As Iraq slides into turmoil once more to the dismay of the West, this particular post, which I hadn't written with the specific intention of drawing a parallel with the present, nevertheless serves as a reminder that this volatile region has been a seat of conflict from the earliest days of Islam. The Arab conquests resulted in a vast territory coming under the rule of the caliphs. One family, the Umayyads, would seek to make the caliphate their own but they would not go unchallenged. It took a remarkable partnership to forge a dynasty and an empire. Whilst the Umayyad Caliphs chose to base themselves in Syria where they enjoyed their strongest support, it soon became apparent that a strong controlling hand was needed in Iraq in order both to maintain and project the power of the caliphs over their territories. This is primarily the story of two men, Caliph Abd al Malik and his governor of Iraq Al Hajjaj, who reunited the fragmented lands of Islam and then launched the second great expansive phase of the Arab conquests.
In 685 AD the thirty nine year old Abd al Malik succeeded his father Marwan as Umayyad Caliph. Few rulers have inherited such a challenging and unpromising situation. At the time the young Muslim world was riven by strife. Abd al Malik’s father Marwan had established himself as caliph in Damascus only after a bloody struggle between rival Syrian tribal factions and his rule had not been recognised beyond this traditional Umayyad powerbase. The principle of hereditary succession was far from universally accepted and many contended that the caliph as successor of Mohammed and political and spiritual leader of Islam should be chosen for his demonstrated piety and meritorious conduct as much as for any claim based on bloodline. The Umayyads were an old and illustrious family but in Islamic terms they lacked pedigree.
At Siffin in 657 Ali clashed with Muawiya - founder of the Umayyad Dynasty
In
Iraq especially the veneration in which the fourth caliph Ali, his martyred son
Husayn and their descendants were held by many ensured that there would be repeated
uprisings launched in the name of the family of the Prophet. Belief in their
unassailable right to lead the Muslims, condemnation of those who had usurped
that right and sorrow at their unjust killings would become the cornerstone of
faith for what would evolve into the Shi’ite branch of Islam.
In
the old country meanwhile, those families in Mecca and Medina who felt
sidelined in the affairs of the Muslim world by a Syrian based Umayyad dynasty had
recognised a rival claimant to the caliphate by the name of Abd Allah ibn Zubayr. Marwan had
succeeded in wresting control of Egypt from ibn Zubayr but the rest of the Muslim lands were
ranged implacably against the Umayyads. Efforts to dislodge ibn Zubayr from
Mecca had failed and by 687 the two key cities of Iraq, Kufa and Basra were
also under his control.
Such
then was the challenge that faced Abd al Malik. From these unpromising
beginnings he would forcibly unite the caliphate under his rule and would prove
to be a remarkable ruler. It was Abd al Malik who truly secured the future of
the Umayyad Caliphate as a hereditary dynasty.
His
need to secure his frontiers in order to focus on his internal problems obliged
the new caliph to agree to the continuing payment of tribute to Byzantium. He nevertheless
did not entirely cease the campaigns against imperial territory and continued
efforts to conquer North Africa. Abd al Malik could not afford to commit large
forces to this campaign but honour demanded that some effort was made. The
territory had been nominally conquered all the way to the Atlantic by the
adventurous Uqba ibn Nafi, who had theatrically ridden his horse into the surf
to mark the limit of his conquests. The Berbers had revolted however and Uqba
had lost his head. The outpost of Kairouan which Uqba had founded in the Tunisian
interior had been abandoned. In 688 the caliph sent a small expeditionary force
to reoccupy the settlement. In a swift campaign the Berber leader Kusayla had been
defeated and killed and the death of Uqba avenged. In the beleaguered Byzantine
city of Carthage this was seen as an ominous development. The exarch decided
to attempt to peg the Arab advance back again and dispatched his still
formidable fleet eastwards along the Libyan coast to seize the key stronghold
of Barqa. With his lines of communication threatened, the Arab commander had no
choice but to lead his force back into Libya and attempt to retake Barqa but
the Byzantine defenders hung on for a rare victory. The Arab expeditionary
force was finished as a fighting unit and with more serious troubles closer to
home, Abd al Malik could not afford to send more troops westward. The
Byzantines in Carthage had ensured that they would survive for a few more years
but by their actions they had altered the Arab perception of the threat that
their presence posed. From being seen as an irrelevance that could be bypassed,
they now presented a danger and this perhaps inadvertently hastened their
eventual demise.
19th century depiction of the Dome of the Rock
In
691 a triumphant Abd al Malik entered Kufa, having also captured Basra and
vanquished the brother of ibn Zubayr. A year later his forces captured Mecca
and slew his rival for the caliphate, finally reuniting the lands of Islam
under a single ruler. No sooner had Abd al Malik succeeded in reuniting the
lands of the caliphate then a new challenge came from the Byzantine empire. When
Justinian II rejected the caliph’s tribute and mounted an invasion of Armenia,
Abd al Malik rose to the provocation and launched an invasion of Cilicia.
Battle was joined at Sebastopolis in 692 and the Muslims advanced with copies
of the defunct peace treaty attached to their spears. They were victorious when
twenty thousand Slavic troops deserted the imperial cause and joined them. In
the aftermath of this military disaster Justinian’s imprisonment of his
commander Leontius sparked a revolt against him and led to his overthrow and
exile.
With
peace restored, Abd al Malik set about reordering his empire which was a
melting pot of seething discontent. Conflict between those who had taken part
in the original conquest of new territories and those who had arrived later
wanting a slice of the spoils was at the heart of the problem. The original
conquerors had established themselves as ruling elites, lording it over the native
populations and later arrivals, taking the lion’s share of land and spending
the revenues of the territories as they saw fit. They resented the interference
of central government in their affairs and valued their independence. Meanwhile
those who saw themselves as disenfranchised looked to the descendants of Ali as
their champions rather than the Umayyad rulers in Syria and were a continual
threat to stability. Abd al Malik’s approach was to reduce the influence of
local elites by taking a strong grip on the reins of power. He appointed trusted
family members as governors and gave the provinces far less freedom of action
than they had enjoyed previously. Surplus tax revenues were to be forwarded
to Damascus with no excuses. The caliph rather than the local elites would
decide how money was to be spent in the provinces.
Dirham issued in the name of al Hajjaj
To
the most volatile region of his empire, the caliph sent his number one enforcer
in 694. Al Hajjaj ibn Yusuf had fought in the campaign to re-conquer Iraq and had
commanded the final successful assault on Mecca as well as fighting at
Sebastopolis. He was a man possessed of utter ruthlessness as his willingness
to wage war on the holy city demonstrated and also complete loyalty to the
Umayyad cause. He would show himself to be an astute administrator and a military
visionary who masterminded the second great territorial expansion of Islam in
the reigns of Abd al Malik and his son Al Walid. Arriving in Kufa, al Hajjaj
summoned the populace to the city’s mosque and subjected them to a harangue which
left them in no doubt that he would take draconian measures against anyone who
stepped out of line.
‘Oh People of Kufa,’ he told them. ‘Certain am I that I see heads ripe for cutting and verily I am the man to do it.’ Moving on to Basra he repeated his message, declaring, ‘And he whose conscience burdens his head, I will remove the weight of his burden, and he whose life has drawn too long, I shall shorten what remains of it.’ The new governor certainly had a way with words. Raising a force from both cities he led them out on a campaign of extermination against the Kharijite rebels who had refused to acknowledge Umayyad rule.
‘Oh People of Kufa,’ he told them. ‘Certain am I that I see heads ripe for cutting and verily I am the man to do it.’ Moving on to Basra he repeated his message, declaring, ‘And he whose conscience burdens his head, I will remove the weight of his burden, and he whose life has drawn too long, I shall shorten what remains of it.’ The new governor certainly had a way with words. Raising a force from both cities he led them out on a campaign of extermination against the Kharijite rebels who had refused to acknowledge Umayyad rule.
Under
Abd al Malik the lands of Islam would become a more homogeneous entity, with
Arabic as the official language of administration. Coinage was also
standardised across his empire, with local variations being replaced by the silver dirham and the
gold dinar, coins of standard weight and design. Al Hajjaj is credited with
championing these developments. Taking heed, Abd al Malik grasped the important
role that currency could play in conveying a message to his subjects and
modelled his coins on the Byzantine example. Abd al Malik’s coins carried the
image of the caliph upon them, proclaiming to every family who received the
payment known as the ata, which was
paid in exchange for past or present military service, that this munificence
flowed from the caliph in Damascus. Later the images on the coins would be
replaced by verses from the Koran. The Umayyad Caliphate was beginning to take
on the form and appearance of a permanent
imperial ruling dynasty.
Gold Dinar of Abd al Malik
Abd
al Malik and Al Hajjaj now turned their thoughts to territorial expansion,
understanding that the best way to keep unruly elements amongst their subjects
in line was to engage them in military campaigns far from home. Large armies
were dispatched to both east and west. Beyond Iraq the lands of the caliphate
extended to the borderlands of the old Persian empire. The province of Khurasan
in north-eastern Iran, with its administrative capital in the city of Merv, was
Islam’s wild frontier. To the east in the rugged and unforgiving highlands of
what is now Afghanistan, the local rulers had rejected the overtures of the
Muslims and remained defiantly un-subdued. A force dubbed the ‘Army of
Destruction’ was sent into Afghanistan to defeat the fiercely independent
inhabitants and soon found themselves on the back foot, fighting an implacable
enemy who knew the terrain and made them pay for every forward step they took.
Soon the Army of Destruction had been all but destroyed itself with the ragged
survivors staggering back to civilisation half starved.
To
the west in Ifriqiya there was
greater success for in 698 the city of Carthage finally fell to the Muslims.
Overwhelmed by the arrival of an Arab army of forty thousand before its walls,
the city swiftly capitulated with little resistance and the Byzantine fleet
sailed away unmolested. The taking of Carthage had been an easy victory for the
Arabs but the Berbers once again were to prove to be the tougher opposition in Ifriqiya. Soon the Arabs were fighting a
new insurrection led by a wild haired sorceress named Kahina, who instructed
her followers to destroy every vestige of Roman civilisation that remained in
order to render the territory valueless and therefore of no interest to the
conquerors. As in the east it was proving to be the hardy mountain dwellers who
provided the greatest resistance to the Arab conquest; willing to fight to the
death in defence of their cherished independence and way of life. This time
however the invaders were not driven out and the rebellion was eventually
crushed.
In the east the need remained to avenge the
fate of the Army of Destruction. A new force was therefore raised in Kufa and
Basra with the additional intention of removing large numbers of malcontents
from Iraq and dispatching them to the distant frontier where they could not
make trouble. This new army was somewhat disparagingly known as the Peacock
Army, in reference to the finery of its distinguished leaders who set out to
win the glory to which they felt that their wealth entitled them.
By
701 the leaders of the Afghan expedition had concluded that they were on a
hiding to nothing and instead chose to rebel against Al Hajjaj who had sent
them there. Marching back to Iraq they defeated the local forces and successfully
occupied Kufa whilst Al Hajjaj hung on in Basra and awaited reinforcements from
the caliph. Once troops arrived from Syria Al Hajjaj inflicted a string of
defeats on the Peacock Army and drove them back into Kufa where he besieged them. Unable
to agree amongst themselves just what they were fighting for, the rebels were
soon hopelessly divided and many deserted. Finally, abandoned by their leaders, they surrendered on the promise of an amnesty and Kufa was brought back into
the fold. Despite this clemency towards the defenders of Kufa, Al Hajjaj
executed around eleven thousand rebel prisoners as a grim lesson to other
would be troublemakers. The governor garrisoned his force of Syrian troops, whose loyalty
to the ruling regime in Damascus was assured, between Kufa and Basra from where
they could respond swiftly to any unrest in either city. The privileges of the
existing population were further eroded with the payment known as the ata being restricted only to those
loyally serving in the army of the current ruler rather than being paid out to
anyone who could claim descent from a participant in the original conquest. By
these heavy handed means the most volatile region of the Arab world was tamed once
more.
7th Century relief from Samarkand
In
705 the Caliph Abd al Malik died and was succeeded by his son Al Walid in a
peaceful and unchallenged transition of power which was testament to the
achievements of his reign. Al Walid must have grown up somewhat in awe of Al
Hajjaj and he gave the governor complete freedom of action in the eastern
theatre. Al Hajjaj embarked on a bold programme of conquest, dispatching trusted
and capable generals eastward to expand the frontiers of Islam. In Merv the
arrival of Qutayba ibn Muslim galvanised the Arab forces. He called upon them
to forget their intertribal squabbling and unite in the cause of jihad. Beyond the river Oxus to the
north lay Soghdia. It was land of opportunity where petty kingdoms ruled over
by merchant princes from the safety of fortress cities engaged in the lucrative
caravan trade; bringing goods from China to the markets of Persia. The Soghdians
were used to paying tribute to the Turks who controlled the caravan trade that
passed through their lands and both raided and traded with the settled peoples
as it suited them. The Arabs would have to defeat both if they wished to impose
themselves on this land. It would be a campaign of setbacks and compromises.
Local rulers accepted Arab overlordship only when faced with overwhelming force
and the imminent destruction of their cities and then reneged on their tribute
as soon as Qutayba was obliged to commit his forces elsewhere. The Turks
meanwhile resented the Muslims’ attempts to muscle in on their territory and
harassed Qutayba’s forces. The Soghdian potentates were happy to ally
themselves with Arab against Turk or Turk against Arab or against each other as
the situation demanded in order to safeguard their cities and commercial
interests and Islam received only a lukewarm reception in the cities which were
subjugated. Nevertheless steady progress was made. By 709 the city of Bukhara
had been taken by force and garrisoned and a mosque constructed, which the
locals were offered cash incentives to attend. Three years later Samarkand, the
greatest city of Soghdia, suffered a similar fate, although in both cases the
ruling dynasties remained in place as vassals of the Arabs. There was success
too in the Afghan highlands where the ruler who had defied the Army of
Destruction agreed to pay tribute. Qutayba then advanced north-eastwards to the
headwaters of the Jazartes; the river which had marked the limit of Alexander’s
conquests in this part of the world and which now marked the limit of Chinese
influence. From here envoys were sent to the Tang court in China to establish
peaceful relations.
The conquest of Sind
A
year later, with the armies of Islam having once more conquered the North African
coast and reoccupied Tangier under Musa ibn Nusayr, an opportunity presented
itself for Berber convert Tariq ibn Ziyad to take the Muslim conquest in a whole
new direction. Having come to an agreement with the ruler of the small former
Byzantine enclave of Ceuta to provide him with ships, Tariq crossed the straits
which still bear his name; Gibraltar being derived from the Arabic Jebel al-Tariq or Tariq’s Rock, to land
on the southern coast of Spain. Intervening in the Visigothic civil war which
was raging at the time, Tariq soon turned the situation to his advantage and
annihilated the armies of the Visigothic king Rodrigo. Following the rout of
Rodrigo’s army, centrally organised resistance in Spain crumbled as the
individual cities all looked to their own defences. This allowed them to be
picked off piecemeal, making the task much easier for Tariq’s limited forces.
The large Jewish population of the Spanish cities, who had endured vicious
persecution under the Visigoths, welcomed the Muslims as liberators and eased
their progress. Cordoba fell after a siege of three months whilst Toledo was
abandoned to the enemy by the fleeing inhabitants. Reinforcements led by Musa landed
in the following year and the subjugation of Al Andalus, as the Arabs would call their Spanish territories,
continued at pace. Over the next five years the remnants of Visigothic
resistance would be driven back into the north west corner of the Iberian
Peninsula and here they were able to hold the line in what would survive as the
Kingdom of Asturias. Al Walid now presided over an empire that stretched from
the Pyrenees to the Indus.
A medieval depiction of Tariq
The
deaths of both al Hajjaj and the Caliph al Walid within a year of each other
brought great upheaval. The accession of his al Walid’s brother Suleiman in 715
brought about a changing of the guard in the provinces as the new caliph looked
to reward his closest supporters. Those who had achieved great deeds in
advancing the cause of Islam to new lands were treated with monstrous
ingratitude and brutality. Musa and Tariq, the conquerors of Ifriqiya and Al Andalus, were recalled to Damascus not to a heroes’ welcome but
to disgrace and imprisonment. Mohammed ibn Qasim the victor of the Sind
campaign was also imprisoned and tortured to death. It seemed that the new
caliph feared that these conquerors would attempt to turn the lands they had
subdued into their own personal fiefdoms and so they paid the price for their
success. In Merv, Qutayba ibn Muslim also feared the worst but unlike his
contemporaries he resolved not to meekly submit to the will of the caliph but
instead attempted to lead his army back westward in revolt. His troops however
were unwilling to take up arms against the Commander of the Faithful for the
sake of their general and instead they angrily turned upon him and the
conqueror of Transoxania was murdered by his own men. These events brought to a
close the second great explosive phase of the Arab conquests. There was after
all little incentive for the newly appointed governors to exert themselves in
further conquests in view of the fate of their predecessors. A remarkable era was over.
Dramatisation of al Hajjaj's address to the people of Basra
http://slingsandarrowsblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/justinian-ii-mad-bad-and-dangerous.html
I was lazy for this article and reused material from my own book The Battles are the Best Bits, but if you liked it please check out the book.
