BERBER, OR TAMAZIGHT
Tamazight (Berber) is a language of the
Afro-Asiatic family and comprises a number of related dialects spoken by the
indigenous populations of North Africa.
The geographical expanse covered by these
dialects
once included virtually all of Africa north of the great Sahara Desert. Variations
of it are still used from the Canary Islands off the Moroccan Atlantic coast in
the West to the oasis of Siwa, in the western
desert
of Egypt to the east, and from the
Mediterranean shores of Africa in the north to the Saharan villages of Niger and Mali in the south. Although the
different spoken varieties of Tamazight are related
closely
enough to be viewed as dialects of the same language, the degree of intelligibility
among speakers of different varieties is subject to a great deal of variation
depending on distance, the amount of interaction among different communities,
and the level of awareness interlocutors have, whether or not they belong to
the same language family.
The name tamazight
is used in the Middle Atlas region of Morocco and is the same term used to
refer to a singular feminine member of the community (amazigh for the singular masculine and imazighen
for
the plural). Northern speakers in the Rif Mountains use the terms tarifit (arifi, irifiyn) or trifshin the
High Atlas and Lower Atlas and southern Morocco the name used is tashelhit (ashelhi,
ishelhiyen).
In
Algeria the names frequently used are taqbaylit
the mountainous areas of Kabylia, tashawit in the Aures Mountains, and tamzabit in the south.
Among
the populations of Siwa in Egypt the appellation used is tasiwit. In the vast
expanses of the great Sahara Desert some of the names used are tamasheq, tamajeq, and tamahar.
There are no reliable sources as to the
numbers of Tamazight speakers in
North Africa today, as official population counts generally do not address the
language issue. The available information usually presents the number of Tamazight speakers in Tunisia as being around
1 percent of the population, 20 percent in Algeria, and as high as 40 percent
in Morocco, but the accuracy of these numbers will only be verified when
reliable scientific surveys are carried out.
According to the al-moheet dictionary, the Arabic Name barbari used to refer to
speakers of this language is derived from th verb barbara, meaning to speak loudly in an agitated manner and
unintelligibly. The same verb is used to refer to sounds made by agitated or
over excited animals. The French historian and ethnographer Gabriel Camps
traces the histories of the different names used throughout history to name the
‘Berbers.’ With regard to
theamazighappellation, he notes the existence of a name based on a three letter
root, composed of [M, Z, G] or [M, Z, K], that has been used by North Africa,
as well as by early historians, notably Greek and Roman. Possible ancient
renditions of the word amazigh include
Roman mazices, Greek maxyces or mazyes,
and meshwesh, which appears in
ancient Egyptian inscriptions. Camps
cites
the existence of differences in pronunciation and spelling of modern names, for
example imusagh or imajighen of the great Sahara Desert and
the imazighens of the Aure`s and
Middle and High Atlas, as bein comparable (p. 66). Many researchers in the
field, including Muslim scholars, concede that the Arabic name ‘barbar’ and its
‘berber’ descendant in Western languages have never been used by the
populations in question to refer to themselves.
Based largely on information provided by
writers including Al-Qayrawani, Al-Bekri, Ibn Hayyan, AlQurtubi, Al-Warraq, Ibn
Khaldun, and many other Muslim historians who wrote between the ninth and fifteenth
centuries, it is understood that varieties of Tamazight were spoken all over
North Africa and that Arabic was limited to the larger urban centers. Tamazight-speaking
populations gave rise to some of
the
most powerful empires that North Africa has ever known: the Al-Moravids
(eleventh and twelfth centuries), followed by the Al-Mohades (twelfth and thirteenth
centuries). The Barghwata tribes who
controlled the Atlantic plains of Morocco for almost four centuries (ending in
the twelfth century) became notorious in Muslim and Arab sources because they composed
what was said to be a heretical Qur’an in their own language and attempted to
replace mainstream Islam.
The status of Tamazight in the postcolonial states of North Africa has never been fully recognized.
Indeed, writing or publishing in Tamazight was discouraged and often repressed.
Thanks to recent political and cultural changes in the area, Tamazight is
making a spectacular comeback into the world of media and even the school
systems. Indeed, both Algeria and Morocco have started introducing Tamazight
into
their
elementary school curricula.
Further
Reading
Abun-nasr, Jamil M.A History of
the Maghrib in the Islamic Period. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1987.
Azaykou, Ali Sidqi.Histoire du
Maroc Ou les interpre´tations
possibles. Rabat: Centre Tariq In
Zyad, 2002.
Brett, Michael, and Elizabeth
Fentress.The Berbers. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
Camps, Gabriel.Les Berberes:
Me´moires et identite´. Paris:
Editions Errance, 1987.
Chaker, Salem.Textes en
Linguistique Berbe`re: Introduction
au domaine berbe`re. Paris: CNRS,
1984.
Ibn Khaldun.The Muqaddimah: An
Introduction to History.
Trans. Franz Rosenthal. London:
Routledge, Kegan
and Paul, 1967.
Laroui, Abdallah.The History of
the Maghrib: An Interpretative Essay. Trans. Ralph Manheim. Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1970.
Norris, H.T.The Berbers in Arabic
Literature. Essex: Longman, 1982.
BERBERS
‘‘Berbers’’ is the generic name given to
various people native to North Africa, also called ‘‘Berberia’’ for the pre-Islamic
and early medieval period, or ‘‘Maghrib,’’ an Arabic term meaning ‘‘the land of
the sunset.’’
The
Berbers, who settled in African lands in the first millennium BCE, primarily
belonged to the same linguistic community based on the nonwritten language called
Tamazight. Although they shared common cultural features, Berbers distinguished
one another through different modes of living sedentary, seminomadic, and
nomadic (for those from the Sahara Desert, which were called ‘‘Targis’’ or ‘‘Touaregs’’). The Berbers had embraced Christianity and Judaism before
they became Muslim, following the Arab conquest in the seventh-century CE.
Divided into families, groups of descendants, and tribes, they settled in
territories stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to Cyrenaica and some locations
of Western Egypt. These territories cover three main areas: Occidental,
Central,
and Oriental Berberia, also called ‘‘Ifriqiyya.’’ The Tunisian historian Ibn
Khaldun (1332– 1406) was the first to study the history, culture, and sociology
of Berbers in his seven volume treatise AlKitab
al-Ibar (The Book of Historical Examples). His distinction between Arabs
and Berbers, their lifestyle, economies, and power relationships, illustrates
the sociopolitical situation of medieval Maghrib. In particular, the rivalries
between the two ethnic groups have marked the history of Muslim North Africa
and Al-Andalus (Islamic Spain) as well, because Spain was invaded by an Islamic
Berber–Arab army in 711 and constituted a part of the Muslim Empire for about
eight centuries.
The advent of Islam in North Africa led to a phenomenon of
Arabization of the Berbers, although they have never lost entirely their
cultural identity. However, the Arab occupation in the seventh and
eighth
centuries, following the Byzantine domination, was not accomplished without a
fierce resistance. Accordingly, the Islamization of Berberia was relatively slow
and completed only in the twelfth century. Always rebellious, Berbers were in
favor of heterodox religious trends and sectarian movements, such as Kharijism
and Shi‘ism, opposing the Sunni Caliphate and local governing class before the
generalized adoption of the Malikism School in Maghrib in the dawn
of
modern times. The complex relationships of Berber clans with these various
Islamic trends superimposed on the sociological phenomena of family alliances
or dissensions and tribal confederations underlies the
troubled
dynastic history of medieval Maghrib. Following the period of dependence on the
Umayyads of the Caliphate in the East appeared in Maghrib, supported by local
Berbers: the Shi‘i kingdom of the
Idrisids
(789–974) in Occidental Berberia and the Kharijid kingdom of the Rostamids
(777–909) in Central Berberia. The Zanata on the one hand and the Masmouda,
Kotama, and Sanhaja on the other hand are to be associated with the division of
Berberia, in the tenth and eleventh
centuries, into two zones of political and religious influence of the rival
Caliphates in the West of the Sunni Umeyyads in Cordoba and the Shi‘i Fatimids
in Cairo. Besides, before it was transferred to Egypt, the schismatic Fatimid
State initially took place in Ifriqiyya, thanks again to the Berber support.
The second half of the eleventh century saw the rise of the first great Sunni
Berber Empire of the Almoravids (1056–1147), Al-Murabitun, ‘‘people of the ribat’’ (Islamic fortress). Founded by
the
nomadic tribe of the Lamtuna, the Almoravids developed a bright civilization
called ‘‘Hispano Berber’’ or ‘‘Hispano-Maghrebi’’ in Occidental and Central
Berberia and Al-Andalus. In Spain, they had
progressively
reunified the Islamic land that, after the fall of the Umeyyad Caliphate in
1031, was partitioned into multiple kingdoms governed by either Arab or Berber
dynasties called ‘‘Reyes de Taifas’’
(Party
Kings). The Almoravids also had temporarily stopped the ‘‘Reconquista’’ (eleventh century to 1492), the ongoing Christian
conquest of Al-Andalus. The direct contact with the Andalusi urban culture
greatly contributed to the development of the Almoravid
civilization
in North Africa. However, soon the refined courtly life of the Almoravids came
up against the rigorous religious feelings of the society. In the twelfth
century a reformative movement founded by the mahdi(‘‘the well-guided’’) Ibn
Tumart, based on an absolute respect of divine uniqueness, allowed a new Berber
dynasty to take over all Maghribi regions. The Almoravids (1130–1269) or
Al-Muwahhidun
(‘‘the
partisans of divine uniqueness’’) established a second Hispano-Berber Empire
more powerful than the previous one. An economical prosperity relying on
exchanges between Black Africa, Berberia, and
Mediterranean
Europe, and an active cultural life enlightened by great philosophers such as
Ibn Rushd and Ibn Tufayl, built the grandeur of the Almohad Empire, the most
glorious episode of Berber history.
The
subsequent dynasty of the Marinids (1258–1465), from the Zanata tribe, was the
last Berber reign in Maghrib in the Middle Ages.
Primary
Sources
Ibn Khaldun.Kitab al-Ibar wa
diwan al-mubtada’ wa l-khabar fi ayyami l-Arab wa l-Agam wa l-Barbar. Bulaq
Editions, 1867–1868, translation
of Vol. I by Rosenthal,
F.The Muqqadimah, An Introduction
to History. New
York, 1958, 3 vol
Further
Reading
Abun-Nasr, J.M.A History of the
Maghrib in the Islamic
Period. Cambridge, MA, 1987.
Brett, Michael. ‘‘The Spread of
Islam in Egypt and North
Africa.’’ InNorthern Africa:
Islam and Modernization.
Ed. Brett. London, 1973.
The Further Islamic Lands,The
Cambridge History of
Islam. Vol. II. Cambridge
University Press, 1970, 211–
237 and 406–440.
Chejne, A.G.Muslim Spain: Its
History and Culture. Minneapolis, 1974.
Encyclope´die Berbe`re, sous la
direction de Gabriel Camps.
Aix-en-Provence, 1985.
Johnson, D.L. The Nature of
Nomadism: A Comparative
Study of Pastoral Migrations in
Southwestern Asia and
North Africa. Chicago, 1969.
Marc¸ais, Georges. La Berbe´rie
Musulmane et l’Orient au
Moyen Age. Paris, 1946.
BIJAPUR
A province of the Persianate Bahmanid Kingdom
of the Deccan, Bijapur became the center of the domain of one of the key
successor states to the Bahmanids, namely the ‘Adil Shahi dynasty (1489–1686).
Located
in
the Deccan on the edge of the Western Ghats, south of the Bahmanid capital of
Bidar, Bijapur was founded as Vijayapura by the Calukyas in the eleventh
century. It was incorporated into the Bahmanid realm in 1347 and made one of
the five provinces of that empire by Khwaja Mahmud Gawan (d. 1481), the
powerful Persian vizier of Muhammad Shah II (d. 1482).
In 1481, Yusuf ‘Adil Khan, a Persian slave
who claimed to descend from the Ottoman sultan Murad III, became the governor
of Bijapur. Taking advantage of his
position and consolidating it, he declared independence in 1489, establishing
the ‘Adil Shahi dynasty that was to rule Bijapur for another two centuries. In
1502, he declared Twelver Shi‘ism to be the religion of the realm and
established close ties with the Safavids, further encouraging the influx of talented
Persians into the Deccan, a policy initiated by Mahmud Gawan. In imitation of
the Safavids, he promoted the wearing of the red twelve-pointed cap of the
Qizilbash at court. The height of Persian and Shi‘i influence was during the
reign of ‘Ali ‘Adil Shah (r. 1558–1580), who had the Shi‘i khutba read in mosques.
A brief Sunni restoration, coupled with a move away from Persian influence,
took place under his grandson Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah II (d. 1618). But the Persianate
culture of the kingdom was never in doubt
and
its Shi‘ism was one of the casi belli
cited by Awrangzeb when he conquered it in 1686.
Bijapur was perhaps more culturally
influential than politically. Most of the monarchs were keen Persian poets and
encouraged courtiers to take up poetry. The two most famous poets of Bijapur, Nur al-Din Muhammad Zuhuri (d. 1618)
and his fatherin-law Mulla Malik Qummi (d. 1618) were both Persian immigrants.
Persians also penned the the two
main
histories of the dynasty, which provide important accounts of the Deccan as a
whole and are invaluable sources for north India: Tadhkira-yi Ibrahimi,or the Ta’rikh-i
Firishta, by Muhammad Qasim Firishta, written in 1611 for Ibrahim ‘Adil
Shah II, andTadhkirat al-mulukby Rafi‘ al-Din Ibrahim Shirazi for the same
patron in 1609. Bijapur was the center of
Perso-Deccan
cultural synthesis. The new chancellery language of Perso-Marathi was created
in its administration, and the exquisite tombs of the kings were exemplars of a
Persianate-Deccan style. The tomb of Ibrahim ‘Adil Shah, theIbrahim Rawza, was
built in 1627 and is said to have influenced the construction of the Taj Mahal,
and the tomb of Muhammad ‘Adil Shah (d. 1656) has the second-largest dome in
the
world
and is celebrated as the Golgumbaz because
of it. The Sufis of the city became significant power brokers in their own
right, defending Sunni orthodoxy and extending the influence of the orders into
the Deccan.
Primary
Source
Muhammad Qasim Firishta.Ta’rikh-i
Firishta (The Rise of
Muhammadan Power in India). Tr.
J. Briggs, Calcutta:
Susil Gupta, 1958 [1829].
Further
Reading
Cousens, H.Bijapur and Its
Architectural Remains. Bombay: Govt. Central Press, 1916.
Eaton, R. M.Sufis of Bijapur,
1300–1700: Social Role of
Sufis in Medieval India.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1978.
Ghauri, I. A. ‘‘Central Structure
of the Kingdom of Bijapur.’’Islamic Culture44 (1970).
Nayeem, M. A.External Relations
of the Bijapur Kingdom
(1489–1686 A.D.). Hyderabad:
Bright Publishers, 1974.
Sherwani, H. K. Mahmud Gawan: The
Great Bahmani
Wazir. Allahabad: Kitabistan,
1942.
Subramanyam, S. ‘‘Iranians
Abroad: Intra-Asian Elite Migration and Early Modern State Formation.’’Journal
of
Asian Studies51 (1992): 430–463.
Verma, D. C.History of Bijapur.
New Delhi: Kumar Bros,
1974.
BIRUNI
Al-Biruni,
Abu Rayhan Muhammad Ibn Ahmad, was one of the greatest scholars of Medieval
Islam, not merely of encyclopedic range, but perhaps the most original among
them. Unlike his famous contemporaries Ibn Sina and Ibn al-Haytham, who
influenced Latin scholasticism, Biruni became known in Europe only in the later
nineteenth century, mainly by way of the editions by Eduard Sachau. Biruni was
born September 4, 973, in Kath, the capital of Khwarezm, on the river Amu Darya
(classical Oxus). Although his native Khwarezmian was also an Iranian language he
rejected the emerging neo-Persian literature of his time (Firdawsi), preferring
Arabic instead as the only adequate medium of the sciences. Although probably
of humble origin, he was, for unknown reasons, educated at the court of the
KhwarezmShahs, where he received a solid training in mathematics, astronomy,
and mathematical geography. In his early years he constructed a model, with a
diameter of five meters, of the northern hemisphere of the earth. In collaboration
with a colleague in Baghdad he determined the difference in longitude between
this city and Kath by determining the difference in time between the
observations of a lunar eclipse in the two places. He discussed the theory of
the earth’s rotation and found that from a purely mathematical standpoint it
was unobjectionable but not sustainable on physical grounds. In a contentious
correspondence with Ibn Sina, he even doubted some basic tenets of Aristotelian
cosmology, the eternity and unicity of this world. In this respect he was
closer to Muslim orthodoxy than his philosophical counterpart. In later works
he stressed that there are no contradictions between science and the Koran.
Although he condemned the heretical opinions of al-Razi, he nevertheless compiled
a bibliography of his writings.
During a sojourn in Gurgan on the southern
coast of the Caspian Sea, he wrote his Chronology
of Ancient Nations,a description of the calendar systems of various peoples
and religious communities including
critical
examinations of popular traditions, for example, about Alexander the Great, as
well as some historical data on the Bible. When Khwarezm was invaded by Mahmud
of Ghazna, Biruni, together with other
scholars, was taken to Ghazna (known today as Afghanistan). There, at Mahmud’s
court, he obtained acceptable working conditions. From a mountain overlooking
the Indus Plain, near the fortress of Nandana, he measured the earth’s
circumference by a method previously used by the caliph
Al-Ma’mun’s
astronomers. Mahmud’s repeated incursions into northwest India gave him the
opportunity to study the customs, folklore, literature, and sciences of the
Hindus. He even learned some Sanskrit and translated, probably with indigenous
help, from Arabic into this language and from Sanskrit into Arabic. Observing
similarities between pagan Greek and Hindu mythologies, he censured the Hindus’
idolatry, as well as their scholars’ deferral to popular superstitions. He
compared their mathematical and astronomical doctrines with those of the
Greeks,
which
he always found superior, and he observed that India did not have such heroes
as Socrates who were willing to die for the sake of truth. His wish that by
their conversion to Islam the Hindus might be saved from their totally alien
mindset tallied with Mahmud’s imperial ambitions. To Mahmud’s successor,
Mas‘ud, Biruni dedicated the ‘‘Mas‘udic
Canon,’’
a
huge reference work of astronomy, and for Mawdud, the next ruler of the
dynasty, he wrote the ‘‘Mineralogy,’’
a sometimes amusing description of various metals and gemstones. With the help
of a
vessel
constructed for the purpose, meticulous research was carried out on the
specific weight of some eighteen substances. He even resorted to experiments,
not, as customary with ancient and contemporaneous scholars, in order to prove
a previously formulated idea, but instead to check a commonly accepted opinion,
largely with negative results. He
was
skeptical about alchemy and astrology, although he dedicated a concise
introduction to the latter, in the form of questions and answers, to a fellow Khwarezmian,
a woman named Rayhana. Almost until his death on December 11, 1048, Biruni
worked on his ‘‘Pharmacology’’; it
contained the names of 1116 items of materia medica in Greek, as well as in Iranian,
Indian, and Semitic languages, arranged alphabetically by their Arabic names.
Further
Reading
Alberuni’s India. Trans. Eduard
Sachau. London, 1888.
Kennedy, Edward S. ‘‘Al-Biruni.’’
InDictionary of Scientific Biography. 18 vols. Edited by Charles C. Gillispie
and
Frederic L. Holmes. New York.
Strohmaier, Gotthard.Al–Biruni.
In den Ga¨rten der Wissenschaft. 3rd revised ed. Leipzig, 2002.
The Chronology of Ancient
Nations. Trans. Eduard Sachau.
London, 1879.
BLACK DEATH
The Black Death was a pandemic that swept
through almost every part of the Old World, beginning in the 1330s with
repeated waves of infection continuing into the fifteenth century. The bacteria
that spreads
the
plague is Yersinia pestis,a small,
rod-shaped bacillus that lives in the gut of certain fleas, particularly the
rat flea ,Xenopsylla cheopis. The
spreading bacteria block the infected flea’s esophagus, and the flea is
no
longer able to feed itself; it simply regurgitates the bacteria into its host
as it attempts to feed. It is at this point that the flea will typically move
from its usual host, the black rat (Rattus
rattus), and bite and infect
humans.
In the case of the bubonic form of the
plague, the
lymph
glands filter the bacilli out of the bloodstream. The glands, typically those
in the neck or groin area, subsequently become engorged with bacilli. This causes
agonizing pain at the site of the lymph nodes
as
they first appear as dark accretions and then swell to form a ‘‘bubo’’ (hence ‘‘bubonic’’ plague) ranging in size from an almond to an orange. The
victim then develops flu-like symptoms, including a high fever.
The
bacilli subsequently cause widespread damage throughout the victim’s body,
attacking the lungs, heart, and kidneys. The bacilli also attack the nervous
system, sometimes leading to a wild hysteria
that
gave rise to the phrase ‘‘the dance of
death.’’ In most cases the victim then hemorrhages massive amounts of
blood, which causes dark blotches to appear before the victim slips into a coma
and dies. The total time from infection to death is typically about two weeks.
Pneumonic plague, a more deadly and
infectious form of the disease, appears in cases where the bacteria multiply in
the lungs of the victim. This form of the plague is highly contagious because
it is transmitted when an infected person coughs up droplets of the bacilli.
The pneumonic plague is 100 percent fatal. A third form of the plague
(septicemia) bypasses the lymph glands altogether and concentrates bacilli in the
body at such a rate that the victim usually dies in just a few hours.
The Black Death struck the Middle East with
as much ferocity as it did Europe. The disease originated in Central Asia,
where it had been endemic to an isolated species of rodent for hundreds of
years. Evidence seems to indicate that this isolated strain of Yersinia
pestismutated over the course of centuries of isolation. Its isolation and
mutation account for its particularly rapid spread and exceptional lethality.
It spread both east and west along Mongol trade routes, attacking China, India,
Europe, and the Middle East. From Central Asia it spread to Kaffa on the Black Sea
and then to Constantinople, where it spread throughout the Mediterranean. It
first arrived at the port of Alexandria in the fall of 1347. From there it spread
throughout Egypt and wiped out nearly 50 percent of the population.
It was equally devastating in North Africa,
Palestine, and Greater Syria. Medieval medicine was unable to cope with or understand
this virulent disease. It was known as either ‘‘ta‘un’’ or ‘‘al-waba’ al-iswid’’
in
Arabic. Many people believed that it was caused by earthquakes that had
released a deadly air (miasma) into the environment. Some attempted to flee to isolated
places, although this did not occur as much in the Middle East as in Europe.
The
socioeconomic consequences were such that it left Egypt’s irrigation system in
ruins. It seems to have had an equally devastating economic and social impact
on North Africa. Less is known about its socioeconomic impact in Iran, Iraq, Palestine,
and Greater Syria, although reports from contemporary observers attest to its
equal lethality in these areas.
Further
Reading
Conrad, Lawrence.The Plague in
the Early Medieval Near
East. Ph.D. dissertation.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University, 1981.
Dols, Michael W.The Black Death
in the Middle East.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1977
BOTANY
Arabic botanical knowledge was mainly
practical and descriptive. It was contained principally in pharmacological
literature and secondarily in agricultural literature. Theoretical botany was a
matter of philosophical speculation.
Early Arabic plant knowledge relied on
agricultural literature of Greece and Byzantium, with the Georgika by Demokritos
(in fact, Bolos of Mendes, ca. 200 BCE), Anatolios
of Berytos (possibly Vindonius
Anatolius, d.ad360), and Kassianos Bassos
(sixth century. CE), as well as on literature from the Syriac world, with the
so-called Nabatean agriculture encyclopedia.
Ninth-century CE translation activity
in
Baghda ˆd introduced Greek material: (1) theoretical botany (genesis, reproduction, and growing of
plants, their parts and physiology, plant classification, the nature and origin
of their qualities and peculiarities)
withDe
plantisby Aristotle (384–322 BCE), not known in the original but in the
commented version by Nikolaos of Damas (first century BCE/CE), and De historia plantarumor De causis plantarum by
Theophrastus (372/70–288/86 BCE) (the text is lost; hence the uncertainty of
the translated work); (2) pharmacobotany (plants used as
medicines), with
De materia medica
by Dioscorides (first century CE), an encyclopedia on the natural products used
for therapeutic purposes.
As in the Greek world, Dioscorides’s treatise dominated
the field. It was repeatedly translated, first into Syriac by Hunayn ibn Ishaq,
and then into
Arabic
by the same working in collaboration with Istifan ibn Basil. The Arabic text
was further revised during the tenth century CE in the East and the West (Cordova),
and the Syriac treatise was translated twice into Arabic in the East during the
twelfth century CE. Each translation seems to have been widely circulated, and
Dioscorides’s treatise was abundantly
commented
on particularly by such North African and Western scientists as ibn al-Gazzar,
abu al-Qaˆsim al-Zahrawı, al Ghafiqı,
and ibn al-Baytar in order to equate
Dioscorides’s Mediterranean species with local ones. In Dioscorides’s model
of botany, each plant is dealt with in a monographic chapter, which proceeds both
synthetically (plant type) and analytically (plant description, neither systematic nor complete,
but
limited
to the major characteristics from the top to the roots). Classification is
based on the therapeutic properties of plants. The text is completed in several
manuscripts with color representations of the plants,
the
authenticity and origin of which is still debated. Such a model was reproduced
in the Arabic world but with two major modifications: (1) plants were no longer
classified according to their properties, but
according
to the alphabetical sequence of their names, a fact that provoked the loss of
plant classification; and (2) plant representations, which originally resembled
those in Greek manuscripts, increasingly
tended
toward symmetrical and stylized pictures and also introduced elements that
suggested the natural environment of the plants.
Greek pharmacobotany in the Arabic world
agglutinated data of different provenances (Mesopotamian, Persian, Indian), and
new works were produced, best represented in the East by al-Bırunı Kitab
al Saydalah and ibn Sına Qanun,
and in the West by ibn al-Gazza r, abu ˆ al-Qasim al-Zahrawı, al Ghafiqı, and
ibn al-Baytar, the last two of whom are credited with the most achieved works
of descriptive botany in the Arabic world. Special aspects were dealt with in other
works, as, for example, plant nomenclature in lexica, phytogeography, and plant distribution in geographical descriptions
and travel books, plant physiology in philosophical and metaphysical treatises
such as ibn Sına Kitab al-shifa, and
plant production in agricultural manuals, as ibn Bajja Kitab al-nabat.
Further
Reading
Ben Mrad, Ibrahim.Ibn al-Bayta
ˆr. Commentaire de la
«Materia Medica» de Dioscoride.
Carthage: Beı ¨t alHikma, 1990.
Brandenburg, Dietrich.Islamic
Miniature Painting in Medical Manuscripts. Basel: Roche, 1982.
Die Dioskurides-Erkla¨rung des
Ibn al-Baita ˆr.Ein Beitrag zur
arabischen Pflanzensynonymik des
Mittelalters.Go¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1991.
Die Erga¨nzungen Ibn_ul_ul’s zur
Materia Medica des Dioskurides. Arabischer Text nebst kommentierter detuscher
U¨bersetzung.Go¨ttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht,
1993.
Dietrich, Albert.Dioscurides
Triumphans. Ein anonymer
arabischer Kommentar (Ende 12.
Jahrh. n. Chr.) zur
Materia Medica, 2 vols. Go
¨ttingen: Vandenhoeck &
Ruprecht, 1988.
Drossaart Lulofs H.J., and E.L.J.
Poortman.Nicolaus
Damascenus de Plantis. Five
translations. Amsterdam,
Oxford, and New York: North-Holland
Publishing
Company, 1989.
Dubler, Cesar.La Materia Me´dica
de Diosco´rides. Barcelona and Tetuan: Tipografı ´a Emporium, 1953–1959.
Le Dictionnaire Botanique d’Abuˆ
Hanıˆfa ad-Dıˆnawari, compiled according to the citations of later works. Cairo:
Institut Franc¸ais d’Arche´ologie
Orientale, 1973.
Levey, Martin.Early Arabic
Pharmacology. Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1973.
Lewin, Bernhard.Abuˆ Hanıˆfa
ad-Dıˆnawari, Kitaˆb al-nabaˆt.
Fifth part. Uppsala University,
Wiesbaden: Harrassowits, 1953.
Sadek, M.The Arabic Materia
Medica of Dioscorides. Que ´-bec: Les Editions du Sphinx, 1983.
Said, Hakim Mohammed, and Sami
Khalaf Hamarneh.AlBiruni’s Book on Pharmacy and Materia Medica. 2 vols.
Karachi: Hamdard National
Foundation.
Sezgin, Fuat. Geschichte des
arabischen Schrifttums. 4.
Alchimie, Chemie, Botanik,
Agrikultur bis ca. 430 H.
Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1971.
Ullmann, Manfred.Die Natur- und
Gegeimwissenschaften in
Islam. Leiden & Cologne: E.J.
Brill, 1972.
BRETHREN OF PURITY
Ikhwan al-Safa’ (the Brethren of Purity) were
the affiliates of an esoteric coterie that was based in Basra and Baghdad
around the last quarter of the
tenth
century CE. The learned adepts of this fraternity authored compendium,
Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’ (The Epistles
of the Brethren of Purity),which was structured in the form of an encyclopedia.
This
voluminous
work grouped fifty two tracts that treated themes in mathematics, music, logic,
astronomy, and the physical cum natural sciences, as well as exploring the
nature of the soul and investigating associated matters in ethics, revelation,
and spirituality. This series offered synoptic elucidations of the classical traditions
in philosophy and science of the ancients and the moderns of the age. It was
also accompanied by a dense treatise titled al-Risala
al-jami’a (The Comprehensive Epistle)and further complemented by an
appendage known as Risalat jami’at
al-jami’a (The Condensed Comprehensive Epistle).The precise identity of the
authors of this monumental corpus,
and
the exact chronology of its composition, remain unsettled matters of scholarly
debate in the field of Islamic studies. Although the Ikhwan’s writings have been
described as being affiliated to Sufi, Sunni, or Mu‘tazilite teachings, it is
more generally accepted that their line in literature belonged to a Shi‘ite
legacy that had strong connections with the Ismaili tradition. While some
scholars assert that the Rasa’il Ikhwan
al-Safa’
are attributable to early Fatimid sources, others maintain that this textual
legacy transcended sectarian divisions in Islam and, in its spirit of openness,
should consequently lead us to treat its authors as freethinkers who were not
bound within the doctrinal confines of a specific creed. Moreover, besides founding
their views on the Qur’an and the teachings
of
Islam, the Ikhwan did not hesitate to appeal in their Rasa’il to the other scriptures of Abrahamic monotheism, such as
the Torah of Judaism and the Canonical
Gospels of Christianity.
The Ikhwan were also implicitly
influenced by Ancient Indian and Persian classics, and they were
enthusiastically inspired by the Greek legacies of the likes of Pythagoras, Socrates,
Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Euclid, Ptolemy,
Porphyry,
and Iamblichus. Finding ‘‘truth in every religion’’ and seeing knowledge as the
pure ‘‘nourishment for the soul,’’ the Ikhwan associated the pursuit of
happiness and the hope of salvation with the scrupulous unfolding of rational
and intellectual quests. They furthermore promoted a friendship of virtue among
their companions and gave a venerable expression to the liberal spirit in
Islam. Their syncretism,
which
is not reducible to a mere form of eclecticism that may have been partly
influenced by Mesopotamian Sabaean practices and beliefs, did ultimately ground
their eschatological aspiration to found a spiritual sanctuary that would
prudently assist their co-religionists in overcoming the sectarian discords that
plagued their era. Oriented by a literature interpretation of the classical
microcosm and macrocosm analogy, as it was primarily noted in their conception of
the human being as a microcosm and of the universe as a macroanthropon, the
Ikhwan did avidly attempt to restore the sense of harmony and equipoise between
the psychical order and its correlative cosmological shaping forces. Their
analogical thinking was furthermore inspired by a Pythagorean arithmetic
grasp
of the structuring orderliness of the visible universe, and they moreover
adopted a Neoplatonist explication of creation by way of emanation in a creditable
attempt to reconcile philosophy with religion. Drafted in an eloquent classical
Arabic style, the Ikhwan’s epistles displayed a remarkable lexical adaptability
that elegantly covered the language of mathematics, logic, and natural
philosophy, as well
as
encompassing the intricacies of theological deliberation and occultist
speculation, while also giving expression to a poetic taste that was
ingeniously embodied in resourceful fables and edifying parables. In
terms
of the scholarly significance of the Rasa’il,and the cognitive merits of the
Ikhwan’s views, it must be stated that, despite being supplemented by oral
teachings in seminaries, their textual heritage was not representative of the
most decisive of achievements made in the domains of mathematics, and the
natural and psychical sciences of their epoch. Nonetheless, the khwan’s
intellectual acumen becomes most evident
in
their original and sophisticated reflections on matters related to spirituality
and revelation, which did compensate the ostensible scholarly limitations that
may have resulted from the diluted nature of their investigations in classical
philosophy and science. However, in spite of these traceable shortcomings,
their corpus remains exemplary of medieval masterpieces that represented
erudite popular adaptations of protoscientific knowledge. Assimilated by many
scholars across a variety of Muslim schools and doctrines, the Ikhwan’s textual
heritage acted as
an
important intellectual catalyst in the course of development of the history of
ideas in Islam, rightfully deserving the station that it has been assigned amid
the Arabic classics that constituted the high literature
of
the medieval Islamic civilization.
Primary
Sources
Ikwan al-Safa’. Rasa’il ikhwan al-Safa’
wa Khullan alWafa’. Beirut: Dar Sadir, 1957.
Further
Reading
‘Awa, Adel. L’esprit Critique des
‘‘Fre`res de la Purete´’’:
Encyclope´distes Arabes du IV sie`cle.
Beirut: Imprimerie Catholique, 1948.
De Callatay, Godefroid.Ikwan
al-Safa’. Les re´volutions et
les Cycles (E
´
pıˆtres des Fre `res de la Purete
´, XXXVI).
Beirut: al-Buraq, 1996.
Farrukh, ‘‘Umar. ‘Ikhwan
al-Safa’.’’ InA History of Muslim Philosophy. 3 vols. Edited by MM. Sharif.
Wiesbaden: O. Harrassowitz, 1963–1966.
Goodman, Lenn E.The Case of the
Animals versus Man
before the King of the Jinn: A
Tenth-Century Ecological
Fable of the Pure Brethren of
Basra. Boston: Twayne
Publishers, 1978.
Hamdani, Abbas. ‘‘A Critique of
Paul Casanova’s Dating
of the Rasa’il Ikhwan al-Safa’.’’
InMediaeval Isma’ili
History and Thought. Edited by
Farhad Daftary. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
Marquet, Yves.La Philosophie des
Ihwan al-Safa’. Algiers:
Socie´te ´ Nationale d’E´
dition et de Diffusion, 1975.
Marquet, Yves. ‘‘Ikhwan
al-Safa’.’’ InThe Encyclopaedia of
Islam, Volume III. Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1960.
Netton, Ian Richard.Muslim
Neoplatonists: An Introduction to the Thought of the Brethren of Purity.
London:
Allen and Unwin, 1982.
Tibawi, Abdul-Latif. ‘‘Ikhwan
as-Safa’ and theirRasa’il:A
Critical Review of a Century and
a Half of Research.’’
Islamic Quarterly2 (1955): 28–46.
BUKHARA
Bukhara is an oasis city in central Asia in
the Zarafshan River Valley (in
present-day Uzbekistan). According to traditions preserved in the partly
legendary Islamic conquest literature, the first Arab forces reached Bukhara
during the early Umayyad period. Ubayd Allah b. Ziyad concluded an agreement
with thekhatun(a Sogdanian title for the ruler’s
wife)
who governed the great and rich oasis (in AH 54/674 CE). Yet the actual capture
of the region started a generation later during the governorship of Qutayba Ibn
Muslim (89/708), and it was not secured
until
the days of Nasr Ibn Sayyar (738–748),
when the armies of the caliphate succeeded in repelling the Western Turks
(Turgish /Tu¨rgis¸).
According to Islamic historiography, the
victorious Muslim commanders constructed a mosque and recruited local clients
to the armies of the caliphate, though it is difficult to gauge the number of
converts and their percentage among the indigenous population. Judging by their
participation in heretical movements, however, it can be assumed that in
Bukhara during the eighth and ninth centuries, a considerable number of people
were giving up local beliefs and joining Islam. Already during the early
‘Abbasid period, contacts between the core land of the caliphate and the
periphery became more firmly established. A governor was sent from Baghdad to
collect taxes and command the army.
The rank of Bukhara in the administrative machinery of the
caliphate was upgraded during the years of
the Tahirids (207–278/822–891). The new importance of the city resulted
from developments in Khurasan.
The
coming of Isma‘il b. Ahmad to Bukhara (in 262/ 875), whose position was
confirmed by the caliph alMu‘tadid (279–89/892–902), opened a new chapter in the
history of the oasis. Bukhara became the capital city of the Samanids, a local
Iranian dynasty that became integrated into the ‘Abbasid system.
After the fall of the Samanids (395/1005) and
the emergence in present-day Afghanistan of new centers, that of Ghazna, who
for a short period the Ghaznawids (367–583/977–1187) played a role in the
history of Central Asia, Bukhara lost its political and administrative
importance. Yet, due to cultural and economic reasons it did not disappear from
chronicles that narrate the history of power struggles in medieval Central
Asia. With the help of the Saljuqid sultan Sanjar, a Qarakhanid (Ilig/Ilek
Khans) prince named Arslan Khan Muhammad occupied Bukhara (495/
1102).
The city remained in the hands of the Qarakhanids while it was governed by the
Ilig Nasr b. ‘Ali the. After a few decades the Kara Khitay captured the town
(536/1141). The Kara Khitay people did not rule Bukhara directly but rather
installed a local family as head of tax collection and bureaucracy (sadr).
Mongol invasions (616/1220) brought havoc to Bukhara.
Nevertheless, the city soon recovered. A revolt led by a pseudoprophet
(636/1238) began the re-emergence of a local community. Yet after a few years,
Bukhara once again was destroyed, first by the Il-Kahn Abaka of Iran (671/1278) and then by a Chaghtayid rebel
(716/1316). Later, Bukhara was taken over by Timur Leng (Tamerlane, d. 1405).
It remained in the hands of the Timurid Turkish–Mongol dynasty until the
advance of Shibani Khan the Uzbek (905/1500). It seems that during these years
the
city
had no political importance. The topographical history of Bukhara in the seventh to ninth centuries is shrouded
in obscurity. On more solid ground is the information from the ‘Abbasid period.
Arab and Persian geographers provide information on the structure and
topography of Bukhara. They describe a large city (shahristan) protected by double walls with several gates (the
sources name seven to eleven), a citadel (quhunduz;
ark),water canals (arik), and suburbs
(rabd).The Samanids built a royal
palace that accommodated the administration (divan).
Arslan
Khan became noted as a great builder. He rebuilt the walls and citadel of
Bukhara and constructed a mosque. A dozen monuments have survived as evidence
of the architectural achievements of the years described in the previous
paragraph.
Being populated by Arabs, Iranians, and
Turks, Bukhara served as a center to spread the new culture that developed
within the boundaries of the caliphate. This deduction is supported by
biographical dictionaries that use new nomenclature to name renowned Muslim
scholars. In biographical entries these writers use genealogy based on
geography (nisba) to name the
personas. Money among them bore the nisba al Bukhari. The lists of the numerous
scholars named al-Bukhari are long. Abu al-Fadl Bal‘ami and his son Abu ‘Ali
Muhammad (d. 363/973) are further examples. Both served as viziers of the
Samanids. Translating into New Persian, the chronicles of al-Tabari, Muhammad
gained fame as one of the first Persian authors.
Bukhara functioned as an axis of Islamic
culture and innovation and a hub of the Hanafi School of Islamic law, which
molded the Islam of recently converted Turks. Patronized by the Samanids, the
Persian language, which served as the lingua franca between the Muslim
governors and the population of Transoxiana, developed into a pivot of the new Islamic
civilization. From Bukhara it spread to the central parts of Iran and advanced
into Central Asia. The city’s role as the heart of Islamic learning was not eclipsed
even under the Mongols. Moreover, Baha alDin Naqshaband (791/1389) started his
brotherhood of dervishes(al-tariqa al-Naqshabandiyya) during the years of the
Chaghatayid dynasty.
Further
Reading
Collins, B. A.Al-Muqaddasi—The
Best Divisions for Knowledge of the Regions. Reading, MA, 1994.
Frye, Richard Nelson (Trans).The
History of Bukhara
[being a translation of
Narshakhi]. Cambridge, MA:
Mediaeval Academy of America,
1954.
Frye, Richard Nelson.Bukhara: The
Medieval Achievement.
Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 1965.
Le Strange, Guy.The Lands of the
Eastern Caliphate.
London, 1905.
Vambery, Armin.History of Bokhara
from the Earliest
Period Down to the Present,
Composed for the First
Time after Oriental Known and
Unknown Historical
Manuscripts. London: H.S. King,
1873.
BURIDS
The Burids, or Bo¨rids, were a Turkish dynasty
that ruled Damascus and much of its hinterland from 1104 to 1154 CE. Its
founder was Zahir al-Din Tughtigin, the atabeg(a kind of ‘‘guardian and
tutor’’) of Shams al-Mulk Duqaq, the son of the Seljuk sultan in Syria, Tutush
(r. 1078–1095), who was the son of Alp Arslan and the brother of Malikshah (r.
1073–1092). Tutush took Damascus from Atsiz ibn Uvaz, who had conquered
southern Syria and Palestine from the Fatimids. On Tutush’s death, his sons
divided his territory, Duqaq taking Damascus while placing
his
affairs in the hands of Tughtigin. When Duqaq died in 1104, Tughtigin became
the de facto ruler of Damascus.
Tughtigin (r. 1104–1128) was the most
remarkable member of the dynasty that he had founded. He maintained his
independence with great dexterity while contending with the Fatimids in Egypt and
Palestine, the newly arrived Franks of the First Crusade, also in Palestine,
the ‘Abbasid caliph and Seljuk sultan in Baghdad, and other members of the
Seljuk
family
in Syria and Iraq. Sometimes allied with, or against, one or another of these
parties, he skillfully played them against each other. In the course of this, he
established his authority in the region between
the
Hawran south of Damascus and Hamah to the north. He played an important role in
the struggle against the Franks, who threatened his grain supply in the Biqa‘a
Valley, and launched several expeditions against them. He made valiant but
unsuccessful ttempts to save Tripoli from them in 1109 and Tyre in 1124. He
lacked the forces to drive the Crusaders
from
Palestine yet was distrustful of his disunited Muslim neighbors. In 1115, when
the Seljuk sultan Muhammad sent an army to bring him under control and then
attack the Franks, Tughtigin sided with the
latter.
Later, however, he traveled to Baghdad to seek the sultan’s pardon.
On his death, Tughtigin was succeeded by his
son Taj al-Muluk Bo¨ri (r. 1128–1132). He captured Hamah in 1129 and then
blunted a Frankish campaign against Damascus. He almost immediately faced a
major challenge with the rise of the Zankids in Mosul. The founder of this
dynasty, Zanki, took Aleppo in 1128 and Hamah in 1130 while demanding the
cooperation of Damascus against the Crusaders.
He
reached Homs before returning to Mosul. Meanwhile, in Damascus, Bo¨ri was
threatened by the growing power of the Batinis, or Ismailis, who had been supported
by his father. In 1129, Bo ¨ri broke their
power
and exterminated a large number of them. In 1132, however, they assassinated
him.
Bo¨ri was succeeded by his son, Shams
al-Muluk Isma‘il (r. 1132–1135). He captured Banyas from the Franks in 1132,
took Hamah back from Zanki in 1133, and forced back a Frankish invasion of the
Hawran
in 1134. Despite these actions, he was considered so corrupt and tyrannical
that his mother ordered his assassination in 1135. His brother Shihab al-Din
Mahmud (r. 1135–1139) then took the throne. Zanki attempted to take advantage
of this turmoil by marching on Damascus, but the people of the city stoutly
resisted him and he withdrew. Mahmud and Zanki contracted a marriage alliance
in 1138 that appeared to resolve their differences. Shortly thereafter,
however, Mahmud was murdered by two of his slaves.
After Mahmud’s murder, the city’s military
leaders first placed his brother Muhammad on the throne, but he died shortly
thereafter. They then replaced him with Mahmud’s young son, Mujir al-Din Abaq
(r.
1140–1154), while placing actual control of Damascus in the hands of hisatabeg,
Mu’in al-Din Unur. Zanki again attacked the city, and again it
resisted.
Unur formed an alliance with the Franks to keep him at bay. Relations with the
Franks were stabilized for the next few years. Zanki’s preoccupation with
Edessa in 1144 and his death in 1146 relieved the pressure from the north and
allowed Unur to expand his territory. However, Zanki’s son and successor, Nur
al-Din Mahmud, proved to be
equally
determined to capture Damascus. In early 1147, Nur al-Din married Unur’s
daughter and the two leaders carried out joint operations against the Franks. A
few months later, when the Second Crusade attempted to conquer Damascus, Nur
al-Din provided some relief. When Unur
died in 1149, Abaq was incapable of retaining control of the city.
Nur
al-Din forced him to accept his guardianship and finally drove him out in 1154.
On the whole, Damascus prospered under the
Burids, enjoying a long period of relative security after several centuries of
anarchy. The city expanded and new institutions, notably madrasas (colleges of law),
took
root.
Primary
Sources
Ibn al-Qalanisi. The Damascus
Chronicle of the Crusades.
Trans. H.A.R. Gibb. London:
Luzac, 1932.
Further Reading
Baldwin, Marshall. ed.A History
of the Crusades. Vol. 1. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1969–1989.
Mouton, J.-M.Damas et sa
Principaute´sous les Saljoukides
et les Bourides 468–549/1076–1154.
Cairo: Institut Franc¸ais d’Arche´ologie Orientale, 1994.
BUYIDS
The Buyid (Buwayhid) dynasty lasted from AH
334/ 945 CE until 449/1057. This family originated from the hills of Dailam
near the Caspian Sea. ‘Ali ibn Buya, in close collaboration with his two
brothers,
Ahmad
and al-Hasan, led them to power at the head of a predominantly infantry army
recruited in Dailam. Their first major success came when they took Shiraz in
322/934. Shortly thereafter they began adding Turkish cavalry to the army. The
province of Fars served as one of their three centers of power. AlHasan took
and ruled from Rayy. Ahmad marched
on
Baghdad, taking it in 334/945.
The Buyid family ruled as a confederation,
with the eldest member having precedence. They did not depose or eliminate the
caliph but acted as his ‘‘deputies.’’ In reality they acted as kings while
maintaining the legal fiction of subservience. All signs indicate that they
were Shi‘i, but pragmatically they made no effort to replace the ‘Abbasid
caliph with a
Shi‘i
imam or to rule in his name. However, they did remove uncooperative caliphs.
Immediately following the conquest of Baghdad, the caliph al-Mustakfi granted
the three brothers the titles by which they
are
typically known: Ahmad became Mu‘izz alDawla, al-Hasan became Rukn al-Dawla,
and ‘Ali became ‘Imad al-Dawla. The caliph was then promptly removed from the
throne, with al-Muti‘ taking his place. ‘Imad al-Dawla, as the dominant member
of the family, ruled from Shiraz until his death in 338/ 949. When he died, he
had no sons and his role in
Shiraz
was assumed by ‘Adud al-Dawla, the son of Rukn al-Dawla. Rukn al-Dawla then
became head of the confederation. Mu‘izz al-Dawla died in 356/967 having never
attained headship.
Adud al-Dawla represents the pinnacle of Buyid power and authority. As long as his
father was alive, he maintained obedience to the familial structure of precedence.
However, once his father died in 366/977,
he
seized Baghdad from his cousin and from there dominated the family. He was able
to centralize rule and enforce unity.
After ‘Adud al-Dawla’s death in 372/983, the
unity that he had created crumbled and the Buyids reverted once more to their
previous pattern of family rule from their three main capitals of Baghdad,
Shiraz, and Rayy. The position of senior amir was almost continually under
dispute after ‘Adud al-Dawla’s death, and each prince usually ruled his capital
independently. Only Baha’ al-Dawla (r. 398/1007–403/ 1012) and Abu Kalijar (r.
435/1044–440/1048) can be said to have held the position of senior amir.
In addition to familial squabbles, the
composite nature of the Buyid army meant that there were constant quarrels
between Dailamite and Turkish troops. The later Buyids also faced considerable
outside challenges. There were small challenges from Arab and Kurdish tribes
and attempts by other dynasties, such as those of Oman and Isfahan, to
break
free from Buyid control. In the East there were major invasions by the
Ghaznavids and Seljuks. The beginning of the end was the Ghaznavid conquest of Rayy in 1029. The demise of arguably the most active
of the later Buyids, Abu Kalijar ‘Imad al-Din, in 440/1048 left no clear ruler
for the whole of Buyid territory and no established princes in the major cities.
The Seljuks under Tughril Bek took this opportunity to take control of Buyid
territories, and the last independent Buyid, Khusraw Firuz al-Malik alRahim,
was captured outside of Baghdad in 449/1057.
Although politically chaotic, the Buyid
courts provided havens for intellectuals, artists, and scientists from a
variety of ethnic and religious persuasions. One can point to such luminaries
as the philosopher Ibn Sina as examples of the breadth of intellectual
achievement of this period.
Further
Reading
Bowen, H. ‘‘The Last
Buyids.’’Journal of the Royal Asiatic
Society(1929).
Busse, H. Chalif, und Grosskonig
Die Buyuden in Iraq
(945–1055). Beiruter Texte und
Studien, bd 6. Beirut:
In Kommission bei F. Steiner, Wiesbaden,
1969.
Busse, Heribert. ‘‘Iran Under the
Buyids.’’Cambridge History of Iran, vol. 4. From the Arab Invasion to the
Saljuqs.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1975.
Donohue, J.J.The Buwayhid Dynasty
in Iraq 334H./945 to
403H./1012. Leiden: Brill, 2003.
Kabir, M.The Buwayhid Dynasty of
Baghdad. Calcutta:
Iran Society, 1964.
Mottahedeh, R.P.Loyalty and
Leadership in an Early Islamic Society. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2001
Primary
Sources
Ibn al-Athir.al-Kamil fi
l-ta’rikh. Edited by ‘Abd al-Wahhab al-Najjar. Cairo: Idarat al-Tiba‘a
al-Muniriyya,
1929.
Ibn al-Jawzi. al-Muntazam fi
ta’rikh al-muluk wa-l-umam.
Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya,
1992.
Ibn Khallikan. Ibn Khallikan’s
Biographical Dictionary.
Edited by W.M. de Slane. Paris:
Oriental translation
fund of Great Britain and
Ireland, 1843.
Ibn Miskawayh.The Eclipse of the
Abbasid Caliphate. Edited by H.F. Amedroz and D. S. Margoliouth. Oxford: B.
Blackwell, 1920.
Al-Shirazi, Al-Mu’ayyad fi
l-Din.Sirat al-Mu’ayyad fi l-Din
Da‘i al-Du‘at. Edited by Muhammad
Kamil Hussain.
Cairo: Dar al-Katib al-Misri,
1949.
Yaqut.Irshad al-arib ila ma‘rifat
al-adib. Edited by D.S.
Margoliouth. 7 vols. Leiden: E.J.
Brill, 1907
BYZANTINE EMPIRE
Byzantium was that part of the Roman Empire
that retained its independence after the first ultradynamic phase of Islamic
expansion (634–652 CE). Its principal components were (1) the islands of the
Aegean, (2) the fertile coastal plains that fringe Asia Minor, (3) the mountain
ranges that back onto those plains and the rolling plateau that they encircle,
(4) those parts of the southern Balkans (Thrace, a coastal strip running west
to Thessalonike, eastern Greece), which had not been colonized by Slavs in the
late sixth and early seventh centuries, (5) a cluster of substantial territories
in the central Mediterranean (central and
southern
Italy, Sicily, Carthage and its large hinterland), and (6) far to the
northeast, enclaves on the Black Sea (the Crimea and Lazica). The capital, the ancient
Greek colony of Byzantium (rename Constantinople), had been developed into one
of the three great cities of the East Mediterranean by Constantine the Great
(324–337 CE) and his immediate successors. It was endowed with impressive
public buildings, grand processional ways, and a spectacular domed cathedral.
This late-antique armature provided visible proof to Byzantines, as well as to
outsiders, that theirs was indeed a latter-day Roman Empire. Much changed in
the Middle Ages, but the importance of Byzantium’s Roman heritage should not be
underestimated. The people were Romans, ruled by an uninterrupted sequence of
emperors from successive dynasties. The Senate continued to exist in its Late Antique
guise of a court at the apex of an aristocracy of service. The modification of
inherited institutions
was
a gradual, long, drawn-out process. Law, language, and coinage remained Roman.
Most important of all was continuity in the spheres of secular culture,
religion, and ideology. Byzantium retained imperial status, in its own eyes as
well as those of others. Its identity was defined ultimately by GrecoRoman
culture and Christian faith, deepened by the
harrowing
experiences through which the people at large and the governing elites lived.
Struggle for Survival (Seventh to
Ninth Centuries CE)
Initially, Byzantium’s history was shaped by
the threat from Islam. Constantinople itself came under attack in 654, for
several years in the 670s, and again in 717–718. Territory was lost—Cilicia in
the southeast in the 690s, North Africa in 698, and Sicily gradually from 827.
Asia Minor suffered severe damage from repeated invasions. It was only in
interludes of civil war within the Caliphate that the Byzantine army could be
reorganized properly for defense and the administrative system adapted to
ensure efficient, effective support for the war effort. The cumulative effect
of a multitude of ad hoc responses and more methodical reforms was to transform
state and society by the end of the eighth century.
First, the imperial center tightened its grip
over the localities. The tax system inherited from antiquity was used to suck
up an unprecedentedly high percentage of surplus resources. Second, the empire
was militarized. Army commands and their subdivisions replaced provinces and
cities as the units of regional and local government in Asia Minor. The burden
of supporting the troops was distributed over the countryside. The peasantry
enlisted in large numbers. The army adopted guerrilla tactics, relying on urban
fortifications (usually much reduced in size) and strategically placed castles
to secure the civilian population and their moveable wealth. Third, a quiet
social revolution occurred. The urban-based land-owning aristocracy did not
survive the era of extensive war damage
and
urban decline. The peasant and the peasant village gained unprecedented
recognition as the basis of society and the state.
The reforms were mainly the work of Constans
II (641–668), grandson and successor of Heraclius (610– 641) and the first two
Isaurian emperors, Leo III (717–741) and Constantine V (741–775). What emerged
was a state with a high military gearing and a resilient social and ideological
base, able to project power far beyond its borders by a variety of means (naval,
military, diplomatic, and propaganda). After defense in the East, the highest
priority was reassertion of authority in the Balkans. When Islam turned in on
itself, offensives were launched against the hybrid nomad–sedentary state
established in the 670s by Bulgars south of the Danube by Constantine IV in 681,
by Constantine V, who sustained the pressure from 759 to 775, and
(disastrously) by Nicephorus I in 811. Transalpine Europe and Italy tended to
slip beyond the horizon of vision, unless there was an acute threat, and action
was usually limited to the
diplomatic
sphere (as when the Franks occupied Venice in 812).
Foreign policy was reactive until the 860s,
when the initiative in the Near East passed to Byzantium. The same was true in
the domestic sphere. The catalyst for the drive to decontaminate Christianity
of
icon
veneration, formally initiated by Leo III in 730, was undoubtedly the explosive
eruption of Thera in the Aegean core of
the empire. There could have been no plainer sign of divine displeasure at the
flouting of
the
Second Commandment, at this accretion to the faith, which was conspicuous for
its absence in Islam. Much political and intellectual effort was subsequently
expended before the final restoration of icons in
843.
Similarly, a renewed interest in classical Greek literature, mathematics,
science, and philosophy in the reign of Theophilus (829–842) was triggered by the
‘Abbasid-sponsored program of translation and
commentary.
Political
Acme (Tenth to Eleventh Centuries CE) and Subsequent Decline
With the accession of Basil I (867–886), founder of the Macedonian
dynasty, Byzantium entered its heyday. A cautious, carefully targeted
aggressive policy was adopted against Islam, which resulted, by 976, in
annexation
of a broad swath of land in the southeast and western Armenia. By the time of
Basil II’s death in 1025, Bulgaria was conquered, the whole Balkans reintegrated
into the empire, and Byzantine prestige raised to new heights in the West. In
the East, Christian Armenian princes were yielding to blandishment and ceding
sovereignty to the emperor. By the middle of the eleventh century, Byzantium
achieved something close to hegemony in the East Mediterranean.
At
home, emperors from Romanos I Lekapenos (920–944) to Basil II (976–1025)
asserted their authority over the aristocracy (now solidifying its wealth and status
by investing in land) in a series of legal enactments, charged with emotive
appeals to Christian moral standards. Their prime concern was to conserve the
old social order and its peasant base.
Modifications
were introduced into provincial administration (notably allocation of executive
authority to judges). Minor adjustments were made in the central apparatus. The
army was concentrated behind the
frontiers,
but the main structures put in place in the age of crisis were retained.
It is open to debate whether or not the
agrarian legislation of the tenth century succeeded in stemming the long-term
growth of aristocratic power and the concomitant subordination of peasants to
lay, clerical, and monastic landowners. It is known, however, that there was
steady demographic growth to the eve of the Black Death, increasing commercial
activity, and a reemergence of urban notables as a significant
political
force. More is learned about the church and monasticism in the last centuries,
but their essential characteristics were unchanged: (1) an otherworldliness,
long manifest in church decoration (which transformed the interior into a
microcosm of heaven) and in the striving for seclusion of monks, nuns, and holy
men and women; (2) a faith made live by regular reenactment of the salvation
story; and (3) an episcopate of greater intellectual than political weight. Art
and learning flourished more than hitherto. From the middle of the eleventh
century Byzantium declined swiftly as a political power. The causes of a first collapse
were primarily external: the swift westward advance of the Turks, which spilled
over into Asia Minor from 1058, depredations by Norman adventurers in southern
Italy and the Balkans, and the growing commercial ambitions and naval power of the
Italian city-states, including Byzantium’s longstanding client, Venice. Among
them, these three forces drove Byzantium to the brink of destruction by 1081.
All the resources of Byzantine statecraft, eventually harnessed to the cause of
the Crusade, were required for the reconstitution of an empire, now centered on
the Balkans, by Alexius Comnenus (1081–1118).
The triggers for a second collapse,
culminating in the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade (1204), were
defeat at the hands of the Turks in 1176, the massacre of Latins at
Constantinople in 1182, and
successful
rebellions by Serbs and Bulgarians in the Balkans from the mid-1180s. The final
phase of revival, initiated by the Lascarid rulers of a rump state in northwest
Asia Minor, peaked with the recapture of Constantinople by Michael VIII
Palaeologus in 1261. Thereafter, decline resumed, exacerbated by civil war and
social conflict. Repeated attempts to secure western help were thwarted by
popular opposition to the doctrinal concessions required by the Papacy. The
establishment of a secure Ottoman bridgehead across the Dardanelles in 1354
marked
the
beginning of the end. It was only deferred by the crushing Mongol victory over
the Ottomans at Ankara in 1402. Constantinople, by then a small island in an
Ottoman sea, was finally captured, after heroic resistance by an outnumbered
garrison, on May 29, 1453.
Further
Reading
Angold, Michael.The Byzantine
Empire 1025–1204: A
Political History. London and New
York: Longman,
1984.
Haldon, John F.Byzantium in the
Seventh Century: The
Transformation of a Culture.
Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990.
Harris, Jonathan.Byzantium and
the Crusades. London and
New York: Hambledon and London,
2003.
Hussey, Joan M.The Orthodox
Church in the Byzantine
Empire. Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1986.
Laiou-Thomadakis, Angeliki
E.Peasant Society in the Late
Byzantine Empire: A Social and
Demographic Study.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1977.
Laiou, Angeliki E., ed.The
Economic History of Byzantium
from the Seventh through the
Fifteenth Century. 3 vols.
Washington: Dumbarton Oaks, 2002.
Lemerle, Paul.The Agrarian
History of Byzantium from
the Origins to the Twelfth
Century: The Sources
and the Problems. Galway: Galway
University Press,
1979.
Mango, Cyril.Byzantium: The
Empire of New Rome.
London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1980.
Mathews, Thomas F.The Art of
Byzantium: Between
Antiquity and the Renaissance.
London: Weidenfeld and
Nicolson, 1998.
Nicol, Donald. The Last Centuries
of Byzantium,
1261–1453. London: Rupert
Hart-Davis, 1972.
Obolensky, Dimitri.The Byzantine
Commonwealth: Eastern
Europe, 500–1453. London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson,
1971.
Whittow, Mark.The Making of
Orthodox Byzantium,
600–1025. London: Macmillan,
1996.
Wilson, Nigel G.Scholars of
Byzantium. London: Duckworth, 1983
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar