectually, religiously, and beyond. Despite its many impressive achievements however, its flaws receive an inordinate amount of attention in our sources. Even when describing al Ma’mun’s successes, narrations employ more of a wistful tone than a triumphant one. Attitude notwithstanding, al Ma’mun is still a strong candidate for best caliph, and even his detractors don’t venture to challenge his significance.
Two decades of al Ma’mun’s capable administration led the caliphate to an extraordinary recovery. His return to Baghdad put an end to the chaotic aftermath of the great fitna and his enduring success helped the umma reach new heights militarily, commercially, and even intellectually. The material we find on the caliph during these prosperous years describes an intelligent, curious, responsible, and sincere man of considerable conscience.
Back in Baghdad, al Ma’mun finally began to play an active role in running the Abbasid state. The five years he spent in Khurasan were rough on the rest of the caliphate, but especially disastrous for Iraq. The caliph now had to restore peace and central control to practically every province. His leadership proved exceptional: even without a ready set of advisors to draw upon, al Ma’mun found the right people to fill the many vacancies he had in his administration. Over the course of his reign he steadily repaired the caliphate’s grip on the umma, undoing much of the harm done by the great fitna.
Al Ma’mun’s surprise victory over his brother left him in charge of the entire caliphate. But the conclusion of the great fitna did not bring an end to its miseries: the chaos of war had spread throughout the land and the new caliph possessed neither the experience nor the resources to return peace to his umma. To everyone’s detriment, the caliph’s most trusted advisors displayed a myopic obsession with personal control and proved wholly inadequate at administering the state.
Haroon al Rashid divided his realm among his children, and the young men were quickly goaded into conflict with one another by their advisors. The unexperienced princes found the underlying tensions simply too powerful to overcome. But the predictability of war was upended by its unpredictable outcome. Fortune swung violently from one party to the other, leaving the caliphate forever changed.
Haroon al Rashid worked towards fool-proofing his succession arrangement more than any other caliph by far: the ceremony he held at Mecca with his heirs swearing to abide by his wishes is more elaborate than anything we have or will come across. He would not have gone to such lengths if he didn’t think it necessary, and it wasn’t long before his sons proved him right. Eager for more power, Al Amin’s advisors urged him to move against his brothers, leading the entire caliphate down a dangerous path.
Due to his father al Mahdi’s arrangement, Haroon al Rashid endured a traumatic year during which his brother tried to have him removed from the line of succession. Having barely survived the experience, he put a great deal of thought and effort into the matter of his own succession in order to avoid inflicting the same dangers upon his own heirs and the umma at large. This careful planning unfortunately yielded devastating results, something which ironically only further improved the caliph’s gilded reputation.
Royal advisors, court attendants, and other officials began to hold some real political power in the Abbasid caliphate, a development which progressed with every caliph who came after the micromanaging al Mansur. The Baramika during al Rashid’s reign represented the pinnacle of this sort of bureaucratic authority and they established a level of political control that at times seemed to be almost complete. Their fall from grace was so shocking and sudden that it stands out as an oft recounted episode of Arab history, with several amusing explorations of what may have precipitated it.
Now that we’ve covered Haroon al Rashid’s foreign wars, we can get started with the messy conflicts which took place within the umma, and within his administration itself. The caliphate’s distant west slowly broke away during his reign, but his armies faced off and defeated various challengers across the rest of his lands. The Abbasid state was still powerful and quite capable of fending for itself, but a close look at how it responded to these threats reveals a more daunting problem within the administration: an intense competition between the factions closest to the caliph that was raging unchecked.
Haroon al Rashid is commonly portrayed as a martial caliph, one who menaced the Byzantine empire and led a tireless crusade against them. He is praised in Arab sources for defeating the Greeks time and again, all in defense of the umma’s faith and faithful. While this popular opinion isn’t entirely mistaken, it is remarkably exaggerated, a curiosity which itself deserves special attention. The caliphate’s forces dominated the battlefield, but no tangible gains were made despite their sustained success in war.
From our vantage point in the 21st century, it is clear that Haroon al Rashid is by far the most famous Arab caliph. His renown is not some modern phenomenon either: he may occasionally pop up as a cultural reference or on a trivia show, but he was immortalized early in the epic One Thousand and One Nights. His time in charge is generally thought of as the height of Arab power and culture, a claim we will investigate together in our many episodes on the legendary figure.
The sudden passing of Mohammad al Mahdi led his son Musa al Hadi to become the umma’s next leader sooner than anyone would have expected. With a wild disposition and little actual experience in administration, the twenty one year old became the youngest Abbasid to wield power. He didn’t get a chance to do very much, and there is very little agreement on his brief spell as caliph.
Al Mansur’s long reign transformed the caliphate in countless ways, most of them for the better. It provided a kind of stability the umma desperately needed to absorb the tumult of the Abbasid revolution and adjust to the new status quo. What followed was a golden age of prosperity, to be reaped by al Mahdi after having been sown by his father.
Perhaps most significant among al Mansur’s many triumphs was his founding of a new capital for his administration, a glorious new city which would come to be known as Baghdad. It was a decision that had a tremendous impact on Arab and world history, bringing the umma another step closer to the imperial models surrounding it.
The chaos of the Abbasid revolution gave foreign powers a rare opportunity to strike at the caliphate while it was paralyzed by internal strife. Things could have gone very badly for the Arabs but the unparalleled al Mansur proved as capable against these foes as he had those who had opposed him within the caliphate. His armies faced down assaults from all directions and successfully guarded his domain, though some fringes were secured better than others.
The Abbasids based their legitimacy on the fact that they were part of the prophet’s clan. This was not contested during the upheaval of their revolution, and in the following years al Saffah inflicted great pain on his enemies as a way of warning others not to mess with the new dynasty. Despite all this, al Mansur knew to expect a challenge from his clan sooner or later, a threat he took very seriously indeed.
One of al Mansur’s first acts as caliph was to lure Abu Muslim to his court and assassinate the powerful and popular governor. This led to immediate turmoil in the East, leaving him to contend with sporadic upheavals for almost an entire decade. The caliph proved up to the task: his adept management of all these challenges helped him emerge from the chaos with more control over the region than any of his predecessors.
Much of what people associate with the idea of a medieval Arab caliphate is rooted in the reign of our upcoming caliph. The foundation he laid for his dynasty is so solid that it makes the Umayyad era seem like little more than a formalized extension of the early Arab raids against their neighboring empires. It will take us a while to get through his reign, and before we start with that, we’ll take this episode to better orient ourselves within the world he is about to reshape.
Succession once again warrants its own episode. Al Saffah relied on three commanders to oversee different parts of his caliphate, and while the setup kept the new dynasty safe and stable, the ambitions of these three leaders clashed soon after the caliph passed away.
The Abbasid revolution showed what it took to overthrow a dynasty; establishing a new one brought a whole other set of challenges. The clan’s first caliph, al Saffah, took an aggressive posture to scare off any would-be challengers to his power. Legitimacy was his chief concern, and he found the best way to attain it was to assert his claim as fiercely as possible.
The Abbasid path to power required stealth, deceit, and most of all patience. The Hashemite family managed to unseat the Umayyads through cultivating a secret movement that benefitted from all the social tensions which plagued the umma. They drew on Hashemite support by calling for the rights of the prophet’s clan, they championed the southern or Yemeni side of the tribal feud, and they were deeply anti-Umayyad. Their success would have been unlikely in Hisham’s age, but times had changed in the few years since then.
While the Umayyads fought among themselves in distant Syria, dangerous developments were underway in Khurasan. The umma’s divisions in the Eastern province were deep enough to give the coming revolution its first foothold in the caliphate. Its final Umayyad governor, Nasr ibn Sayyar, bore witness to the entire transformational era in the region, and he did an admirable job holding things together until his final breath.
Yazid III’s successful coup against Walid II blew up the tribal feud. Syrian unity had long undergirded Umayyad power in Syria and from there, the entire caliphate; it had now been torn asunder in bloody warfare. Even when the clan finally had someone strong enough to make a play at stabilizing the situation, the caliphate was far too weak, a mere shadow of its former self, its armies comprised entirely of men animated by tribal loyalties.
It took Hisham two decades to undo the damage his half-brothers had wrought upon the umma with their careless administration. It took his successor Walid ibn il Yazid less than two years to wreck things beyond repair. While it was almost entirely his fault that things fell apart for his clan, he's not the one who opened pandora’s box, that was his cousin. Umayyad chaos quickly ensued.
The capable Hisham protected his caliphate from the many enemies who lined its borders. These were not the only ones he had to contend with however, the umma itself was somewhat fragmented, and opposition to the Umayyads had swelled during the short and tumultuous reigns of his predecessors. As a result, Hisham had to face resistance from Arabs with kharijite or Hashemite loyalties. There was no stopping this effective caliph though, and he came out on top in all issues, save one.
Khurasan and the East remained as volatile as ever, and Hisham had to contend with the new threat of the Turgesh throughout his long reign. We’re fortunate that our sources contain so much information on the region during this chaotic time, especially because the area will be of pivotal importance to the caliphate before too long. The Arab struggle in the region reveals how riven by disagreements the umma had become East of Iraq.
Hisham’s armies faced many different opponents during his long and formidable reign. The mismanagement of the half-brothers who preceded him had taken its toll on the umma’s unity, and the caliphate’s borders were no longer as secure as they had once been. We’ll take a whirlwind tour of the fighting along its edges to show just how many threats the capable caliph beat down during his two decades in charge.
In the nine years between al Walid’s death in 715 and Hisham’s ascension in 724 the umma went through three caliphs, each with a radically different vision for its future. This swinging between political projects greatly undermined any stability Umayyad power was founded upon, an important development which is unfortunately difficult to trace in our sources. A quick look at some of the unspoken changes will reveal the unenviable work ahead that lay ahead of our latest caliph.
Yazid came to power following the transformative reign of the pious Omar II. The new caliph faced some immediate resistance, and after dealing with it he went about undoing all his predecessors reforms, effectively returning the caliphate to what it had been before. While the cracks are too fine to see in this episode, Yazid’s reign will prove to be disastrous for his clan and the caliphate in the long run.
Sulayman’s underwhelming time in charge ended with a twist, and Omar ibn Abdulaziz proved to be a real surprise. The famously pious Umayyad had a vision for the umma, and he used his new position to impose an order unseen since the early, predynastic days of the caliphate. Although he is not covered in much detail, our sources roundly praise him for his courageous reforms and religious character courageous reforms.
Glossary
Ali ibn il Husayn ibn Ali bin Abi Talib: Ali Zainulabidin was the only (adult) male survivor of the Hashemite massacre at Karbala. He was too ill to take part in the fighting and the 21 year old was spared, as was his 4 year old son Mohammad. Many pro-Umayyad accounts exaggerate the grace with which Yazid received them in Damascus, trying to blame Ubaydallah ibn Ziyad for the travesty and portray the caliph as having been respectful of the prophet’s clan. Zainulabidin was the first Hashemite who returned to his clan’s clerical roots. He delved into religious studies deeper than any around him, earning his moniker, best of the worshippers. He died aged 53, and was succeeded by his son Mohammad as leader of the Hashemite clan. “Constantine”: by this point the emperor of Byzantium was a Leo III, a leader who would come to be known as a restorer of Byzantine power. He rose to power in a coup just before Sulayman’s siege of Constantinople, and his defense of the capital against Sulayman’s bungling invasion came just in time to save the empire from what would have surely been a mortal blow. While the caliphate was the more powerful of the two powers in terms military might and overall resources, Leo did well to keep his armies together, mainly by keeping them in fortifications and avoiding pitched battles. Still, it worked, and the Byzantines weren’t the pushovers they were back in Abdulmalik and Walid’s time.
Suleiman is one of the least documented caliphs in our sources. His short reign proved popular despite its lack of achievement: all he did was live large, reward his close supporters, and punish his opponents. This was somehow enough for him to be remembered positively, if at all.
If Walid’s reign was the zenith of Umayyad power, then his succession marked an inflection point through which we begin to see some cracks which may have been there all along. Leaving his governor of Iraq and the East unchecked led to great discontent, and different rifts within the umma positioned themselves on either side of the growing divides. Before too long, these differences became a formidable problem for the state.
Although Abdulmalik was an incredibly tough act to follow, his successor was bequeathed an unassailably powerful position. The caliphate was ascendant, and its frontier armies were so capable and efficient that they expanded its domain to unmatched extents practically autonomously. Narrations about these years are filled with raids, conquests, and tribute in our sources, surpassing even the near-miraculous period when the Arabs bested both bordering empires.
Having exhausted the many rebellions against his unpopular governor, we can finally turn our attention to assessing Abdulmalik’s leadership and the results of his many deeply influential policy changes. He’s remembered overwhelmingly positively in our sources despite these many upheavals, and we’ll try and get into why that was before touching upon the ever-sensitive matter of succession.
Having securely established his position in Syria, Abdulmalik relied on his dependable governor al Hajjaj to keep the Iraqis in line. Ruling them with an iron fist unsurprisingly led to more rebellions than calm, and despite the many thwarted movements we discussed last time it seems like the East remained a diffident and dangerous land. Our sources have a lot to say about Iraq and the lands to its East during Abdulmalik’s reign.
Abdulmalik’s adept handling of the second fitna revealed him to be a shrewd mover and shaker with a disposition suitable for leadership. He did more than emulate those who came before him, he enacted changes that pushed the caliphate further into statehood and away from its roots as a tribal confederacy, cementing his family’s supremacy in the process.
The second fitna revealed the unprecedented level of division within the umma, divisions which only grew as the civil conflict ground on for a decade. Under Abdulmalik’s leadership, the Umayyads managed to slowly grow their power until they found themselves in a position to challenge for the umma’s leadership once again.
Before we can continue our discussion of the struggle between Abdulmalik and Ibn il Zubayr, we need to step back and survey the complicated situation in Iraq. Deep divisions made its cities difficult for either leader to claim, especially considering the significant Hashemite sympathies in Kufa which now had no outlet following the clan’s massacre. The situation was dangerous and volatile, but presented the perfect conditions for one especially innovative and ambitious local leader.
The umma spiraled further into disorder and civil war after the sudden death of the caliph and the subsequent collapse of Umayyad authority. Ibn il Zubayr’s candidacy was transformed from an unlikely proposition to a victory by default as he became the last man standing. Despite being the only Qurayshi vying for leadership, the umma was too fractured to coalesce behind one man yet, and the fires of disunity had yet to burn out.
Mu’awiya’s thorough preparations before his death left little doubt as to who would succeed him. His mastery over the umma’s various social forces must have made his job look easy when it was anything but, and Yazid made it his first priority to snuff out all resistance in order to emulate the total control his father had maintained. It didn’t really work out.
Just because Mu’awiya held supreme power within the caliphate didn’t mean he thought his will was absolute. He had displayed a keen understanding of tribal politics during his rise to power, painstakingly building a strong network of support to challenge for and win the title of caliph. He deployed all his foresight, cunning, and ruthless pragmatism to make sure he was succeeded by his son Yazid.
The same skills which propelled Mu’awiya along his relentless rise to the top of the caliphate helped him rule the Arabs unlike any man had managed to until then. Our sources contrast his reign to what came before it sharply, and it is worth reflecting on how they began to recognize elements of their own imperial times even at the dawn of the Umayyad age.
It is one of the sharper ironies of Islamic history that the clan which had led the resistance to the young religion went on to found its first dynasty. Umayyad influence swelled under the third caliph, but Mu’awiya was the one to formalize it as the foundation of a dynasty. The first few years of his reign were dedicated to securing his grip on the umma, and he embedded his clan and loyalists in a way that transformed the caliphate.
The first four leaders of the umma were collectively bestowed with the honorific "the rightly guided caliphs". They were all close companions of the prophet, and their reign was succeeded by the beginnings of imperial rule. Taking the time to appreciate this disconnect is vital and we'll spend this episode surveying the impact it had on our classical Arab sources.
Divisions within the community only grew as the struggle between its two main parties persisted, almost pushing the goal of reuniting the umma out of the realm of possibility. This episode charts the evolution of this civil war, the disintegration of the norms islam had recently instilled in the Arabs, and the re-emergence of old tribal forces as part of a new paradigm.
The unprecedented loss of Arab life at the battle of Siffin put an end to any illusions of the sanctity of muslim blood, an important pillar underpinning the umma’s unity. Arabs began withdrawing their support for the caliph in growing numbers, revealing the resurgence of the old political order of tribal elites. Amid these transformations, Syrian and Iraqi delegates met to discuss the possibility of a peaceful resolution to the question of who would lead the umma following the bloody stalemate between the two.
Following the caliph’s victory over the Meccan faction at Basra, Ali bin Abi Talib turned his attention towards Syria. The Umayyad Mu’awiya bin Abu Sufyan had governed its lands for nearly two decades and insisted that he would not submit until his kin’s murderers and their unnamed instigators had been punished. This irresolvable dispute culminated to the battle of Siffin, the umma’s bloodiest civil war.
As divisions widened within the umma, the battle of the camel marked the first time two muslim armies faced one another in combat. Chiefs of the various clans of Quraysh felt they had the most to lose from the leadership of the community falling into Hashemite hands, and they were the first to make a move against the new caliph.
Legitimating succession within the caliphate was already hard enough, and the rebellion that led to Othman’s death only divided the fractured Umma further. It is in these unenviable conditions that the Hashemite Ali bin Abi Talib will prevail as the Umma’s fourth caliph, fulfilling the hopes of those who believed that he had been chosen by the prophet as his successor in his farewell speech almost 25 years earlier.
Dismissing the grievances brought to him earlier in his reign made sure the discontent the caliph faced would only grow. The sources diverge widely when it comes to these contentious and deeply consequential events, but ultimately Othman had to face the wrath of men who held the caliph solely responsible for all the worrying and confusing changes they were experiencing. The Umma had experienced great change since it was first united by the prophet, but the end of Othman’s reign will leave it with a permanent scar.
The quasi-political system devised by the Arabs to manage the community’s affairs was hastily put together and it mixed tribal norms and islamic ethics haphazardly. The pitfalls of the caliphate were numerous, and Omar’s many changes during his reign were aimed at addressing some of them. Othman’s reign was not marked with any such prophylactic foresight; his rule instead strained the authority of the caliph, one of the many undefined pitfalls of the caliphate as a political system. The tension between the tribal and islamic cultural forces acting on the Arabs begins to flare, and once invisible cracks within the Umma slide into view.
With the confusion of Omar’s assassination and succession behind them, the Arabs were now ready to welcome the reign of yet another of their prophet’s close companions. In this episode we’ll talk more about the new caliph, and take a tour of his many and growing domains.
Omar’s bold and sweeping policies defined the caliphate and gave it the tools it needed to evolve past its origins as a tribal confederation. While his predecessor had shied away from such decision making, the old Abu Bakr at least had the foresight to pick his successor. The second caliph neglected thinking about who might replace him until it was almost too late. At his tragic and abrupt end he did what he did best: he enacted a new policy to implement a traditional solution. Six chiefs of Quraysh were tasked with selecting one of them to be the next caliph.
We mentioned many of the accomplishments of Omar ibn il Khattab in our last episode, and in this one we continue our discussion of the second caliph's reign. There was no going back for the Arabs after their historic victories had altered their world irreversibly, and a strong leader was needed to manage this critical transformational period. We will focus on the bold decisions Omar made, and try to understand what may have motivated him to undertake such sweeping changes.
The reign of Abu Bakr lasted a little over two years, and he kept Omar close in order to prepare him for the role of caliph. But the leadership of the community Omar inherited came with the burden of waging two simultaneous wars against empires that had bordered the Arabs for as long as they they could remember. We very briefly discussed the Byzantine and Sassanid empires in the previous episode, and today we'll talk about the challenges they posed to the new caliph, and how he responded to them and other dangers to the Umma.
I would like to be the first to admit that this episode doesn't quite belong in this podcast. It's just that the Arabs will take down two ancient and powerful empires with a swiftness that beggars belief, and this is my attempt at explaining how such an unthinkable act could ever take place. In this episode we discuss the final war the two empires fought with one another, and highlight the state each found itself in before the Arabs emerged from the desert united.
The man chosen to lead the muslims after their prophet's death was his close friend, Abu Bakr. He thus became the world's first caliph, and was faced with the unenviable task of keeping all the peninsula's fiercely independent-minded tribes united. His short reign had many successes, ensuring him a vaulted position in Arab memory.
Succession can be a tricky issue, but succeeding a prophet is pretty much ensured to get thorny. The Umma barely had time to mourn its loss after the death of Mohammad; it immediately faced threats both from within and without. This made finding a new leader all the more pressing, and the haste with which some acted caused rifts in the community that proved tragically durable.
Before we can talk about the caliphs, we need to build on the context we established last time. The caliphs will rule over the community first united by Mohammad ibn Abdallah, of the Hashemite clan of the Quraysh, main tribe of the city of Mecca.
I introduce us, what this podcast is meant to become, and our subject matter: Arab history.