Historical Atlas of Islam

ISBN: 0674013859 Author: Malise Ruthven, Azim Nanji Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 28, 2004) Pages: 208 Bindi...

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ISBN: 0674013859 Author: Malise Ruthven, Azim Nanji Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 28, 2004) Pages: 208 Binding: Hardcover w/ dust jacket Description from the publisher: Among the great civilizations of the world, Islam remains an enigma to Western readers. Now, in a beautifully illustrated historical atlas, noted scholar of religion Malise Ruthven recounts the fascinating and important history of the Islamic world. From the birth of the prophet Muhammed to the independence of post-Soviet Muslim states in Central Asia, this accessible and informative atlas explains the historical evolution of Islamic societies. Short essays cover a wide variety of themes, including the central roles played by sharia (divine law) and fiqh (jurisprudence); philosophy; arts and architecture; the Muslim city; trade, commerce, and manufacturing; marriage and family life; tribal distributions; kinship and dynastic power; ritual and devotional practices; Sufism; modernist and reformist trends; the European domination of the Islamic world; the rise of the modern national state; oil exports and arms imports; and Muslim populations in non-Muslim countries, including the United States. Lucid and inviting full-color maps chronicle the changing internal and external boundaries of the Islamic world, showing the principal trade routes through which goods, ideas, and customs spread. Ruthven traces the impact of various Islamic dynasties in art and architecture and shows the distribution of sects and religious minorities, the structure of Islamic cities, and the distribution of resources. Among the book's valuable contributions is the incorporation of the often neglected geographical and environmental factors, from the Fertile Crescent to the North African desert, that have helped shape Islamic history. Rich in narrative and visual detail that illuminates the story of Islamic civilization, this timely atlas is an indispensable resource to anyone interested in world history and religion.

About the Author -Malise Ruthven is a former editor with the BBC Arabic Service and World Service in London and is the author of Islam in the World and Islam: A Very Short Introduction. Azim Nanji is Professor and Director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies and visiting professor at Stanford University.

HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE

ISLAMIC WORLD

HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE

ISLAMIC WORLD

Malise Ruthven with Azim Nanji

Book Copyright © Cartographica Limited 2004 Text Copyright © Malise Ruthven 2004

All rights reserved.

Historical Atlas of the Islamic World eBook version Published by Cartographica

Originally published in print format in 2004. In this informative and beautifully illustrated atlas, noted scholar of religion Malise Ruthven recounts the fascinating and important history of the Islamic world. Short and concise essays cover a wide variety of themes including philosophy; arts and architecture; the Muslim city; trade, commerce and manufacturing; marriage and family life; ritual and devotional practices; the rise of the modern national state; oil exports and arms imports; and much more. Rich in narrative and visual detail, the Atlas is of critical importance to both students and anyone seeking insight into the Islamic world, history and culture.

● ● ● ● ●

Published/Released: October 2005 ISBN 13: 9780955006616 ISBN 10: 0955006619 Product number: 225062 Page count: 208 pp.

CONTENTS Introduction

6

Balkans, Cyprus, and Crete 1500–2000

118

Foundational Beliefs and Practices

14

Muslim Minorities in China

122

Geophysical Map of the Muslim World

16

The Levant 1500–2002

124

Muslim Languages and Ethnic Groups

20

Prominent Travelers

128

Late Antiquity Before Islam

24

Britain in Egypt and Sudan in the 19th Century

132

Muhammad’s Mission and Campaigns

26

France in North and West Africa

136

Expansion of Islam to 750

28

Growth of the Hajj and Other Places of Pilgrimage

138

Expansion 751–1700

30

Expanding Cities

142

Sunnis, Shiites, and Khariji 660–c. 1000

34

Impact of Oil in the 20th Century

146

Abbasid Caliphate under Harun al-Rashid

36

Water Resources

148

Spread of Islam, Islamic Law, and Arabic Language

38

The Arms Trade

150

Successor States to 1100

40

Flashpoint Southeast Asia 1950–2000

152

The Saljuq Era

44

Flashpoint Iraq 1917–2003

154

Military Recruitment 900–1800

46

Afghanistan 1840–2002

156

Fatimid Empire 909–1171

50

Arabia and the Gulf 1839–1950

158

Trade Routes c. 700–1500

52

Rise of the Saudi State

160

Crusader Kingdoms

56

Flashpoint Israel–Palestine

162

Sufi Orders 1100–1900

58

Flashpoint Gulf 1950–2003

164

Ayyubids and Mamluks

62

Muslims in Western Europe

166

The Mongol Invasion

64

Muslims in North America

168

Maghreb and Spain 650–1485

66

Mosques and Places of Worship in North America

170

Subsaharan Africa—East

70

Islamic Arts

172

Subsaharan Africa—West

72

Major Islamic Architectural Sites

176

Jihad States

74

World Distribution of Muslims 2000

180

The Indian Ocean to 1499

76

World Terrorism 2003

184

The Indian Ocean 1500–1900

80

Muslim Cinema

188

Rise of the Ottomans to 1650

84

Internet Use

190

The Ottoman Empire 1650–1920

88

Democracy, Censorship, Human Rights, and Civil Society

192

Iran 1500–2000

92

Modern Islamic Movements

194

Central Asia to 1700

94

India 711–1971

96

Chronology

196

Glossary

200

Further Reading

203

Acknowledgments and Map List

204

Index

205

Russian Expansion in Transcaucasia and Central Asia

102

Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia c. 1500–1800

106

British, French, Dutch, and Russian Empires

108

Nineteenth-Century Reform Movements

110

Modernization of Turkey

112

The Muslim World under Colonial Domination c. 1920

116

HISTORICAL ATLAS OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD

Introduction

6

nations: Nairobi, Dar es Salaam, Mombasa, Riyadh, Casablanca, Bali, Tunisia, Jakarta, Bombay (Mumbhai), Istanbul and Madrid. The list grows longer, the casualties mount. The responses of people and their governments are angry and perplexed. The far-reaching consequences of these responses for international peace and security should be enough to convince anyone (and not just the media editors who mold public consciousness to fit their advertisers’ priorities) that extreme manifestations of Islam are setting the agenda for argument and action in the twenty-first century. Muslims living in the West and in the growing areas of the Muslim world that come within the West’s electronic footprint understandably resent the negative exposure that comes with the increasing concerns of outsiders. Islam is a religion of peace: the word “Islam,” a verbal noun meaning submission JAZIRA RASLANDA

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Since September 11th 2001, barely a day passes without stories about Islam—the religion of about one-fifth of humanity—appearing in the media. The terrorists who hijacked four American airliners and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon near Washington killed some three thousand people. This unleashed a “War on Terrorism” by the United States and its allies, leading to the removal of two Muslim governments, one in Afghanistan and the other in Iraq. It raised the profile of Islam throughout the world as a subject for analysis and discussion. The debates, in newspaper columns and broadcasting studios, in cafes, bars, and homes, have been heated and passionate. Questions that were previously discussed in the rarified atmosphere of academic conferences or graduate seminars have entered the mainstream of public consciousness. What is the “law of jihad”? How is it that a “religion of peace” subscribed to by millions of ordinary, decent believers, can become an ideology of hatred for an angry minority? Why has Islam after the fall of communism become so freighted with passionate intensity? Or, to use the title of a best-selling essay by Bernard Lewis, the doyen of Orientalist scholars, “What went wrong?” with Islamic history, with its relationship with itself, and with the modern world? Such questions are no longer academic, but are arguably of vital concern to most of the peoples living on this planet. Few would deny that Islam, or some variation thereof— whether distorted, perverted, corrupted, or hijacked by extremists—has become a force to be reckoned with, or at least a label attached to a phenomenon with menacing potentialities. Numerous atrocities have been attributed to and claimed by Islamic extremists, both before and since 9/11, causing mayhem and carnage in many of the world’s cities and tourist desti-

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INTRODUCTION

(to God) is etymologically related to the word salaam, meaning peace. The standard greeting most Muslims use when joining a gathering or meeting strangers is “as-salaam alaikum”—“Peace be upon you.” Westerners who accuse Islam of being a violent religion misunderstand its nature. Attaching the label “Muslim” or “Islamic” to acts of terrorism is grossly unfair. When a right-wing Christian fanatic like Timothy McVeigh blew up a US federal building in Oklahoma city, the worst atrocity committed on American soil before 9/11, no one described him as a “Christian” terrorist. In the view of many of Islam’s adherents, “Westerners” who have abandoned their own faith, or are blinkered by religious prejudice, do not “understand” Islam. Certain hostile media distort Western viewpoints, prejudicing sentiments and attitudes with Islamophobia—the equivalent of anti-Semitism applied to Muslims instead of Jews. Some scholars, trained in Western acad-

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emies, are accused of viewing Islam through the misshapen lens of Orientalism, a discipline corrupted by its associations with imperialism, when specialist knowledge was placed at the service of power. This is fraught, contested territory and writers who venture into it do so at their own peril. As with other religious traditions, every generalization about Islam is open to challenge, because for every normative description of Islamic faith, belief, and practice, there exist important variants and considerable diversity. The problem of definition is made more difficult because there is no overarching ecclesiastical institution, no Islamic papacy, with prescriptive power to decree what is and what is not Islamic. (Even Protestant churches define their religious positions in contradistinction to Roman Catholicism.) Being Muslim, like being a Jew, embraces ancestry as well as belief. People described as

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7


Muslims are religiously observant in different ways. One can be culturally Muslim, as one can be culturally Jewish, without subscribing to a particular set of religious prescriptions or beliefs. It would not be inappropriate to describe many nonreligious Americans and Europeans as “cultural Christians” given the seminal importance played by Christianity in the development of Western culture. The fact that the term is rarely, if ever, used is revealing of Western cultural hegemony and its pretensions to universality. The Christian underpinning of Western culture is so taken for granted that no one troubles to make it apparent. At the same time the term “Christian” has been appropriated by Protestant fundamentalists who seek to define themselves in contradistinction to secular humanists or religious believers with whose outlook they disagree. Similar problems of definition apply in the Muslim world. Just as there are theological disagreements between Christian churches over all sorts of questions of belief and ritual, within the Islamic fold there are groups which differ among themselves ritualistically or in terms of their respective tradition of interpretation and practice. Among the major groups in Islam, historically, the two most significant are the Sunni and Shiites. The Shiites maintain that, shortly before his death, the Prophet Muhammad (c. 570–632 ) designated Ali, his first cousin and husband of his daughter Fatima, as his successor. They further believe that this succession continued in a line of Imams (spiritual leaders) descendent from Ali and Fatima, each specifically designated by the previous Imam. The larger body of the Shiites, the “Twelvers” or Imamis, believe that the last of these leaders, who “disappeared” in 873, will reappear as the Mahdi or messiah at some future time. The Sunnis, on the other hand, maintain that the Prophet had made an indication favoring 8

one of his companions, Abu Bakr (r. 624–632), who was accepted as Caliph or successor by agreement of the main leaders in the community after the death of the Prophet. He, in turn, appointed Umar (r. 634–644), who on his deathbed designated Uthman (r. 644–656), after consultation with leading Muslims. Uthman was succeeded by Ali (r. 656–661), again with the consent of leading Muslims of the time. In the view of the Sunni majority the four caliphs constitute a “rightly guided Caliphate.” Over time the Shiites and Sunni both developed distinctive community identities. They are divided into various branches and organized into different movements and tendencies. While these, and other groups, differed with each other and often fought over their differences, the general tenor of relations, in premodern urban societies, allowed for a degree of mutual coexistence and intellectual debate. In recent times, however, there has been a tendency for extremist sects and radical groups to anathematize their religious opponents, or to declare those ruling over them to be outside the pale of Islam. This narrow perspective may be contrasted with a growing awareness among the majority of Muslim people of the diversity and plurality of interpretations within the Umma. Currently, the climate of religious intolerance manifested in some parts of the Muslim world has complex origins and may be symptomatic, like the puritan extremism that flourished in Europe in the seventeenth century, of the dislocating effects of economic and social changes. As the maps and essays that follow make clear, modernity came to the Muslim world on the wings of colonial power, rather than as a consequence of internally generated transformations. The “best community” decreed by God for “ordering the good and forbidding the evil” has lost the moral and political hegemony it held in what was once the most civilized part of the world outside China. When Islam was in the ascen-

INTRODUCTION

dant, so was the climate of tolerance it engendered. Muslim scholars and theologians polemicized against each other but were careful not to denounce those who affirmed the shahada—the declaration of faith—and who prayed toward Mecca. As the American scholar Carl Ernst observes, “In any society in the world today, religious pluralism is a sociological fact. If one group claims authority over all the rest, demanding their allegiance and submission, this will be experienced as the imposition of power through religious rhetoric.” [Carl Ernst, Following Muhammad: Rethinking Islam in the Contemporary World, London and Chapel Hill, p. 206.] In principle, if not always in practice, a Muslim is one who follows Islam, an Arabic word meaning “submission” or, more precisely, “self-surrender” to the will of God as revealed to the Prophet Muhammad. These revelations, delivered orally over the period of Muhammad’s active prophetic career from about 610 until his death, are contained in the Koran, the scripture that stands at the foundation of the Islamic religion and the diverse cultural systems that flow from it. A few revisionist scholars working in Western universities have challenged the traditional Islamic account of the Koran’s origins, arguing that the text was constructed out of a larger body of oral materials following the Arab conquest of the Fertile Crescent. The great majority of scholars, however, Muslim and non-Muslim, regard the Koran as the written record of the revelations accumulated in the course of Muhammad’s career. Unlike the Bible, there are no signs of multiple authorship. In contrast to the New Testament in particular, where the sayings of Jesus have been incorporated into four distinct narratives of his life presumed to have been written by different authors, the Koran contains many allusions to events in the Prophet’s life, but does not spell them out in

detail. The story of Muhammad’s career as Prophet and Statesman (if one can use a rather modern term for the leader of the movement that united the tribes of the Arabian Peninsula) was constructed from a different body of oral materials. Known as Hadith (traditions or reports about the Prophet’s behavior), they acquired written form after Muhammad’s death. The Koran is divided into 114 sections known as suras (rows), each of which is composed of varying numbers of verses called ayas (signs or miracles). Apart from the first sura, the Fatiha, or Opening, a seven-verse invocation used as a prayer in numerous rituals, including daily prayers or salat, the suras are arranged in approximate order of decreasing length, with the shortest at the end and the longest near the beginning. Most standard editions divide the suras into passages revealed in Mecca (which tend to be shorter, and hence located near the end of the book) and those belonging to the period of the Prophet’s sojourn in Medina, where he emigrated with his earliest followers to escape persecution in Mecca in 622, the Year One of the Muslim era. Meccan passages, especially the early ones, convey vivid messages about personal accountability, reward and punishment—in heaven and hell—while celebrating the glories and beauty of the natural world as proof of God’s creative power and sovereignty. The Medinese passages, while replicating many of the same themes, contain positive teachings on social and legal issues (including rules governing sexual relations and inheritance, and punishments prescribed for certain categories of crime). Such passages, supplemented with material from the Hadith literature, came to be the key sources for the development of a legal system known as the Sharia. Different scholars of Muslim thought added other sources to create a methodology for the systematization and implementation of the Sharia. 9


For believing Muslims, the Koran is the direct speech of God, dictated without human editing. Muhammad has been described by some modern Muslim scholars as a passive transmitter of the Divine Word. The Prophet himself is supposed to have been ummi (illiterate), although some scholars question this as he was an active and successful merchant. For a majority of Muslims, the Koran, whose text was written down and stabilized during the reign of the third caliph, Uthman (r. 644–656), was “uncreated” and coeternal with God. Hence, for believing Muslims, the Koran occupies the position Christ has for Christians. God reveals himself not through a person, but

Islam beyond Arabia occurred on the basis of the Arab conquest of the Fertile Crescent and lands further afield in the century or so following the Prophet’s death in 632. Faith in Islam and the Prophet’s divine calling—as well as the desire for booty—united the Arabian tribes into a formidable fighting machine. They defeated both the Byzantine and Sasanian armies, opening part of the Byzantine Empire and the whole of Persia to Muslim conquest and settlement. At first Islam remained primarily the religion of the “Arab”. Muslim commanders housed their tribal battalions in separate military cantonments outside the cities they conquered, leav-

through the language contained in a holy text. Other religious traditions, including Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Judaism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism, privilege their foundational texts as sacred. Muslim rulers recognized this common principle by granting religious toleration to the ahl al-kitab (Peoples of the Book). In its initial phase the rapid expansion of

ing their new subjects (Christian, Jewish, or Zoroastrian) to regulate their own affairs so long as they paid the jizya (poll-tax) in lieu of military service. The process of Islamization occurred gradually, through marriage, as the leading families of the subject populations sought to join the Muslim elites. It also occurred as impoverished or uprooted sub-

The illuminated double page from the Koran in the Bihari script. This copy was completed in 1399, the year after Timur’s conquest of Delhi. The passage, from the Al-Tawba (Sura of Repentance), refers to the Prophet’s Bedouin allies who are not to be excused for failing to join one of his campaigns.

10

INTRODUCTION

jects found support in the religion of their rulers, or as people disenchanted with their former rulers found a congenial spiritual home in one that honored their traditions while representing their teachings in a new, creative synthesis. The role of early Muslim missionaries was also crucial in this process. Muslim theology, however, did have one dynamic cultural dimension, which may help to explain its evolution of an “Arab” religion into a universal faith. As the quintessential “religion of the Book,” which represented the divine Word as manifested in a written text, Islam carried with it the prestige of learning and literacy into illiterate cultures. The cult of the book, like La Rochefoucauld’s definition of hypocrisy, was the homage not of vice to virtue, but of illiteracy to learning. However revelation is perceived—whether proceeding directly from God or by way of an altered mental state comparable to the operations of human genius—Muhammad’s epiphany came in the form of language. Time and again the nomadic peoples on the fringes of the Muslim empires would take over the centers of power, and in so doing civilize themselves, becoming in turn the bearers of Muslim cultural prestige. After the disintegration of the great Abbasid Empire, the dream of a universal caliphate embracing the whole of the Islamic world (and, indeed, the rest of humanity) ceased to be a viable project. The lines of communication were too long for the center to be able to suppress the ambitions of local dynasts. But the prestige of literacy, symbolized by the Koran and its glorious calligraphic elaborations on the walls of mosques and other public buildings, as well as in the meticulously copied versions of the book itself, was powerful. Even Mongol invaders, notorious for their cruelty, would succumb to the spiritual and aesthetic power of Islam in the western part of their dominions. The maps in this book do not aim to provide a comprehensive account of the shifting

patterns of state and religious authority that prevailed during the vast sweep of Islamic history from the time of the Prophet to the present. But it is hoped that they will illuminate important aspects of that history by opening windows into significant areas of the distant and recent past, thereby helping to explain the legacy of conflicts—as well as opportunities—the past has bequeathed to the present. Geography is vital for the understanding of Islamic history and its problematic relationship with modernity. As the maps in this atlas illustrate, the central belt of Islamic territories stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Indus Valley was perennially at the mercy of nomadic or seminomadic invaders. In premodern times, before gunpowder weapons, air power, and modern systems of communication brought peripheral regions under the control of central governments (usually under colonial auspices), the cities were vulnerable to attack by nomadic predators. The genius of the Islamic system lay in providing the converted tribesmen with a system of law, practice and learning within a foundation of faith to which they became acculturated over time. In his Muqaddima, or “Proglomena” to the History of the World, the Arab philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) developed a theory of cyclic renewal and state formation, which analyzed this process in the context of his native North Africa. According to his theory, in the arid zones where rainfall is sparse, pastoralism remains the principal mode of agricultural production. Unlike peasants, pastoralists are organized along “tribal”

A world map drawn in 1571–72 by the al-Sharafi al-Sifaqsi family in the town of Sfax, Tunisia.

11


lines (patrilineal kinship groups). They are relatively free from government control. Enjoying greater mobility than urban people, they cannot be regularly taxed. Nor can they be brought under the control of feudal lords who will appropriate a part of their produce in return for extending protection. Indeed, in the arid lands it is the tribesmen who are usually armed, and who, at times, can hold the city to ransom, or conquer it. Ibn Khaldun’s insights tell us why it is usually inappropriate to speak of Muslim “feudalism,” except in the strictly limited context of the great river valley systems of Egypt and Mesopotamia, where a settled peasantry farmed the land. In the arid regions, pastoralists move their flocks seasonally across the land according to complex arrangements with other users. Usufruct is not ownership. Property and territory are not coterminous, as they became in the high rainfall regions of Europe. Here feudalism and its offshoot, capitalism, took root and eventually created the bourgeois state that would dominate the countryside, commercializing agriculture and subjecting rural society to urban values and control. In most parts of Western Asia and North Africa, in contrast, the peoples at the margins continued to elude state control until the coming of air power. Even now the process is far from complete in places such as Afghanistan, where tribal structures have resisted the authority of the central government. Urban Moroccans had a revealing term for the tribal regions of their country: bled alsiba—the land of insolence—as contrasted with bled al-makhzen, the civilized center, which periodically falls prey to it. The superiority of the tribes, in Ibn Khaldun’s theory, depends on asabiyya, a term which is usually translates as group feeling or social solidarity. This asabiyya derives ultimately from the harsher environment of the desert or arid lands, where there is little division of labor, and humans depend for their survival on the bonds of kinship. City life, by contrast, lacks 12

a common or corporative asabiyya. The absence of bourgeois solidarity, in which the corporate group interests of the burghers transcend the bonds of kinship, may partly be traced to the operations of Muslim law. Unlike the Roman legal tradition, the Sharia contains no provision for the recognition of corporate groups as fictive “persons.” In its classic formulation, Ibn Khaldun’s theory applied to the North African milieu he knew and understood best. But it serves as an explanatory model for the wider history of Western Asia and North Africa, from the coming of Islam to the present. The theory is based on the dialectical interraction between religion and asabiyya. Ibn Khaldun’s concept of asabiyya, which is central to his outlook on Muslim social and political history, can be made to mesh with modern theories of ethnicity, whether one adopts a “primordial” or “interactive” model. The key to Ibn Khaldun’s theory may be found in two of his propositions singled out by the anthropologist and philosopher Ernest Gellner: (1) “Leadership exists only through superiority, and superiority only through group feeling (asabiyya)” and (2) “Only tribes held together by group feeling can live in the desert.” The superior power of the tribes vis-à-vis the cities provided the conditions under which dynastic military government and its variants, royal government underpinned by mamlukism or institutionalized asabiyya, became the norm in Islamic history prior to the European colonial intervention. The absence of the legal recognition of corporative bodies in Islamic law prevented the artificial solidarity of the corporation, a prerequisite for urban capitalist development, from transcending the “natural” solidarities of kinship. In precolonial times the high cultural traditions of Islam constantly interacted with these primordial solidarities or ethnicities: they did not replace them. Formally the ethic of Islam is opposed to local solidarities, which privilege some

INTRODUCTION

believers above others. In theory there exists a single Muslim community—the umma— under the sovereignty of God. In practice this ideal was often modified by recognition of the need to enlist asabiyya or tribal ethnicity in the “path of God.” Islamic practice stresses communitarian values through regular prayer, pilgrimage, and other devotional practices, and given time, generates the urban scripturalist piety of the high cultural or “great” tradition. But it does not of itself forge a permanent congregational community strong enough to transcend the countervailing dynamic of local ethnicities. Be they secular—based on differences of tribe, village, or even craft—or sectarian religious— based on divisions between different madhabs (schools of jurisprudence), or the mystical Sufi orders which are often controlled by family lineages, or the differences between Sunnis and Shiites—such divisions militate against the solidarity of the Umma. Like the Baptist movement in the United States, Islam (especially that of the Sunni mainstream, comprising about 90 percent of the world’s Muslims) is a conservative, populist force, which resists tight doctrinal or ecclesiastical controls. While Muslim scripturalism and orthopraxy provide a common language which crosses ethnic, racial, and national boundaries—creating the largest “international society” known to the world in premodern times—it has never succeeded in supplying the ideological underpinning for a unified social order that can be translated into common national identity. In the West the institutions of medieval Christianity, allied to Roman legal structures, created the preconditions for the emergence of the modern national state. In Islamdom the moral basis of the state was constantly undermined by the realities of tribal asabiyya. These could be admitted de facto, but never accorded de jure recognition. This may be one reason why a civilization that by the tenth and

eleventh centuries was far ahead of its Christian competitor eventually fell behind, to find itself under the political and cultural dominance of people it regarded—and which some of its members still do regard—as infidels. The Islamic system of precolonial times, embedded in the memory of contemporary Muslims, was brilliantly adapted to the political ecology of its era. Even if the strategy of “waging jihad in the path of God” were adopted for pragmatic or military reasons, Islamic faith and culture were the beneficiaries. The nomad conquerors and Mamluks (soldier-slaves), imported from peripheral regions to keep them at bay, became Islam’s foremost champions, defenders of the faithcommunity and patrons of its cultures and systems of learning. The social memory of this system exercises a powerful appeal over the imaginations of many young Muslims at this time. This is especially true when the more recent memory of modernization through colonization can be represented as a story of humiliation, retreat, and betrayal of Islam’s mission to bring universal truth and justice to a world torn by division and strife. The violence that struck America on September 11th 2001, may have been rooted in the despair of people holding a romantic, idealized vision of the past and smarting under the humiliation of the present. While those who planned the operation were almost certainly, educated, sophisticated men, fully cognizant with the workings of modern societies, it does not seem accidental that most of the fifteen hijackers were Saudi citizens, several from the province of Asir. This impoverished mountainous region close to the modern borders of Yemen was conquered by the Al Saud family in the 1920s, and still retains many of its links with the Yemeni tribes. Like all decent people, Ibn Khaldun would have been horrified by the indiscriminate slaughter of 9/11: but it is doubtful that he would have been surprised. 13


Foundational Beliefs and Practices In the majority of Islamic traditions, all Muslims adhere to certain fundamentals. The most important is the profession of faith, a creedal formula that states: “There is no God but God. Muhammad is the Messenger of God.” Stated before witnesses, this formula—called the Shahada—is the sufficient requirement for conversion to Islam and belonging to the Umma. Muslims affirm tawhid (the Unity and Uniqueness of God). They believe that God has communicated to humanity throughout its history by way of Messengers, who include figures like Abraham, Moses, and Jesus, and that Muhammad was the final Messenger to whom was revealed the Koran. In personal and social life, Muslims are required to adhere to a moral and ethical mode of behavior for which they are accountable before God. As well as tawhid, articles of faith adhered to by Muslims include the belief that angels and other supernatural beings act as divine emissaries; that Iblis or Satan, the fallen angel, was cast out of heaven for refusing God’s command to prostrate himself before Adam; and that Muhammad is the “seal” of the prophets, the last in a line of human messengers sent by God to teach and warn humanity. The Koran affirms that the recipients of previous revelations— the Christians and Jews—have corrupted the scriptures sent down to them. It warns of the Day of Judgement when all individuals, living or dead, will be answerable to God for their conduct. The virtuous will be rewarded with eter14

nal bliss in the gardens of heaven. Those who have failed in their duty will be sentenced to the fires of hell. The Koran also articulates a framework of practices which have become normative for Muslims over time. One of them is worship, which takes several forms, such as salat (ritual prayer), dhikr (contemplative prayer), or dua (prayers of exhortation and praise). Muslims performing salat prostrate themselves in the direction of the Kaba, the cubic temple covered in an embroidered cloth of black silk that stands at the center of the sacred shrine in Mecca. Salat is performed daily: early morning, noon, mid-afternoon, sunset and evening, or combined according to circumstance. Prayer may be performed individually, at home, in a public place such as a park or street, or in the mosque (an English word derived from the Arabic masjid, “place of prostration”) or other congregational places. The call to prayer (adhan) is made from the minaret which stands above the mosque. It includes the takbir (allahu akbar “God is most great”), as well as shahada and the imperative: “Hurry to salat.” In the past, before electronic amplification, the beautifully modulated sounds of the adhan were delivered in person by a muezzin from the minarets five times a day. The noon salat on Friday is the congregational service, and is accompanied by a khutba (sermon) spoken by the Imam, or prayer leader or other religious notable. In the early centuries of Islam, the name of the caliph or ruler was pronounced with the khutba. When territories changed hands between

INTRODUCTION

different rulers (as frequently happened), the official indication of a change of government came in the form of the proclamation of the new ruler’s name in the country’s leading mosques. Another foundational practice is zakat, sharing of wealth (not to be confused with voluntary charity or sadaqa). In the past, zakat was intended to foster a sense of community by stressing the obligation of the better-off to help the poor, and was paid to religious leaders or to the government. At present, different Muslim groups observe practices specific to their traditions. Sawm is the fast in daylight hours during the holy month of Ramadan, when believers abstain from eating, drinking, smoking, and sexual activity. Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, the medieval mystic and theologian, listed numerous benefits from the discipline of fasting. These included purity of the heart and the sharpening of perceptions that comes with hunger, mortification and self-abasement, selfmastery by overcoming desire, and solidarity with the hungry: the person who is sated “is liable to forget those people who are hungry and to forget hunger itself.” Ramadan is traditionally an occasion both for family reunions and religious reflection. In many Muslim countries, the fast becomes a feast at sundown—an occasion for public conviviality that lasts well into the night. Ramadan is the ninth month in the hijri (lunar calendar) which falls short of the solar year by 11 days: thus Ramadan, like other Muslim festivals, occurs at different seasons over a 35-year cycle.

Another significant ritual practice is the Hajj or pilgrimage to Mecca, which practicing Muslims are required to perform at least once in their lifetimes, if able to do so. Historically the Hajj has been one of the principal means by which different parts of the Muslim world remained in physical contact. In premodern times, before mass transportation by steamships and aircraft brought the Hajj within the reach of people of modest or average means, returning pilgrims enjoyed the honored title of Hajji and a higher social status within their communities than non-Hajjis. As well as providing spiritual fulfilment, the Hajj sometimes created business opportunities by enabling pilgrims from different regions of the world to meet each other. It also facilitated movements of religiouspolitical reform. Many political movements were forged out of encounters that took place on the pilgrimage—from the Shiite rebellion that led to the foundation of the Fatimid caliphate in North Africa (909) to modern Islamist movements of revival and reform. The end of Ramadan is marked by the Id al-Fitr (the Feast of Fast Breaking), while the climax of the Hajj involves the Id al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) in which all Muslims participate by sacrificing animals. These two feasts are the major canonical festivals observed by Muslims everywhere. There are, in addition, many other devotional and spiritual practices among Muslims that have developed over the centuries, based on specific interpretations of the practice of faith and its interaction with local traditions. 15


Geophysical Map of the Muslim World Although lands of the Islamic world now occupy a broad belt of territories ranging from the African shores of the Atlantic to the Indonesian archipelago, the core regions of Western Asia where Islam originated exercised a decisive influence on its development. Compared to Western Europe and North America, the region is perennially short on rainfall. During the winter, rain and snow Originally built in the fourteenth century, the mosque at Agades, in Niger, is made of mud. Its structure is constantly renewed by workers bearing new mud who climb up the wooden posts that protrude from the sides and serve as scaffolding.

born by westerlies from the Atlantic fall in substantial quantities on the Atlas and Riffian Mountains, the Cyrenaican massif, and Mount Lebanon, with the residue falling intermittently on the Green Mountain of Oman, the Zagros, the Elburz, and the mountains of Afghanistan. But the only rains that occur with predictable regularity fall in the 16

highlands of Yemen and Dhufar, which catch the Indian Ocean monsoons, and the Junguli region lying south of the Caspian Sea under the northern slopes of the Elburz, which catches moisture-laden air flowing southward from Russia. Before recent times, when crops such as wheat, requiring large amounts of water, appeared in the shape of food imports, and underground fossil water (stored for millions of years in aquifers) became available through modern methods of drilling, agriculture was highly precarious. A field that had yielded wheat for millennia would fail when the annual rainfall was one inch instead of the usual twenty. Ancient peoples understood this well, and provided themselves with granaries. However, agriculture did flourish in the great river valleys of Egypt and Mesopotamia (now Iraq). Here the annual flooding caused by the tropical rains in Africa and melting snows in the Anatolian and Iranian highlands produced regular harvests and facilitated the development of the complex city-based cultures of ancient Sumer, Assyria, and Egypt. The need to manage finely calibrated systems of irrigation using the nutrient-rich waters of the Tigris, the Euphrates, and the Nile required complex systems of recording and control, making it necessary for literate priestly bureaucrats to govern alongside the holders of military power. Together with the Yellow River in China and the Indus Valley, the three great river systems of the Fertile Crescent are at the origins of human civilization. The first states, in the sense of orderly systems of government based on common legal principles, appeared in these regions more than five millennia ago. The limited extent of the soil water necessary for agricultural production had a decisive impact on the evolution of human societies in the arid zone. Though conditions vary from

GEOPHYSICAL MAP OF THE MUSLIM WORLD

one region to another, certain features distinguish the patterns of life from those of the temperate zones to the north or tropical zones to the south. Where rainfall is scarce and uncertain, animal husbandry—the raising of camels, sheep, goats, cattle, and, where suitable, horses—offers the securest livelihood for substantial numbers of humans. The “pure deserts” or sand seas of shifting dunes shaped by the wind, which cover nearly one-third of the land area of Arabia and North Africa, are

Unlike peasant cultivators, a portion of whose product may be extracted by priests in the form of offerings or by the ruler in taxes, nomadic pastoralists will often avoid the confines of state power. People are organized into tribes or patrilineal kinship groups descended from a common male ancestor. Military prowess is encouraged because, where food resources are scarce, tribal or “segmentary” groups may have to compete with each other, or make raids on settled villages, in order to As Islam established itself along the Silk Road, mosques were built for travelers and local converts. This mosque in the Xinjiang province of China reflects the Central Asian influence in its design.

wholly unsuitable for human and animal life, and have generally been avoided by herdsmen, traders, and armies. But in the broader semidesert regions complex forms of nomadic and seminomadic pastoralism have evolved. In winter the flocks and herds will range far into the wadis or semidesert areas, to feed on the grasses and plants that can spring up after the lightest of showers. In the heat of summer they will move, where possible, to pastures in the highlands, or cluster near pools or wells.

survive. Property is held communally, classically in the form of herds, rather than in the form of crop-yielding land. Property and territory are not coterminous (as they tended to become in regions of higher rainfall) because the land may be occupied by different users at different seasons of the year. Vital resources, such as springs or wells in which everyone has an interest, are often considered as belonging to God, and are entrusted to the custodianship of special families regarded as holy. 17


Muslim Languages and Ethnic Groups

20

There are approximately one billion Muslim

Indonesia could overtake Arabic as the most

people—about one-fifth of humanity—living in

widely spoken Muslim language.

the world today. Of these the largest single-

In addition to Muslims living in their coun-

language ethnic group, about 15 percent, are

tries of ethnic origin, there are now millions of

Arabs. Not all Arabs are Muslims—there are

Muslims residing in Europe and North America.

substantial Arab Christian minorities in Egypt,

Given that English is the international language

Palestine, Syria, and Iraq, and small numbers of

of commerce, scholarship, and science, with sec-

Arabic-speaking Jews in Morocco—although

ond-generation European, American, and

the numbers of both these communities have

Canadian Muslims speaking English (as well as

rapidly declined in recent decades, mainly

French, German, Dutch, and other European

through emigration. As the language of the

tongues) the growth of English among Muslims

Koran, of Islamic scholarship and law, Arabic

is a significant recent development.

long dominated the cultures of the Muslim

The modern nation-state, based on interna-

world, closely followed by Persian—the lan-

tionally recognized boundaries, a common lan-

guage of Iran and the Mughal courts in India.

guage (in most cases), a common legal system,

The spread of Islam among non-Arab peo-

and representative institutions (whether these are

ples, however, has made Arabic a minority lan-

appointed or elected) is a recent phenomenon in

guage—although many non-Arab Muslims

most of the Muslim world. Often imposed by

read the Koran in Arabic. An ethnographic sur-

arrangements between the European powers,

vey published in 1983 lists more than 400 eth-

modern boundaries cut across lines of linguis-

nic/linguistic groups who are Muslim. The

tic/ethnic affiliation, leaving peoples such as

largest after the Arabs, in diminishing order,

Kurds and Pushtuns divided into different states.

are Bengalis, Punjabis, Javanese, Urdu speak-

Before the colonial interventions began to lock

ers, Anatolian Turks, Sundanese (from Eastern

them into the international system of UN mem-

Java), Persians, Hausas, Malays, Azeris,

ber states, Muslim states tended to be organized

Fulanis, Uzbeks, Pushtuns, Berbers, Sindhis,

communally rather than territorially. States were

Kurds, and Madurese (from the island of

not bounded by lines drawn on maps. The power

Madura, northeast of Java). These groups

of a government did not operate uniformly with-

number between nearly 100 million (Bengalis)

in a fixed and generally recognized area, as hap-

down to 10 million (Sindhis, Kurds, and

pened in Europe, but rather “radiated from a

Madurese). Of the hundreds of smaller groups

number of urban centers with a force which tend-

listed, the smallest—the Wayto hunter gather-

ed to grow weaker with distance and with the

ers in Ethiopia—number fewer than 2,000.

existence of natural or human obstacles.”

However, three of the languages spoken by

[Albert Hourani A History of the Arab Peoples

more than 10 million people—Javanese,

London, Faber, revised ed. 2002, p. 138.] Patriot-

Sundanese, and Madurese—are in the course

ism was focused, not as in Renaissance Italy,

of being overlaid by Bahasa Indonesia, the offi-

England, or Holland, on the city, city-state, or

cial language taught in Indonesian schools.

nation in the modern territorial sense, but on the

With Indonesians constituting the world’s

clan or tribe within the larger frame of the

largest Muslim-majority nation, Bahasa

umma, the worldwide Islamic community. Local

MUSLIM LANGUAGES AND ETHNIC GROUPS

solidarities were reinforced by endogamous prac-

through military power was balanced by the

tices such as marriage between first cousins, a

moral force and cultural prestige of Islam.

requirement in many communities. Clan loyalties

Time and again in precolonial times the pred-

were further buttressed by religion, with tribal

ators were converted into Islam’s most trusted

leaders often justifying their rebellions or wars of

defenders. To borrow a phrase of the anthro-

conquest by appealing to the defense of true

pologist Ernest Gellner, “the wolves become

Islam against its infidel enemies.

sheepdogs.” Just as the Prophet Muhammad

Viewed from the perspective of modern

had tamed the Arabian tribes by his personal

Western history the systems of governance that

example, the eloquence of the Koran, and the

evolved in the arid region were divisive and

system of governance that proceeded from it,

unstable. In Europe, a region of high rainfall,

so the Sharia (divine) law and human systems

the state emerged out of constitutional struggles

of fiqh (jurisprudence) to which it gave rise

between rulers and their subjects animated by

mediated the perennial conflicts between pas-

conflicts between social classes, within ethnical-

toral predators, cultivators, and townsfolk.

ly homogeneous populations sharing common

The system, embedded in the social memory

national, political, and cultural identities

of today’s Muslim populations, was based on

(although these were sometimes contested, as in

the duty of the ruler to uphold social justice by

A Tuareg policeman in the Sahel

Ireland). In the arid zone dominant clans or trib-

governing in accordance with Islamic law. The

region south of the Sahara. From

ally based dynasties exercised power over subor-

formidable task facing contemporary Muslim

their center at Timbuktu, the

dinate groups or tried to ensure their dominance

states is to harness political and social tradi-

Tuareg controlled the trade

by importing mamluks (slave-soldiers), from dis-

tions forged in a very different context from

routes between the

tant peripheries, who had minimal social con-

modern-day conditions.

Mediterranean and West Africa.

tacts with the indigenous populations. Peasant cultivators and townsfolk remained vulnerable to the predations of nomadic marauders—the proverbial “barbarians at the gates.” The asabiyya (loyalties or group solidarity) that bound the clans was stronger than urban solidarity. Lacking the corporate ethos of their Western counterparts, the Muslim urban classes failed to achieve the “bourgeois” or capitalist revolutions that gave rise to the modern state systems of Europe and North America. There is, however, a different way of viewing the same historical landscape. Given the predominance of pastoral nomadism in the vast belt of territories where Islam took root, stretching from the Kazakh steppes to the Atlantic shores (and in similar regions in northern India and south of the Sahara) the inability of relatively weak agrarian states to tax nomadic predators or control them 21


B.

LUX.

CZECH.

UKRAINE

SLOV.

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SWITZ.

HUN.

SL.

GYPSIES

BOSNIANS

AZERI

CIRCASSIANS

YORUK

r

RUMELIAN TURKS

e

F

a S e a

BERBER O

CC

Alexandria

M

I TEBU

N

O

C

E

T A

I

C

N

HAUSA

ARABIC

MASALIT HADDAD DAJU TUNJUR SINYAR FONGORO

FUR

Khartoum

JABARTI

BENI AMER

CA M

S U DA N

GABON

AFAR

NUBA

Addis Ababa

SOMALI ARGOBBA

ETHIOPIA

S O M A L I

GURAGE OROMO SADAMA

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SO

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SOGA

UGANDA

SOMALI

KENYA

NYANKOLE

NORTHEAST BANTU

CONGO

NYAMWEZI

Kinshasa

Nairobi SWAHILI

CENTRAL TANZANIAN

TANZANIA

Languages and peoples of Islam

Dar es Salaam SWAHILI

Muslim population, 50% or more

Luanda YAO

ENGLISH

Imperial languages still in regional use

YAO

A

ANGOLA

ZAM

B

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YAO

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22

EN

TIGRE

WAYTO

TAQALI

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BENIN

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REP. C ONG O

TOGO

N

O

Accra

TAMA

MABA

BILIN

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CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

GBAYA

AKAN

Abidjan

A

KANEMBU BUDUMA BUDUMA TUNJUR KURI ARABIC ARABIC BARMA HADDAD KANURI KANURI FULANI KOTOKO HAUSA GBAYA FULANI

HAUSA

COAST

LIBERIA

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KANEMBU

ARABIC

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O

Conakry

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MIMI

FULANI HAUSA BAMBARA SONGHAY F U L A N I MOSSI MANDINKA BURKINA SONGHAY DYULA SONINKÉ BATONUN HAUSA SENUFO DYULA GBAGYI KAMBERI FULANI SOSO YALUNKA SENUTO MOSSI MOLÉ-DAGBANI SHANGAWA NUPE RESHAWA DYULA GHANA TEMNE FULANI N I G E RIA MANDINKA MENDE MANDINKA YORUBA IVORY YORUBA YORUBA VAI Lagos

MANDINKA FULANI BAMBARA JAHANKA FULANI GUINEA SONINKÉ

A

NIGER

ARABIA

IA

FULANI SONINKÉ SERER DIOLA

MEIDOB

CHAD

U.A.

BEJA

S

SONGHAY

Riyadh

C

I

MALI

FULANI

SAUDI

AL

H TUAREG

BERBER

ARABIC

L

MAURITANIA

SENEGAL

Al Kuwayt

G

C

B TEBU

Dakar

JORDAN

N

N

E

R

A

PERS

QASHQA'I

IRAQ

HEBREW

EGYPT

R

TUKULOR

Baghdad

TURKMEN

Tehran LUR BAKHTIARI

E

L I B YA

WESTERN SAHARA

WOLOF

KURDISH

CH

SYRIA

ISRAEL

Cairo

ALGERIA

A

F

N RE

LEB.

Tripoli

O

O

R

n

AZERI SHAHSE VAN

ARABIC

a

n

Rabat Casablanca

AZA. ARM.

Ankara

TURKEY

Athens

r

Tunis

Algiers

GEORG. Istanbul

POMAK

GREECE

M e d i t a

R S e a

SPAIN

Lisbon

ALB.

ALBANIAN

S e a

n

PORT.

B l a c k

GYPSIES POMAKS RUMELIAN TURKS POMAK

a

Madrid

BULG.

YUG.

i

A

LY

Rome

BOSNIANS

C a s p

TATARS

B.H.

IT

MOLD.

ROM.

M

MUSLIM LANGUAGES AND ETHNIC GROUPS

K A Z A K H S TA N

S

S

U

MONGOLIA

KAZAKHS KIRGHIZ.

Shenyang

UYGUR

AN

KIRGHIZ

TURK ME TURKMEN NI KIRGHIZ

Beijing Tianjin

N. KOREA

TAJIK.

Seoul

AN ST

TAJIK

TAJIK QIZILBASH Kabul

PASHAI

KHO

I A N PERSIANS AFGHAN.

Lahore

GUJARS

MEOS

SINDHIS

Karachi

N

E.

GUJARATIS

AN

NE

PA L

S. KOREA

A

Pusan

Shanghai

Wuhan

BH. Dhaka

Ahmadabad

L

M

N

URDU

G

Guangzhou

Calcutta

INDIA

I

S

ORISSANS

H

Hong Kong

BANGLADESH

Hainan VI

Rangoon

CAMB.

Manila

NA M

Bangkok Madras

Luzón

ET

THAILAND MAPPILLA Bangalore TAMIL LABBAI

P A C I F I C O C E A N

L OS

Hyderabad

Taiwan

BURMA (MYANMAR)

A

MAHARASHTRIANS Bombay DECCANI

O

I

Chengdu

Delhi

K PA

E

H

JAT

IS

TA N

UN SHT P U BRAHUI

BALUCH

C

BALTIS

SHING KOHISTANIS KASHMIRIS

HAZARAS

IRAN

Harbin

UYGUR

UZBE KI ST

AIMAQ

N

A

I

PHILIPPINES Ho Chi Minh

TAMIL

SRI LANKA

Mindanao BRUNEI

ACEHNESE GAYO BATAK

I

N

D

I

A

N

O

C

E

A

N

BAJAU

M A L AY S I A

MINANGKABAU

GORONTALESE TOMINI

Borneo

Sumatra

Sulawesi WAND

OGAN-BESEMAH

I Jakarta N

BUGIS

N

D

O

N

E

S

I

A

Java Timor

23


Late Antiquity Before Islam The Muslim community emerged in seventh-

Byzantines and the Lakhmids, who gave

century Arabia in a region dominated by

allegiance to the Sasanian Empire.

ancient civilizations, empires, cultures, and

A major influence on intellectual life that

ethnic groups. Traces of Mesopotamian cul-

was to emerge in the Muslim world came

ture still survived in the Tigris and Euphrates

from the academies and learning institutions

valleys,

the

that preserved influences from Persia, Greece,

Mediterranean and the Gulf had long felt the

and India. In particular, the Hellenistic and

impact of the adjoining powers that plied the

Persian legacies in the fields of medicine, the

maritime trade in these waters. Byzantium,

sciences, and philosophy would bring about a

This rock relief from Magshi-i

the Eastern Roman and Orthodox state based

strong tradition of intellectual inquiry in

Rus Van depicts Ardeshir I,

in Constantinople, was the primary Christian

Muslim societies.

and

the

areas

founder of the Sasanian dynasty,

kingdom in the region and

facing a hostile Parthian warrior.

at odds with the powerful

bordering

The cultures in the regions were influenced by

the

cosmopolitan

nature

of

this

Mediterranean world to different degrees, preserving the heritage of classical antiquity and the Hellenistic legacy in its various forms, architectural, philosophical, artistic, urban, and agricultural. Of the major religions in the region, Christianity in its orthodox form also held sway in southern Arabia while Zoroastrianism predominated in Iran and Mesopotamia. Judaism had a long history in Zoroastrian Sasanian Empire based in Persia

the Near East and small Jewish communities

(modern Iran). The ebb and flow of conflict

had also settled in Yemen and the oases of

between the various major states influenced

Arabia, such as Medina. The inherited values,

trade as well as relations with the prosperous

literature, and practices of all these traditions

region of Arabia to the south. The history of

coexisted in this vast, multifaith and multieth-

some of the ancient Arab kingdoms is still

nic milieu, which within a century of the death

preserved in archaeological remains, such as

of the Prophet Muhammad would be overtaken

those of the Nabateans at Petra (first century

by Muslim conquest. Over time it would form

BC —first

Palmyra (second—

part of a larger set of civilizations linked by the

and of the Ghassanids in

faith of Islam, while still preserving continuities

century

third century

AD),

AD ),

later centuries, whose patrons were the 24

with the various heritages of antiquity.

LATE ANTIQUITY BEFORE ISLAM

30°

40°

35°

Black

Constantinople

45°

Cauca

Sea

su

50°

s M t

55°

Arabia before the Muslim conquests

s

40°

Ankyra

Occupied by Sasanians 607–28

Anatolia E A S T E R N

60°

KALB

Arab tribe

R O M A N Ardabil

Attaleia

Caspian Sea

Dara Harran Nisibis

Edessa Dabiq

Qazvin

gr Ti

Aleppo

Antioch

Rayy

is

35°

Hamah

C Y PRU S

Eu

Tripoli

ph

Homs

ra t

Palmyra

es

Jafula

Mediter ranean Sea

es

Tyre

Karbala Kufa

Alexandria Ajnadain

op ot

Yarmuk

Caesarea

Nihavand

M

Damascus

S A S A N I A N

Ctesiphon

am

ia

Jerusalem

E M P I R E

Isfahan

P e r s i a

Qadisiya

Mu’tah

30°

al-Fustat (Cairo)

Petra

GHASSAN

Basra

LAKHM

KALB

Istahar (Persepolis)

E M P I R E Pe Siraf

rs

BAKR

i

ile N

GHATAFAN

A

a n

Sahara

G

u l f

Desert

Gulf

25°

r

JUHEINA

o

d R e

Tropic of Ca

ncer

Medina

Bedr

KINDA

H Mecca

RT

MAZUN

i

Q U R AY S H

a

NO

HAWAZIN

MA DS

DES

K

Dongola

AZD

Sa

t

ADS

ian

NOM

san

ERT

A LWA

AX U M

al b u y R pt em he

li ha er rt a qu

MAHRAH

Arabian Sea

d n pe De en Ye m

15°

HANIFAH

S U L AY M

Z

SE

MA K K U R A

an

al-Yamama

b

JA

DE

20°

E

a S e

N O BATI A

f

Om

a

en

H I M YA R

N

cies

0 0

200 km 200 miles

25


Muhammad’s Mission and Campaigns (r. 644–656), the Koran is composed of 114 chapters, or suras. These are said to have been revealed in Muhammad’s native city of Mecca, where he was a respected merchant, and suras also date from the period of his sojourn in Medina (622–632). In Mecca, the Koran’s condemnation of the sins of pride, avarice, and the neglect of social duties, its warnings of divine judgement, and its

attacks

on

pagan

deities

brought

Muhammad and his followers into conflict with the leaders of his own tribe, the Quraish. His fellow clansmen were boycotted, with Muslim converts subjected to persecution, and a number took refuge in Axum (Ethiopia). However, Muhammad’s fame as a prophet and trusted man of God spread beyond Mecca. He was invited to act as judge and arbitrator between the feuding tribal factions of Yathrib, later renamed Madinat al-Nabi (“the city of the Prophet”), usually shortened to Medina, an oasis settlement about 250 miles northeast of Mecca. The hijra (migration) of the Muslims in 622 marks the beginning of the Muslim era. The passages in the Koran dating from the Medina period, when Muhammad was the effective ruler, contain some of the legislative material (such as rules regarding marriage and inheritance) that would form the basis of what Although Muhammad’s image is

Islam is an Arabic noun from the verb aslama,

became Islamic law. After a series of campaigns

considered taboo, pictures of the

to surrender oneself. In its primary sense the

against the Meccans, the Muslims emerged vic-

heroic deeds of his uncle, Hamza,

active participle muslim means someone who

torious. In the last year of his life Muhammad

and others were circulated to show

surrenders himself or herself to God as

returned in triumph to Mecca, receiving the

the first epic battles of the

revealed through the teachings of the Prophet

submission of the tribes along the way. He

Muslims. This painting from India

Muhammad (c. 570–632). Muhammad is

reformed the ancient ceremonies of the hajj

c. 1561–76 is from a series of

believed by Muslims to have communicated

(pilgrimage), discarding their animist aspects

God’s revelation in the Koran, a text Muslims

and reorienting them to what he believed to be

regard as the final revelation of God to

the original monotheism of Abraham. After

humankind. Collected under the third of

further expeditions he returned to Medina. He

Muhammad’s successors, the Caliph Uthman

died there after a short illness in 632.

large-format illustrations shown to audiences while the epic stories were read aloud.

26

MUHAMMAD’S MISSION AND CAMPAIGNS

Muhammad’s Missions and Campaigns to 632 35°

30°

45°

40°

Muhammad moves to Medina

50°

60°

55°

Campaigns Conquered by Muhammad to 632 Conquered by Abu Bakr 632–34

A n a t o l i a Battle site with date

Marash

Samosata Edessa

Dabiq

Harran

Qazvin Rayy

Raqqa

Cyp r u s

Hamadan

Tripoli

Damascus

t ra

S A S A N I A N

Nihavand

E M P I R E

Ctesiphon

es

Caesarea

Jafula

ph

PIR E

Homs Eu

Mediter ranean Sea

Wasit Gaza Jerusalem

Isfahan

Kufa

E M

Damietta Alexandria

Mosul

is gr

35°

Ti

Aleppo

Antioch

Qadisiya 636

E

Heliopolis

30°

Kerman

Basra

N

al-Fustat (Cairo)

I

Dumat al-Jandal

T

Shiraz

Pe

B Y Z A N

E

i le N

H

ia rs

Siraf

n

JA

u l f

Z

25°

G G Medina

d R e

NOBATIA

ul

625

Aswan

624

al-Yamama

f o f

632

A r a b i a

Oman Muscat

a S e

630 Mecca

20°

MAKKURA

t

R h e

u b e m

r l i t e a r h a K u q a l t y p

633

ALWA

A r a b i a n

15°

Sana

AXUM

S e a N

633

0

0

400 km

400 miles

27


Expansion of Islam to 750

10

°

0°

E

A

N

I K N A D FR NG I K

AQ

RI

O

TU

C

AS IN

T

TA

IC

UI

AS

A

T

LA

N

E

R

S Ca r Ka thage iro ua 698 n6 70

R I F

I Q

I Y

a

A

Tr nomadic predaipo li 6 47 tors would have taken the plunder or held onto land, dispersing as landlords or peasants among the conquered peoples. In a farsighted decision Caliph Umar encouraged the tribes to settle with a system of stipends paid from the common treasury, which took control of the conquered lands. The Arabs were kept apart from the population in armed camps that evolved into garrison cities such as Basra and Kufa in Iraq. Although the tensions over the distribution of booty would erupt into open civil war the overall control exercised by the fledgling Islamic government remained under dynastic rule. Though individual dynasties would often be challenged as ruling contrary to Islamic principles of equality and justice, the dynastic system of governance fitted the prevailing form of social organization, the patriarchal kinship group, and remained the norm until modern times. Under the Umayyads the remarkable expansion of Islam continued, with the Arab raiders reaching as far as central France and the Indus Valley.

h

a

r

a

28

S

“night journey” to heaven.

E

embarked on his miraculous

B

surrounds the rock from where Muhammad is believed to have

R

the unity of God, the building

E

Koranic quotations proclaiming

Rome

B

constructed after the Arab conquest. Embellished with

SH

r

first great building to have been

M

di

Abd al-Malik in 691–92, is the

O

a Ag

The Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, built by the Caliph

Muhammad’s death left the Muslim community without an obvious leader. One of his oldest companions, Abu Bakr (r. 632–634), was acknowledged by several leaders as the first caliph, or successor. Under Abu Bakr and his successor Umar (634–644), the tribes, who had begun to fall away on the death of Muhammad, were reunited under the banner of Islam and converted into a formidable military and ideological force. The Arabs broke out of the peninsula, conquering half the Byzantine provinces as well as defeating the armies of Sasanian Persia. Ctesiphon, the Persian capital, fell in 637, Jerusalem in 638. By 646, under Umar’s successor Uthman (r. 644–656), the whole of Egypt had come under Arab Muslim control. Acquiring ships from Egypt and Syria, the Arabs conducted seaborne raids, conquering Cyprus in 649 and pillaging Rhodes in 654. Religious differences between the Byzantine rulers and their subjects in Egypt and Syria ensured that the Muslims were met with indifference, or even welcomed by fellow monotheists embittered by decades of alien Byzantine rule. But secular factors were also important. The Arabs were motivated by desire for plunder, as well as religious faith. In previous eras

EXPANSION OF ISLAM TO 750

10

°

20°

40°

30°

90°

80°

70°

60°

50°

S

Expansion

L

A

S

V

to 750

Arab advance

B U L G A R S

Battle site Expansion of Islam:

AV

EM

PI

Under Muhammad

AR

H U N G A R I A N S

RE

S

V S L A

BAR

LG

AR

Under Umar (634–644) Under Uthman (644–656) and Ali (656–661)

I

K

T U

R M IA Kerbela 680

Kufa

A 40°

664

Isfahan

FA

BA

AI

rs

E

K

N

AZ

IR

M

A

S

N

A

I

JAB 1

an 71

Mult

30°

A

I

HIN

DU

STA

TES

SI N D

A AN MAKR

M

ic of

Trop

lf

Y

Re

d

Mecca 622

M

R

n Gu

A

N

PUN

SEISTAN

Suhar

Medina

A

Istahar 648

R

ia

Herat

N

HR

Pe

S

P

S

Tabuk

Kabu

RASAN

A

S

Susa Qadisiya 636

l 664

r 651

Nishapu

KHU

EJ

O

M

AN

Muscat

Arabian

cer

Can

Sea 20°

A

A r a b i a n P e n i n s u l a

Se

R

I

a

A

AN

0

Balkh

A

Nehavend 642

Ctesiphon

H

ola

RG

Rayy

Jalula

e Nil

K U M A K

Dong

GH

and 71

Samark

us

TA

te s

GU

Basra 656

Badr 624

710

Mery

Ardabil

Mosul 641

PO ra

E G Y P T

ph

andr ia 646 al-Fu stat 6 Faiyu 70 m

FER

N

O Eu

S

YRIA Da capital mascus 63 from 6 5 58 Ram la Yarmu k 636 Fih Jerusalel m 638 Ajnada in 634 Heliop oli 640 s

Alex

Tabriz

ES

a

Bukhara

A

M

Edessa

Cypr Antioch u 649 s

YA

N JA AI

s

a

N

d Tarsu

ary

IA

e

i t e r Rhod e r a 654 s n e a n S e

751

X

A

Talas

SO

m

uD

Sea

Erzuru

a

A

RB ZE

E M P I R E

Am

Derbend

Tiflis

R

Da ry

N

ARMENIA

T I N E

T

an

N

S yr

Aral Sea

spi

A

Sea

Ca

Z

Con 673–7stantinop 7, 717 le –18

M

LIB

Under the Umayyads (661–750)

C

DS

Y

O

E

P

IA

E S P L

Ind

OM K. OF THE L

BU

Black

B

Under Abu Bakr (632–634)

K

H A Z A R E M P I R E

50°

Najran

N

Soba

ALODIA

H

AD

H

R

A

M

A

U

T

IAN IND

AN OCE

YEMEN

KINGDOM OF AXUM

Aden

0 0

10°

300 km 300 miles

29


Expansion 751–1700 Islam expanded by conquest and conversion.

(including Zoroastrians) the right to maintain

Although it was sometimes said that the faith of

their religious practices provided they paid the

Islam was spread by the sword, the two are not

jizya tax (tribute), a payment in lieu of military

the same. The Koran states unequivocally,

service. Initially Islam remained the religion of

Built near the site of ancient

“There is no compulsion in religion” (2:256).

the Arabs, a badge of unity and mark of superi-

Carthage, the design of three

Following the precedent established by the

ority. When conversions did occur the converts

superimposed towers is based on

Prophet, who allowed the Jews and Christians

were required to become mawali (clients) of the

the lighthouses and watchtowers

to keep their religion if they paid tribute, the

Arab tribes, the assumption being that the

of classical antiquity.

caliphs granted all the people of the Book

Arabs retained a hegemonic role.

The tower of the great mosque in Kairouan, now in Tunisia, dates from the ninth century.

Many factors, however, encouraged conversion after the initial conquests. For those Christians who were tired of centuries of erudite theological wranglings over the precise balance between Christ’s divine and human natures, Islam provided the hospitality of a religion in which Christ had an honored place as a forerunner to Muhammad. Likewise for Jews Islam could appear as a reformed faith in the tradition of Abraham and Moses. Zoroastrians, deprived of state support for their religion after the Arab conquest of the Sassanian Empire, would find in Islam a religion, like theirs, of individual ethical responsibility and later, in the Shiite idea of a Mahdi (messiah) from the House of Ali, a concept similar to the Saoshyant of Zoroastrian eschatology. Messianic ideas have a universal appeal, and are found in nearly all religious traditions. After the Islamic conquests in India, the Awaited Imans of the Shiite eschatology would sometimes be identified with a forthcoming avatar of Vishnu. In the metropolitan areas converts from the older traditions helped to detribalize the Arabian religion by asserting their rights as Muslims, by emphasizing the universality of its message, and by stressing its legitimizing function in the establishment of the new social order and forms of political power. Further afield the simplicity of the conversion process (the mere utterance before witnesses of the formula: “There is no god but 30

EXPANSION 751–1700

God. Muhammad is the Messenger of God”)

numerous guises: educated, literate mer-

would contrast favorably with the often com-

chants, wandering scholar-teachers, charis-

plex conversion procedures of the mystery reli-

matic dervishes, native princes with impres-

gions. In Subsaharan Africa local spirits could

sive retinues, sophisticated intellectuals and

be Islamized by incorporating them into the

dais (missionaries) from esoteric traditions

Koranic storehouse of angels, djinns, and devils.

who specialized in tailoring their message

Ancestor cults could be accommodated by

and rituals to suit audiences of widely differ-

in Baghdad in 1308. The large

grafting local kinship groups onto Arab or Sufi

ent cultural backgrounds. Lacking a central-

format indicates that this

spiritual lineages.

ly directed missionary program, the religion

manuscript was a presentation

has proved itself sufficiently adaptable to

copy, used for public recitation

spread organically.

in the mosque.

This Koran, written using muhaqqaq script, was produced

There were also more worldly considerations behind many conversions. Islamic marriage rules are weighted in favor of spreading the faith, for while a woman from one of the ahl al-dhimma (protected communities) who marries a Muslim is not required to change her religion, the converse does not apply, and the children are expected to be brought up as Muslims, ensuring the Islamization of subsequent generations. This demographic advantage would have carried considerable weight in societies where it was customary for the victors to marry the women of defeated tribes. More generally, there exists the natural tendency of bright and ambitious individuals to enter the ranks of the ruling elites. As Islamic society developed in metropolitan areas such as the cities of Iran and Iraq, knowledge of the Law and the Traditions of the Prophet, alongside secular learning in such fields as literature, astronomy, philosophy, medicine, and mathematics, became the mark of distinction among the patrician classes. Conversions inspired by social ambition should not be dismissed as mere opportunism: at its high point in the classical era, the Islamic world was the most developed and sophisticated society outside China. The models of urbane sobriety and order it offered would have exercised their own appeal quite apart from conscious missionary activity. Peoples on the fringes of the core regions would have encountered the faith in

31


165°

135°

150°

120°

105°

90°

75°

60°

45°

30°

15°

70°

Greenland

Arctic Circ

le

60°

Iceland (to Denmark) 50° SCOTLAND

Rupert’s Land

IRELAND

ENGLAND

Newfoundland

40°

New France

Nova Scotia

FRANCE

Madrid

British Colonies PORTUGAL 30°

SPAIN

Azores Madeira

Tropic of Cancer

Florida

PACIFIC OCEAN

MOROCCO

Canary Is.

Bahamas

S

a

h

V

ic

20°

ATLANTIC OCEAN

e-

R

Cuba

oy

Hispaniola

al

ty

Belize

of

Mosquito Coast

10°

Jamaica

Ne

ARMA

Puerto Rico Cape Verde Is.

St. Louis TERKUR

w S pain

Potugese Guinea

Trinidad

SONGHAI KALI

MALI

SEGU Mossi states

ASHANTI

Santa Fé de Bogotá 0°

Elmina

Quito

Vi

Recife

ce -R

Lima

Bahia

oy

10°

al

Expansion 750–1700

ty

of

Muslim expansion to 900

Peru

20°

Muslim expansion to 1300

rn Tropic of Caprico

La Paz

Muslim expansion to 1500 Santiago

Muslim expansion to 1700 Muslim land lost by 1300

30°

Muslim land lost by 1500 Muslim land lost by 1700 40°

50°

60° 165°

32

150°

135°

120°

105°

90°

75°

60°

45°

30°

15°

0

EXPANSION 751–1700

0°

60°

45°

105°

90°

75°

120°

150°

135°

165°

180°

165°

80°

ARCTIC OCEAN

O

RW

70°

AY

60°

S

DENMA

RK

&

N

W

E

D

EN

S St Petersburg

i

b

R U S S I A N

e

r

i

a

Okhotsk 50°

E M P I R E

Moscow POLAND

NOGAIS KIRGHIZ

R TU

Cairo r

BE

MANCHU CHINESE EMPIRE

E SAFAVID EMPIRE

MU

A ra

a

A

a

Oman

20°

Philippine Is. M

NA

YA

AN

Hindu Kingdoms

PI

A

OYO

OS

MARATHA TERRITORY

Yemen AWSA

LA

AVA

Goa

ET HI O

Hausa states

PACIFIC OCEAN

Formosa

MP IRE ARAKAN

NJ FU

KANEMDARFUR BORNU WADAI

30°

Shan States

L

E

i Mecca

JAPAN

KOREA

TIBET

GH

b

AIR

KALMYKS

KS

HA

EM

OTTOMAN

R PI

NS

PAPAL STATES

UZ

MA KO

Constantinople

a

40°

HUNGARY

AYUTT

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

h

0°

30°

15°

Manila 10°

CAMBODIA

SAYLAN

OROMO

ACEH

Malacca Borneo

Islamic city states Mombasa CONGO

INDIAN OCEAN

LUNDA LUBA

Luanda

0° Celebes

Sumatra

Spice Is. New Guinea

MATARAM

Comoro Is. Timor 10° Mozambique Madagascar

ROZWI

Mauritius Bourbon (Réunion) Fort Dauphin

Delagoa Bay

20°

New Holland Cape Town 30°

40°

50°

60° 15°

30°

45°

60°

75°

90°

105°

120°

135°

150°

165°

180°

165°

33


Sunnis, Shiites, and Khariji 660–c. 1000 The major divisions of Islam, revolving around the question of leadership, go back to the death of the Prophet but were intensified by the first civil war (656–661) and its aftermath in the following generation (680–81). The first caliph, Abu Bakr, had been one of the Prophet’s oldest companions and the father of his youngest wife, Aisha. On the Prophet’s death he had been chosen by acclamation with the powerful support of Umar, an early convert and natural leader. When Abu Bakr died Umar’s caliphate was generally acknowledged, and it was during his ten-year reign that the Muslim state began to take shape. Under Umar the tensions resulting from the conquests, over the distribution of booty and the status of tribal leaders in the new Muslim order, began to surface. The tensions were kept in check under Umar’s stern and puritanical rule but would surface disastrously during the reign of his successor, Uthman, who was murdered in Medina by disgruntled soldiers returning from Egypt and Iraq. Though renowned for his commitment to the new religion as an early convert, Uthman was linked to the Umayyad clan in Mecca that had originally opposed Muhammad’s message. He was accused of favoring his fellow clansmen at the expense of more pious Muslims. The latter congregated around Ali, the Prophet’s cousin and closest surviving male relative, who was already regarded by some of his followers as the originally designated successor to the Prophet, and who now assumed the role of caliph. Ali’s failure to punish Uthman’s assassins provoked a rebellion by two of Muhammad’s closest companions, Talha and Zubayr, supported by Aisha. Though he defeated Talha and Zubayr, Ali failed to overcome Uthman’s kinsman Muawiya, the governor of Syria, at the Battle of Siffin. His eventual 34

decision to seek a compromise with Muawiya provoked a rebellion among his more militant supporters, who came to be known as Kharijis (seceders). Though Ali defeated the Kharijis in July 658, enough of them survived to continue the movement, which has lasted to this day in a moderate version known as Ibadism. One of the Khariji leaders, Ibn Muljam, avenged his comrades by murdering Ali in 661. Ali’s elder son Hasan made an accommodation with the victorious Muawiya, who became the first Umayyad caliph. On Muawiya’s death in 680, when the succession passed to Muawiya’s son, Yazid, Ali’s younger son Hussein made an unsuccessful bid to restore the caliphate to the Prophet Muhammad’s closest descendants. The massacre of Hussein and a small group of followers at Karbala in 680 by Yazid’s soldiers provoked a movement of repentance among Ali’s supporters in Iraq. They became known as the Shiites, the “partisans” of Ali.

The Mughal emperors and their descendants had an abiding interest in the history and wisdom of their faith. This was expressed both in their memoirs and in their paintings. By the mid1600s, the Emperor Jahangir’s artists had developed a format in which two or more sages, or holy men, were depicted seated in discussion. Mughal artists did not shrink from depicting fabled holy men from the past as if they were still alive. The figures in this painting represent the Muslim orthodoxy, with the only nonconformist being the bare-headed dervish seated at the lower left.

SUNNIS, SHIITES, AND KHARIJI 660–c. 1000

35


Abbasid Caliphate under Harun al-Rashid Byzantines kept them at bay. Upon becoming caliph in 764, Harun established diplomatic relations with Charlemagne (r. 742–814) and the Byzantine emperor. Diplomatic and commercial ties were also established with China. Harun’s reign is often referred to as the Golden Age, a period of significant cultural and literary activity during which the arts, Arabic grammar, literature, and music flourished under his patronage. Al-Rashid figures prominently in the

10°

20°

famous literary compilation One Thousand and °

40

One Nights. Among his courtiers were the poet Abu Nuwas (d. 815), who was renowned for his

Li

sb

wine and his love poetry,

on

Um 756 ayya –10 ds 31 ille

and the musician Ibrahim

Sev

al-Mawsili (d. 804). Abu

Ta

ngi

’l Hasan al-Kisai (d. 805),

Rab

at

who was tutor to alRashid and his sons, was the leading Arabic gram-

30°

of his day. The classical texts were translated from Greek, Syriac, and other The reign of caliph Harun al-Rashid (r.

languages into Arabic.

century portrait of Harun al-

764–809) marked the height of military con-

Harun was famous for his

Rashid with an Ottoman-style

quests and territorial acquisition under the

largesse: a well-turned

mosque in the background. The

Abbasids, with the caliphate extending from the

poem could earn the gift

revival of the caliphate by the

boundaries of India and Central Asia to Egypt

of a horse, a bag of gold,

Ottoman sultans was intended

and North Africa.

or even a country estate.

to grant them rights over the

Harun rose through the ranks as a military

His wife Zubaida was

commander before assuming the caliphate from

famous for her charities,

his murdered brother al-Hadi (r. 785–86) and

especially

served variously as governor of Ifriqiya (mod-

numerous wells to be dug

ern-day Tunisia), Egypt, Syria, Armenia, and

on the pilgrimage route

Azerbaijan. His military campaigns against the

from Iraq to Medina.

Muslim subjects of European powers to balance the rights

for

causing

claimed by the latter over the sultan’s Christian subjects.

36

led

o

Cor Uma dova, c ap y Gib yad Em ital of ral irate tar

Tle mc Id en 789 risids –92 6 Rus Ma 776 tamids rrak S esh ijilmas –906 sa

marian and Koran reciter

A romanticized nineteenth-

er

To

20°

N

ABBASID CALIPHATE UNDER HARUN AL-RASHID

Sufism (Islamic mysticism) flourished under

Barmaki family, led to a period of political

the caliph. The famous ascetic and mystic

and territorial decline. Harun’s decision to

Maruf al-Karkh (d. c.815) was among the lead-

divide the empire between his two sons al-

Extent of Abbasid Empire 786–809

ing expositors of Sufism in Baghdad. By con-

Amin and al-Mamun, appointing the elder al-

Other Muslim dynasties

trast, Harun instituted a policy of repressing the

Amin (r. 809–813) as his successor, con-

Islamic expansion 750–850

Shiites, who were thought to challenge this rule.

tributed to a two-year civil war that was fol-

The latter half of Harun’s reign was

lowed by periods of continued instability and

marked by political instability. The granting

insurrection. The reign of al-Mamun (r.

of semiautonomy to the governor of Ifriqiya,

813–833), though intellectually brilliant, was

Ibrahim b. al-Aghlab, in 800, followed by

marked by territorial decline and the waning

Saffarid incursions

Harun’s destruction of the all-powerful al-

of Abbasid influence.

Qarmation expansion

0°

20°

10°

60°

50°

40°

30°

70

Abbasid Empire c. 850

Byzantine Empire Abbasid campaigns Islamic naval attacks

° 80

°

r

sh

K

ya

U IS

R H

Vo

O

EM PIR E

E

P

l Ara a Se

nd

lga

U

Ca sp

KH

ia

Se Rome 846 Naple

Sard inia 827

PIRE m BYZANTINE EM Erzuru

Palerm o 831

831–33 Athens

Izmir

762–805

Tarsus

es o p o Edessa A t a I R

M

SY

m

qi ya

Tripoli Bengazi

rra

a Sam

i

S e a

Damasc 899–805

IRA

us m

Jerusale

901

Alexandria

Cairo

EGYPT

B

A

E

JA

R

A

ca

Mec

d

S a h a r a

Tropic of Cancer

l

bu Ka i

azn

Gh

861

ST

Ara

ar ah

nd Ka

AN

s arid Saff –1495 867

871

R PE

S

IA

uz

rm

Ho

OM

IN

Pen

e

lkh

rat

SI

dh Riya s ation Qarm–1200 894

ina

R

A

Ba

He

han

N

Mu

Med

Z

IA

t sca

H

Tulunids 868–905

H

A UR

Isfa

a Sus

comes ad be Baghdsid capital 876 Abba ra 762 905 Bas

Q

X

873

ids Tahir 73 821–

l ossu

d it Crete er r a 825 n e a n

bil

Arda

ZM

KH

pur

ha Nis

iz Tabr

M

Marash

E

Aze NIA

a

e

ri

Malta 870

Messina 834 Syracuse 878

M

If

Tunis Kairo uan Aghla 800–9bids 09

ARM

a

jan rbai

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Constantinop

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Alg iers

bent

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Black Sea

I AR

ma

Sa

ara SO kh Bu AN a R s T A m u D ary anid Sam –1005 9 N 81 rv SA Me

W

n

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Indus

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Ka

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F

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bia

ins

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m

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EN

D IN

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Ade

Khartou

37


Spread of Islam, Islamic Law, and Arabic Language

38

The rapid spread of Islam acted as a formida-

Being the language of the Koran, Arabic

ble force of change in the Old World. By the

was carried to the new converts. Becoming

end of the reign of Umar ibn al-Khattab (d.

the lingua franca of medieval Islam, the dis-

644), the whole of the Arabian Peninsula was

tinctiveness of Arabic was evident in all

conquered, together with most of the Sasan-

spheres of high culture, from religious to

ian Empire, as well as the Syrian and Egyptian

legal, official, intellectual, and literary dic-

provinces of Byzantium. Following the tragic

tions. While in the western provinces Arabic

Battle of Karbala, which led to the death of

dominated the vernacular dialects, Persian

Imam al-Hussein (AD 680), a new phase was

remained in use eastward; witnessing a liter-

ushered in with the making of the Umayyad

ary revival in the tenth century

Empire (661–750), which eventually extended

unfurling of an Arabo-Persian idiom, which

its dominion from the Ebro River in Spain to

became prevalent across Iran as well as

the Oxus Valley in Central Asia. Claiming uni-

Transoxiana and northern India.

AD

with the

versal authority over far-reaching frontiers,

A theme that recurs in this formative peri-

the Umayyad dynasty took Damascus as its

od of Islamic thought is the relationship,

capital city, and remained virtually unchal-

often tense, between revelation and reason.

lenged in its reign until the rise of the Abbasid

Under the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (r.

caliphate with its capital in Baghdad

813–833) there existed a group of theologians

(749–1258). While Spain continued to be

known as the Mutazila. They had absorbed

under Umayyad rule (756–1031), new regional

the work of Greek philosophers and adopted

powers confronted the Abbasid hegemony, like

a rationalist style of argumentation that

the Fatimids in Egypt (909–1171), and the

equated God with pure reason. For the

Saljuqs in Iran and Iraq (1038–1194), along

Mutazila the world created by God operated

with waves of Crusader invaders in the Levant.

according to rational principles humans could

Numerous traditions in thought flourished,

understand by exercising reason. As free

like the Sunni schools of legal reasoning

agents, humans were morally responsible for

(hanafi, maliki, shafii, hanbali) and the

their actions, and since good and evil had

“Twelver Shiite” lineage descending from the

intrinsic value, God’s justice was constrained

Imam Ali ibn Abi Talib (d. 661). The upsurge in

by universal laws. They held to the view that

intellectual activities was also marked by the

the Koran was created in time, inspired by

founding of the mutazila and ashari methods of

God in Muhammad, but not part of his

kalam, in addition to the maturation of philos-

essence. Their opponents, the hadith scholars,

ophy, the sciences, and mysticism. Many

insisted that the Koran was “uncreated” and

notable centers of learning were established,

coeternal with God. They believed it was not

along with associated productions of manu-

for man to question God’s injunctions or

scripts, like al-Azhar in Cairo, the Zaytuna in

explore them intellectually, and that all

Tunis, the Qarawiyyin in Fez, the coteries of

human action was ultimately predetermined.

Córdoba in Andalusia, the schools of Najaf and

The Mutazili view, buttressed by the mihna

Karbala in Iraq, and those of Qumm and Mash-

(an “inquisition” or test applied to ulama and

had in Iran.

public officials), held sway for a period. How-

SPREAD OF ISLAM, ISLAMIC LAW, AND ARABIC LANGUAGE

ever, it was reversed under his successor al-Mutawakil (r. 847–61) as a result of populist pressures focused on the heroic figure of Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 855) who resisted imprisonment and torture to defend the “uncreated” Koran. A kind of

compromise

between

reason and revelation was reached in the work of Abul Hasan al-Ashari (d. 935). He used rationalistic methods to defend the “uncreated” Koran and allowed for a degree of human responsibility. However, the consequences of the Mutazili defeat were far reaching. The caliphs ceased to be the ultimate authorities in doctrinal matters. Mainstream Sunni theologians espoused the command theory of ethics: an act is right because God commands it, God does not command it because it is right. Mutazilism is a term of abuse for many conservative Islamists, especially in Saudi Arabia, which follows the Hanbali tradition in law.

The courtyard at al-Azhar in Cairo, founded by the Shiite Fatimids in 970. Al-Azhar became the foremost center of Sunni scholarship and an important source of manuscripts.

39


Successor States to 1100 autonomy in return for an annual tribute, founded a dynasty that lasted until 909. The puritanical Kharijis, who held to the principle of an elected imam or caliph, established independent states based in Wargala oasis, Tahert, and Sijilmassa. Of Tahert, destroyed

10°

Ta

he

Ro

rt

me

Tu

nis

a Ifriqiy

This clay model clearly shows the physical features that Arab and Persian commentators noted as typical of the Turkish soldiers

M Tr

ed

ipo

li

recruited by the caliphs.

it

er

f Even at its maximum extent the Abbasid

r

Empire failed to contain the whole Islamic

i

world. In Spain an independent dynasty had been founded by an Umayyad survivor, Abd

c

al-Rahman I (r. 756–788). A grandson of the

a

Caliph Hisham, he escaped the massacre of his kinsmen and after various adventures made his way to the peninsula. Here he persuaded feuding Arabs and Berbers to accept him as their leader, instead of the governor

Post-Imperial Successor Regimes late 10th Century

sent by the Abbasids. In what is now Moroc-

Abbasid Caliphate c. 900

co, a descendant of Ali and Fatima, Idris bin

Byzantine Empire

Abdullah, who escaped from Arabia after

Fatimids

the failure of a Shiite revolt in 786, arrived at

Hamadanids

the old Roman capital of Volubilis. Here he formed a tribal coalition, which rapidly con-

Samanids

founded Fez in 808. In Tunisia (Ifriqiya) the

Ghurids

al-Rashid’s governor, who had been granted 40

Buyids

quered southern Morocco. His son Idris II descendants of Ibrahim ibn Aghlab, Harun

ra ne

A

an

SUCCESSOR STATES TO 1100

At the heart of the empire, however, polit-

by the Fatimids in the tenth century, the

ical and religious tensions were rife. The dis-

chronicler Ibn Saghir wrote: “There was not a foreigner who stopped in

puted succession between Harun’s sons

the city but settled among them and built in

Amin and Mamun led to a civil war that last-

their midst, attracted by the plenty there, the

ed a decade, weakening the Abbasid armies

equitable conduct of the Imam, his just behav-

and the institution of the caliphate. Though

ior toward those under his charge, and the

Mamun won the war, his attempt to impose

security enjoyed by all in person and property.”

the Mutazili doctrine of the “created” Koran

30°

20°

40°

60°

50°

80°

70°

50°

E u r o p e Vo

a

lga

s

A

i

Blac

BY

ZA

NT

Sm yrn a

IN

tino

Aral Sea

ple

E E MP IRE

p ian

s

a

stan

Cas

Ath en

k Se

Con

A rm eni a

Tr

Sea

Tiflis

r Fa

Khwarizm a

ns

Bukhara

te

s

is

Jerus

alem

o

pt

Basra

d

a

ya

Balkh

Khurasan Afghanistan

Isfahan

Mult

Ahwaz

rs

Fa ia

an 30°

Sistan Ind

Shiraz

Pe

jaz He

d R e

A r a b i a

Kabul Ghazni

Herat

Qom

Iraq

Egy

40°

Samarkan

ia n

Rayy

Samarra Baghdad Karbala

Cair

gar

Kash

us

ra

ria

ar

Tabaristan

Tig r

ph

and

u

us) (Ox rya a rD

na

D

Daylam

Eu

Alex

Syria

Tabriz

Mosul

o

m

Alepp

a

ox

A

Se

Sy

gha

Kirman

rs

Indi

a

n

Bahrain

Gu

lf

Medina

O

a S e

Mecca

ma

n Arabian Sea

Nu bia

Y

am hr d Ha

au

r

f Cance

Tropic o

20°

N

t

em

e n

41


met with strong resistance from the populist

Mamun’s most effective general, Tahir,

ulama (religious scholars) grouped around

established a hereditary governorate. To off-

Ahmad Ibn Hanbal. For the latter, who saw

set the power of the Tahirids Mamun’s suc-

the divine text as “uncreated” or eternal, the

cessor Mutasim relied increasingly on merce-

doctrine of the created Koran derogated

naries recruited from Turkish-speaking

from the idea of the Koran as God’s speech.

tribes in Central Asia—a practice that has-

They looked to the Koran and the emerging

tened the breakup of the empire and the

corpus of hadiths (traditions or reports

establishment of de facto tribal dynasties.

about the Prophet Muhammad) as the sole

The construction of a new capital at Samar-

sources of religious authority, with them-

ra further isolated the caliph from his sub-

selves as qualified interpreters. They regard-

jects. By the end of the tenth century the

ed the caliph as the executive of the will of

Abbasid caliphs were mainly titular mon-

the community, not the source of its beliefs.

archs,

of these movements, the Qaramatians,

trol. In cultivated regions including Iraq the

fomented peasant and nomad rebellions in

system of iqta (tax-farming) built up a class

Iraq, Syria, and Arabia in the name of a mes-

of landlords at the expense of central gov-

siah descended from Ali through his descen-

ernment. In Iran and the eastern provinces

dant Ismail bin Jaafar. In the 920s the Qara-

30°

40°

60°

50°

50°

a

Vo

BY

i

l ga

s

A

Z rna

PI RE

Tiflis

Khwarizm

Fa

Tr

ns

a

r

Eu

ra

xan

te

Jerus

alem

Cair

a

o

Merv

Basra

pt

Post-Imperial Successor Regimes early 11th Century

ry a

Sa

ia n

Balkh

Kabul Ghazni

Afghanist

an Mult

Ahwaz

Byzantine Empire

Nu bia

a S e

Qarkhanids

jaz He

d R e

Fatimids

A r a b i a

rs

Fa ia n

Bahrain

Gu

Kirman

rs

30°

Indi

O

Mecca

Tropic

ma

Ghaznavids m

au

t

r

of Cance

n

Arabian Sea

Y

ra dh Ha

a

lf

Medina

em

en

an

Sistan Shiraz

Pe

gar 40°

Kash

r

a

Herat

Isfahan

a

markand

Khurasan

Rayy Qom

Iraq

Egy

ox

u

Samarra Baghdad Karbala

s

Sy

m Da

han

du

c

dria

Bukhara

Tabaristan

ph

Ale

ies Tabriz Daylam

A

t Local dynas Alepp Mosul o Syria

a

rg

s

an

Se

i

A rm eni a

ra ne

f

EM

Sea

er

Smy

In

it

Aral Sea

p ian

ed

E

a

le

Ca s

ens

k Se

nop

ya

IN

Blac

stan ti

ar

Con

T

Ath

M Tr ipo li

N

D

A

a Ifriqiy

Tu nis

A

42

80°

70°

E u r o p e

me

Buyids

by

ened, so did his political and economic con-

Ro

rt

challenged

claimants in the line of Ali. The most radical

20°

he

legitimacy

As the caliph’s religious authority weak-

10°

Ta

their

20° N

SUCCESSOR STATES TO 1100

matians, who created an independent state in

Turkish tribe of Qarluqs, led by the

Bahrain, shocked the whole Muslim world by

Qaraqanid dynasty, which he did his best to

pillaging Mecca and carrying off the Black

confine to the Oxus basin in the north. Mah-

Stone. In 969 Egypt—already semi-inde-

mud crossed the Indus Valley, establishing

pendent under Ibn Tulun and his successors,

permanent rule in the Punjab, and conducted

the Ikhshids—was taken over by the Ismaili

raids into northwestern India, plundering

Fatimids, who established a new caliphate

cities and destroying numerous works of art

under a “living imam” descended from Ali

as idolatrous. This earned him a fearsome

and Ismail. In northern Syria and the Upper

reputation as a ghazi against the infidel. On

Tigris the bedouin Arab Hamdan family—

his western front, in the lands of “old Islam”

also Shiite—ruled a semi-autonomous,

he pushed the Buyids back almost to the fron-

sometimes independent, state. In Khurasan

tiers of Iraq.

and

Transoxiana

the

Samanid

family

replaced the Tahirids as defenders of the mixed Arab-Persian high culture against incoming nomadic tribes. Even in the central heartlands of the empire—Iraq and western Iran—the caliphs were virtual prisoners of the Shiite Buyids, a warrior clan from Daylam, south of the Caspian. In Inner Asia, where the Samanids had established a flourishing capital in Bukhara, the adoption of Islam by Turkish-speaking tribes subverted the role of the Samanids as ghazis. These were frontier warriors entrusted with the defense of Islam against nomadic incursions. The practice of recruiting warriorslaves, known as mamluks or ghulams, from mountainous or arid regions hastened the disintegration of the empire. When power declined at the center, the mamluks went on to establish their

own

“slave-dynasties.”

Thus the Ghaznavids who supplanted their former Samanid overlords in Mahmud of Ghazna crosses the Ganges. The

Khurasan started as slave-soldiers in the fron-

Ghaznavids, Turkish military governors, enjoyed great

tier region of Ghazna, south of Kabul. When

renown in later times as the first to extend Muslim

the Samanid regime collapsed in 999, Mah-

power into India. This image is from the Compendium of

mud of Ghazna (r. 998–1030), son of a slave-

Chronicals, composed for the vizier Rashid al-Din in the

governor, divided their territory with the

early fourteenth century.

43


The Saljuq Era Despite challenges to their authority and the loss

Khurasan, laying the foundations of the Saljuq

of military and effective political power, the

Empire. Defeating the Buyids in 1055 they took

Abbasid caliphs retained immense prestige in the

control of Baghdad, where the caliph crowned

eyes of most townspeople and many of the tribes

their leader Tughril Beg Sultan in acknowledg-

as the lawful successors to the Prophet and heads of the Muslim

HU

community. The division of the world into Dar al-Islam and Dar

20°

NG AR

30°

Y

ZE ( S E TA RB IA)

al-Harb facilitated the spread of Islam centripetally as well as cen-

H E N P E C

trifugally: when tribes from the margins who encountered Muslim

40°

Sof ia

merchants, scholars, or wandering

Sal

oni

Sufis, accepted Islam the caliphs

ka

Co

nst

ant

tended to legitimize their rule,

Blac

ino

k

ple Sino

pe

appointing their leaders as governors. Conversion civilized the SA L

nomadic and pastoral peoples by subjecting them formally (if not always in practice) to the Sharia Following the rapid advance of

the peoples of the desert and steppes and those

(formerly Iconium) became their

of the cities and settled regions. Tribes recently

capital. This elaborately

converted often became the greatest builders and

decorated portal from the Ince

patrons of Islamic high culture in art, architec-

Minare Madrasa shows the

ture, and literature. At the same time conversion

extraordinary richness of the

made it difficult for rulers to defend their heart-

ed

ite

Acre Jerus

alem

Cairo

E g y p t

Trop

nominal authority of the Abbasid caliphs, becoming the patrons of a new Turkish culture derived in part from Arab and Persian models. After defeating the Ghaznavids the Oghuz people, led by the Saljuq family, became the rulers of 44

cer

20° N

d

and the Oghuz, established states that made sigsoxiana the Qaraqanid dynasty accepted the

Can

Nile

Two Turkish-speaking peoples, the Qarluqs

FA T IMID CA L IPH AT E

e

ic of

raison d’être.

nificant contributions to this process. In Tran-

an

R

gle or “holy war”) launched against them lost its

Antioch

ne

S U L A Y N

Minaret” from which the school

destroyed by lightning in 1900.

rra

Sea

lands from nomadic predators, since if the nomads were no longer infidels the jihad (strug-

RUM

30°

Saljuq style. The “Slender

takes its name was partially

1095

M

law, reducing the cultural differences between

the Saljuqs into Anatolia, Konya

J UQ S OF

fro m

THE SALJUQ ERA

ment of his supreme authority. In exchange for

Crusade in 1096. Although the Saljuqs con-

formal recognition, the sultans agreed to uphold

quered half of Anatolia, laying the foundations

Islamic law and defend Islam from its external

for later Ottoman-Turkish rule, their system of

enemies. The massive defeat inflicted by the

authority was too fragmented to maintain the

Saljuqs on the Byzantine army at Manzikert in

unity of the empire, or to defend the frontiers of

1071 was one of the factors leading to the First

Islam against further nomadic incursions.

40°

50°

90°

80°

70°

60°

E G S Sarkel

S U R G H U I

lg

1028–38

Vo a

t o C h e r n i g ov

K H A Z A R S

Aral Sea

Sea

a

0

S

kent

Tash d

rkan

Dandangan

a

Manzikert 1071

Bukhara

Tran

soxia

na sh

Ku

du

in

Merv

H Balkh

Mosul

Aleppo

gar

Kash

rya Da yr

a

Sama

Se

108

Urgench ry

n

D A NI SHME ND EMIR AT E from 109 5

sM ou nta ins

ia

nd

mu D

a su

r

Otra

.A

uc

sp

Trebizo

Ca

Ca

l

Eu

Homs

ph ra

te

Damasc

Kabu

r

Nishapu

1042 s

Rayy

us

war

Pesha

ot Sialk

2 1040–4

Hamadan Kermanshah

Baghdad

Isfahan

du

s

I r a q

Pe

A R A B S

In

Shiraz

rs i

a

Siraf

n G ul

Medina

The Saljuq Era

f

Major Saljuq campaign

A

r

O a

b

i

a

m

Muscat

Saljuq sultanate at its maximum extent, c. 1090

a n

S

Mecca

Byzantine Empire, c. 1095

e

Ara

bian

Sea

a

Territory lost to Byzantine Empire and Crusader states, 1097–99 Extent of the Khwarizm Shahdom, c. 1220

45


Military Recruitment 900–1800 The recruitment of armies from the peripheral regions, mainly from the steppelands of inner Asia, the Caucasus, and the Balkans, became the most distinctive feature of the Islamic systems of governance until modern times. Known as mamluks—“owned ones”— these warriors were purchased as slaves from the highlands and steppes or captured from defeated tribes. Brought in as the sultan’s private armies and palace bodyguards, they were taught the rudiments of the Islamic faith and culture and trained in the military arts. Attaching the word “slave” to mamluks (as in “slave-warriors” or “slave-dynasties”) is somewhat misleading. Though mamluks and ghulams (household slaves) were bought and sold as personal property, their social position reflected that of their masters, rather than their own servile status. Eventually manumitted they became freedmen, clients of their former masters entitled to property rights, marriage, and personal security, with some of them rising to become rulers. The practice of mamlukism started with the Abbasid caliphs, who recruited tribes from Transoxiana, Armenia, and North Africa to offset the power of the Tahirids. They balanced these tribes with Turkish ghulams who were purchased individually before being trained and drafted into regiments under individual commanders. Since they were housed in separate cantonments, with their own mosques and markets, their allegiance was to their commanders, rather than to the caliphs. In the breakup of the empire after 945 the practice was adopted by the defacto rulers who inherited the political power of the Abbasids. All the post-Abbasid states in the East—the Buyids, Ghaznavids, Qaraqanids, and Saljuqs—were created by ethnic minorities, including mercenaries from the Caspian region, and Turkish and other nomadic peoples from inner Asia. Since new 46

military rulers had no ethnic, cultural, linguistic, or historical connection with the peoples over whom they ruled, society tended to develop outside the purview of the state, with the ulama—the religious scholars and experts on law—merging with merchant and landowning families to form elites of notables whose prestige was dependent on religious knowledge. While allowing a form of civil society to develop separately from the military state, the practice of mamlukism militated against the type of communal loyalties or patriotisms that would emerge in Western Europe at a later period. The pattern

T H E 15° H O LY R O M A N E M P I R E Buda

0°

Paris AT L A N T I C

FRANCE

OCEAN

Venice Milan

Santiago

Marseilles Corsica Rome Barcelona

Madrid PORTUGAL

S PA I N

Naples

Sardinia

Balearic Is.

Lisbon

e

d

i

t

e Sicily r Tunis a n

M Ceuta

5

r

Algiers ALGIERS

A

F

S

TUNIS

R

a

I

h

Military Recruitment c. 1500 Movements of troops

1

Janissaries, from Balkans

2

Circassians, from Caucasus

3

Turkic nomads, from Central Asia

4

Al-Qaitis, from Yemen

5

South Atlas, from South Atlas Mountains

e

a

C

a

A

r

a

MILITARY RECRUITMENT 900–1800

of recruiting erstwhile nomadic predators to defend society against other nomads—of making “wolves into sheepdogs”—is found throughout the Muslim heartlands, from the Maghreb to the Indus Valley. The system of military slavery reached its fullest development in Egypt, a densely populated country of peasant cultivators without an indigenous military class. The system was institutionalized so successfully that mamluk rule lasted for more than two and a half centuries (1250–1517), and resurfaced in a modifed form under the Ottomans (1517–1811). By constantly replenishing their ranks from abroad (firstly from among the Kipchak Turks from Central Asia, later from among

MOLDAVIA

Sarai-Berke

KHANATE OF CRIMEA

HUNGARY

KHANATE OF ASTRAKHAN

Crimea 2

B l a c k

Sofia

S e a

Tiflis

C

Constantinople

O

a

u

T

T

O M A N

E E M PIR

Morea Athens

MONGOLISTAN

Caspian Sea

3

U Z B E K H S

Aleppo

D

Kabul

a

KHORASAN

n

S

Kashgar

Balkh

F A Tabriz V Mosul I

Cyprus

Kucha

Tashkent

Shemakha ca su Baku s

SA

Adalia

Crete

15°

Aral Sea

WALLACHIA

1

90°

75°

60°

45°

30°

POLAND-LITHUANIA Pest

the Circassians in the Caucasus) the Egyptian mamluks resisted becoming absorbed into the ranks of the indigenous elites. For the most part they remained a one-generation aristocracy, without ties of blood to the rest of Egyptian society. Under the Ottomans military slavery evolved in a somewhat different direction. From the late fourteenth century the sultans began to offset the power of their sipahi cavalry units levied from the estates of the nobility or recruited as mercenaries from Arabic, Kurdish, and Farsi-speaking nomads, an infantry corps of “new troops”, Janissaries, levied mainly from its Christian provinces in the Balkans. The levy (known as the

e

a

Alexandria

EMP IRE

KASHMIR PUNJAB

LO DI E

MULTAN

OF Cairo Pe

i

N

A

r

a

b

i

Delhi

Bandar Abbas

rs

MA MLUK E S

a

n

a

Re

ile

Gul f

TIBET

SU

A AN LT

E Isfahan M P IR

Baghdad

TE

RAJPUTANA

Hormuz SIND

30°

NEPAL

OF

DE

LHI

d

BIHAR BUNDELMALWA KHAND

Muscat

BENGAL

Se a

Mecca Arabian

GUJERAT Diu Damah

BERAR

Sea

Suakin

UT MA

YEMEN 4

ABYSSINIA

RA

DH

HA

ORISSA Bay of AHMADNAGAR BIDAR GOLCONDA Bengal Hyderabad BIJAPUR 45°

VIJAYANAGAR

47


devshirme) was conducted in the villages about every four years: the towns were usually exempt, as the sons of townsfolk were considered too well educated or insufficiently hardy. Boys between 13 and 18 were selected (although there are reports of children as young as 8 being chosen). Since married men were exempt, the Orthodox peasants often married off their children very young to avoid the levy. The selected boys (estimates are put at around 20 percent) were given Muslim identities and trained in the arts of war, with the brightest selected for personal service to the sultan, where they often rose to be rulers of the empire. Although slave recruitment ceased in the 1640s the Janissaries continued to prosper, with increasing numbers of Muslim-born boys joining their ranks. Having substantial commercial interests, salaries, and state-funded pensions they became a privileged and tyrannical elite, resistant to change. In 1826 Sultan Mahmud II used his newly formed military force to slaughter most of them at a muster in Istanbul.

The Janissary corps, dressed in their gold finery, parade at a court reception. Originally recruited from the Christian Balkans, the Janissaries became a formidable power within the state. Sultan Mahmud II abolished the Janissaries in 1826, as part of his program of modernization.

48

MILITARY RECRUITMENT 900–1800

49


Fatimid Empire 909–1171 10° 0°

a lAn

lus da

a ob rd Có

E

R MI

AT

E

r

di

M

ag

hr

eb

F A Tu Sicil y n Ka is iro ua n M ah diy ya

T I

M I

D

S

Tr

ipo

a

li

C

h

A

a

menace r a of the Saljuq Turks, who were laying the foundations of a new empire. In 1071, Damascus became the capital of the new Saljuq principality of Syria and Palestine. By the end of al-Mustansir’s rule, of the former Fatimid possessions in Syria and Palestine, only Ascalon and a few coastal towns, like Acre and Tyre, still remained in Fatimid hands. By 1048, the Zirids, ruling over Ifriqiya on behalf of the Fatimids, placed themselves under Abbasid suzerainty. By 1070, when they lost Sicily to the Normans, Barqa had become the western limit of the Fatimid Empire, which soon became effectively limited to only Egypt. Ascalon, the last Fatimid foothold in Syria-Palestine, was lost to the Franks in 1153. Fatimid rule ended in 1171, when Salah al-Din (Saladin), who became the last Fatimid vizier after taking over Egypt, had the khutba (ser-

L

50

the Fatimid caliphate embarked on its decline. Northern Syria was irrevocably lost in 1060. By then, the Fatimids were confronted D YA with the AY UM growing a Ag

The Shiite Ismaili caliphate of the Fatimids was established in Ifriqiya in the Maghreb when a group of Kutama Berbers accepted the claims of Abdallah al-Mahdi to be the rightful descendant of Ali and Fatima and rose against the Aghlabids in 909. By 921, al-Mahdi had settled in his new capital city of Mahdiyya on the coastline of Ifriqiya. As successors to the Aghlabids, the Fatimids also inherited their fleet and the island of Siqilliyya (Sicily). By the end of alMahdi’s reign (909–934), the Fatimid state extended from present-day Algeria and Tunisia to the Libyan coast of Tripolitania. The third Fatimid caliph al-Mansur (r. 946–953) built a new capital city named Mansuriyya after himself. Situated near Sabra to the south of Qayrawan, Mansuriyya served as the Fatimid capital from 948 until 973. Fatimid rule was firmly established in North Africa only during the reign of the fourth member of the dynasty al-Muizz (r. 953–975), who transformed the Fatimid caliphate from a regional power into a great empire. He succeeded in subduing the entire Maghreb, with the exception of Sabra, before concerning himself with the conquest of Egypt, an objective attained in 969. A new Fatimid capital city was built outside Fustat; it was initially called Mansuriyya, but renamed al-Qahira alMuizziyya (Cairo), “The Victorious City of alMuizz,” when the caliph took possession of his new capital in 973. The extension of Fatimid power in Syria became the primary foreign policy objective of al-Muizz’s son and successor alAziz (r. 975–996). By the end of his reign, the Fatimid Empire had attained, at least nominally, its greatest extent, with Fatimid suzerainty being recognized from the Atlantic and the western Mediterranean to the Red Sea, the Hejaz, Syria, and Palestine. By 1038, the Fatimids had also extended their authority to the emirate of Aleppo. In the long reign of al-Mustansir (1036–94),

FATIMID EMPIRE 909–1171

mon) read in Cairo in the name of the reigning Abbasid caliph while the last Fatimid caliph, alAdid (r. 1160–71), lay dying in his palace.

Fatimid Empire and other Islamic States c.1000 Fatimid Empire c. 1000 Abbasid caliphate at its greatest extent

Ceramic bowl from Fustat (Cairo), tenth–eleventh Abbasid caliphate, c. 900

century. The lusterware design has 10°

Major battle

characteristically Fatimid motifs, with a hare at the center and the sides decorated with stylized plants. 20°

80°

ZA BY

30°

70°

40°

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N

T IN E

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S e a

TURKS

Aral Sea

sp

Con

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BUWAYHID EMIRATES -d Baghda

ZN OF GHA MAHMUD

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D S A N I S A M

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Talas

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KHAZAR

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Najran

OCE IAN IND

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N 0

Aden

300 km

10° 0

300 miles

51


Trade Routes c. 700–1500 Muhammad is said to have traveled outside Arabia as a merchant. His tribe, the Quraish, who led the Arab conquests, were among the foremost traders in the peninsula. Merchants continued to be held in high esteem, often marrying into the families of ulama, who they supported by endowing their educational institutions. Islamic rituals favor commercial activity. Mosques are often adjacent to markets, and though Friday is the day for congregational prayer, it was not treated as a sabbath until recent times. Markets opened before and after the noonday prayer. Since the whole male population was gathered in town, Fridays were good days for doing business. Similarly, the pilgrimages to Mecca (umra and hajj), where Muslims from distant parts of the world meet each other, have always been a facilitator of trade. Pilgrims would finance the long and arduous journey (which in premodern times could take half a lifetime) by trading goods or working as artisans. Merchants would join the pilgrim caravans to sell their goods in the Hejaz. By bringing vast areas of territory and coastlands under a single government, the Arab conquests created an enormous area of free trade, facilitating the expansion of trade far beyond the empire’s borders. The extent of this trade has been revealed by archaeology, with significant numbers of coins from Abbasid times discovered in Scandinavia, and Chinese silks and ceramics found in burial sites in western Asia. Muslim merchants were not subject to tariffs within the empire. Foreign merchants who entered the lands of Islam were subject to the same rates imposed on Muslim merchants in their homelands. The new elite of the caliphal courts, with their demand for luxury goods, boosted trade. Though the breakup of the empire led to economic decline in some areas, with rival dynasties augmenting their budgets by imposing extra taxes and tariffs, 52

the frequency with which such measures were denounced as illegal, oppressive, and unjust indicates that the general temper remained favorable to mercantile activity, even under adverse political conditions. Initially the Arab conquest had the effect of bringing two oceanic trade routes—through the Persian Gulf and Red Sea—within a single market based on common law, language, and currency. Under the Abbasids the most attractive route for goods from East and South Asia to the Mediterranean went up the Tigris to Baghdad, or up the Euphrates to an easy portage to Aleppo and from there to a Syrian port such as Antioch. The towns along these routes depended on the exchange of commodities for their existence. The Mesopotamian cities absorbed luxury goods from India and China. These were sold in the markets alongside necessities such as food grains, fuel, timber, and cooking oils. Mesopotamia was also the terminus of the chief land route to China and India as well as north to the Volga basin and the well-watered lands of Eastern Europe, sources of fur, amber, metal goods, and hides. In the earliest period Muslim ships from ports such as Basra or Hormuz went all the way to China, returning after two or three years with cargoes such as silk, porcelain, jade, and other valuables. However, as the trade became more sophisticated merchants no longer traded directly with Guangzhou (Canton) and Hangzhou, but acquired goods from China at ports in Java, Sumatra, or the Malabar coast. Muslim merchants from the Maghreb were active in the gold trade, which took them across the Sahara Desert to the Sahel cities of Timbuktu and Gao, and beyond, to the goldfields of western Africa. The chain of commercial centers established by Muslim traders on the east African coast, including Lamu, Malindi, and the island of Zanzibar,

TRADE ROUTES c. 700–1500

extended as far south as Sofala in modern Mozambique. Intrepid Muslim travelers penetrated the African interior in search of gold, slaves, ivory, rare woods, and precious stones centuries before Europeans followed in their paths. When the decline of Abbasid power and the incursions of Turkish tribesmen made the trans-Syrian route less secure the alternative water route, via the Red Sea and the Nile, came into prominence. It was the more

The land routes linking western Asia and the Mediterranean with eastern and southern Asia were just as important as the maritime routes. With many cities landlocked or distant from rivers and oceans, even bulky items had to be carried by animals. Careful planning was needed before the caravans set out on long journeys. Food had to be procured for animals and humans, and nomadic tribes had to be hired as guards. In remote areas networks of khans (overnight resting By the 1500s, the Ottoman Empire, with its capital at Constantinople, had become one of the Islamic world’s most important trading centers. The sultan’s court, together with his advisors, took careful account of annual trade.

difficult as the land route from the Gulf of Suez to the Nile was more arduous than the route across Syria, except for a brief period when the Mamluk sultans revived an ancient canal originally dug by the pharaohs. Red Sea ports such as Aden, Jidda, Aydhab, and Qulzum benefited from this trade, as did Cairo and Alexandria. Trade on the Indian Ocean was monopolized by Muslims until the arrival of the Portuguese, followed by the English and Dutch from the sixteenth century onward.

places) or khaniqas (Sufi lodges) provided food and hospitality. Some were built like fortresses for defense against Bedouin marauders. The vast distances over rough terrain, combined with the breakdown in territorial authority, made road construction impracticable. Even by late Roman times, wheeled traffic had all but disappeared. The results can be seen in many of the cities of western Asia and North Africa. Before modern times few of them had boulevards broad enough for carts or carriages. 53


30°

0°

15°

30°E R LAPP R E I N DE H E R DE R S

15°

DEN M NOR ARK WA Y

Iceland (Denmark)

60°

SW

45°

60°

EN ED

RU S S I A SCOTLAND

ENGLAND

A T LA N T I C

POLANDLITHUANIA

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

O CE AN

KA

Venice

45°

Denia Algiers

Cordoba Almeria

Tunis

ALGIERS Tlemcen

Palermo Kairouan Mahdia

TUNIS

Fez Meknes Marrakech

OM

Edirne Constantinople

AN

Crete

IRE

Konya

Izmir

Cyprus

Tabriz

Lajazzo

Samarra Damascus

Tripoli

NS

Ardabil Nishapur Damghan

S A F AV I D EMPIRE

Baghdad

Jerusalem

TRIPOLI

MOROCCO

30°

EMP

Bursa

A

Azores (Port.)

TT

M

SPAIN PORTUGAL

O

Astrakhan

KO

Rome VENICE PAPAL STATES Amalfi

AIS

TUR

Pisa

Marseille

ARS

NOG

AN KH A S TR AR AS TAT

HUNGARY FRANCE

TAT ZAN

Basra

Cairo

A R

Siwa

A

Sijilmasa

B

Canary Is. (Spain)

N

Ghat Tropic of Cancer

Medina O M

Kubra

C A M E L

N O M A D S

A

Mecca Suakin

MAHRA

Timbuktu

SONGHAI MALI

MOSSI STATES

AKAN Elmina (Portugal)

HAUSA STATES

KANEMAbeche BORNU WADAI DARFUR

Soba

YEMEN

HADRAMAUT

Aden Zaila

ADAL OYO Benin

ETHIOPIA

NI N

Cacheu (Portugal)

Sanaa

BE

15°

OMAN

S

GHARRA

FUNJ Cape Verde Is. (Port.) SENEGAL

Muscat

D

Galla DROMO

Fernando Póo (Port.)

Mogadishu

0°

Lamu

LUBA CONGO

15°

54

LUNDA

Mombasa (Portugal) Zanzibar ISLAMIC CITY-STATES

Madagascar

TRADE ROUTES c. 700–1500

75°

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150°

165°

Trade Routes and Empires c. 1500

SIBERIAN REINDEER HERDERS

Empires

SIBIR TATARS

BE

RG

HI

Spanish

Gold trade

State society

Silk road

NOMA

AINU HUNTERGATHERERS

MONGOLS

DS KALMYKS

Z

KS

Tashkent Chiwa Bukhara Samarkand Merv Schar-i-Sabz

Kashgar

KOREA

A

Balkh

MUGHAL

Herat

EM

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E

AM

IC

N

R

ISL

Delhi

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UZ

Trading routes

Other

EURASIAN S TEPPE AN D DESE RT KI

Routes Portuguese

RAJPUTANA

D

HI

ND

Kambaya

U ST AT E S

BENGAL

P A C I F IC

Kulum Mali

SAYLAN Ceylon

AY U

TT

VIJAYANAGARA

A

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PEGU

HA Y

ORISSA

Goa (Portugal)

Philippine Islands

CAMBODIA

ACEH Malacca (Portugal) MALACCA

I NDI A N

OCE AN

LAOS

Thana

Colombo (Portugal)

Taiwan

BURMESE KINGDOMS

O C E AN

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M

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AYA N

N

New Guinea

IS L A M

IC STATES

Java Timor (Port.) AUSTRALIAN ABORIGINAL HUNTER-GATHERERS

55


Crusader Kingdoms 35°

SALJUQS

OF

RUM County Behesni Marash

of

Sis

Cilicia

Rancular Aintab Saruj

Adana

Tarsus

Turbessel Ravendam

An

Alexandretta 1097

ch t io

of

Antioch

Kafr Tab

P ri

Or o

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it y

St. Simeon 1097

Edessa

Asas

s rate ph

BYZANTINE EMPIRE

Eu

Aleppo

Cerep

Latakia 1103 Nicosia

Cyprus

35°

Jabala 1109 Valania 1109 Maraclea 1102

Famagusta

Masyaf Rafaniyan

Tortosa 1102

oli

Limassol

ri p

un

Co

Botron 1104 Gibelet 1104

Sea

Homs

ty of T

Tripoli 1109

Mediterranean

Baalbek

Li ta

ni

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Damascus Tyre 1124 Acre 1104

Lake Tiberias

Haifa 1099 Tiberias

EMIRATE OF DAMASCUS

Arsur 1101

Nablus

Jaffa 1099 Ascalon Gaza Darum

Jo r d a n

Caesarea 1101

as-Salt

Jerusalem Hebron

Dead Sea Krak des Moabites

Segor

FATIMID CALIPHATE

KINGDOM OF JERUSALEM

N

Montréal

S i n a i D e s e r t 0 0

First Crusade, 1099–1100

Norwegian Crusade, 1107–40

Territory held by Crusaders to 1100

Crusades of Pope Calixtus II, 1122–26

50 km 50 miles

Crusade of 1128–29

Crusaders’ gains, 1100–44 Crusaders’ losses, 1144–45

Aila

56

Christian Crusades

1110

Date of Crusaders’ conquest

Muslim territory

Maximum range of Egyptian warfleet

Other Christian territory

Prevailing wind

The Crusades occurred at a time of Islamic disunity and retreat. There were Christian advances in Spain— GREAT Gargar Toledo fell in 1085— SALJUQ and in Sicily, which Samosata EMPIRE the Normans conquered in 1091–92. Economically, the decline of the Abbasid caliphate and the Saljuq invasions had diverted the East Asian trade away from Baghdad and Constantinople. Sending it through Egypt and into the hands of Italian merchant shipping, it enriched the Italian cities. Harassed by Muslim pirates, Pisa and Genoa destroyed Mahdia, the political and commercial capital of Muslim North Africa in 1087. The fluctuating frontiers between the Byzantine and Fatimid Empires allowed the cities of Syria and Palestine considerable autonomy, making it difficult for them to unite against the invaders. The defeat of the Byzantine army at Manzikert in 1071 opened the rich Anatolian pastures to migration by bands of Oghuz Turks, not all of them under Saljuq control. Alarmed at the danger to Christendom posed by the Turks as well as by Norman attacks on Byzantine lands in Italy, Pope Urban II launched a Holy War for the defense and unity of Christendom. The movement was stimulated by charismatic, populist preachers such as Peter the Hermit and by the growing popularity of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem as a way of earning spiritual merit or as an act of atonement for sins such as murder. In the event, the knights from the Latin West, (including England, Scandinavia, Germany, Italy, and France) supported by ragtag armies of townsfolk and peasants lured by the promise of indulgences, were not wholly interested in saving Christendom by helping their Orthodox brethren. (They actually sacked Constantinople in 1204, inflicting untold damage on the capital of Eastern Christianity.) They wanted to carve out feudal

CRUSADER KINGDOMS

35°

SALJUQS SULTANATE OF KONYA

Sis

F

O

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D

G

E N

M A R Tarsus

M

I A

Mamistra Syrian Gates Trapezac Gaston

Corycus Alexandretta

Principality of Antioch

Antioch Cursat

St. Simeon

Aleppo

Saone

Gastria

Nicosia KINGDOM

Famagusta

Shaizar

Maraclea

Masyaf Hamah Mamluk tributary from 1260 Coible Tortosa Christian until 1302 Ruad Krak des Chevaliers Chastel Blanc Homs Coliat County Villejargon of Halba Tripoli Gibelcar Tripoli Nephin Botron Gibelet Baalbek

OF CYPRUS 1270 Mamluk fleet founders off Limassol

T

E

Limassol

Apamea

Jabala Margat

Beirut

ni

KINGDOM

Sidon

Entry of the Crusaders into Damietta, Egypt, in June 1249.

OF

A

35°

Orontes

Latakia

Kyrenia

SYRIA

Lit a

domains in the well-watered lands of the Mediterranean littoral. The remarkable success of the First Crusade, culminating in the capture of Jerusalem from the Fatimids in 1099, contained the seeds of the Byzantine Empire’s eventual demise. The need to support the intrusive Latin states whose existence depended on Muslim disunity overrode the need to maintain Byzantium’s eastern frontiers. For the most part the Franks, as the invaders were known, were hated as oppressors by Muslims and local Christians alike—not to mention the Jews, who lost the protection they had enjoyed under Muslim rule, and were massacred in Palestine as they had been in Europe. Far from checking the Turkish advance on Christian domains, the Crusaders’ attacks on Byzantium helped to destroy the only polity that could have prevented it. Though the Latin kingdoms were eventually eliminated, their existence damaged the previously good relations that had existed between the eastern churches, their Muslim protectors, and local Islamic communities, leaving a legacy of mistrust of the West that has lasted to the present.

ANTI

LEBANON

JERUSALEM

founded by Louis IX during his stay in Palestine, 1250–54.

A

T

L

shortly after 1277. This school of illuminators was probably

SAMARIA

al-Awja

Jaffa

Sea

Ascalon Gaza Darum

U

Land. From an illuminated manuscript painted in Acre

Jericho Jerusalem Bethleem Hebron

Dead Sea

K U

L A

M

Kerak (Krak des Moabites)

The Mamluk conquest of the coast 1263–1291 Muslim conquests 1263–1271

M

N

S

on Egypt in the hope of regaining territory in the Holy

N

Damascus Belfort Belinas e mi Chastel Neuf Da Jacob’s Ford rf om Acre Safad (Saphet) Hammon Tiberias Haifa GALILEE L. Tiberias Château Pèlerin Nazareth Zir’in Jisr al-Majami Meggido Caesarea Belvoir Bethsan Mediterranean Jenin Caco Nablus Arsur Tibnin Tyre Toron Montfort

tt a

Jo r d a n

After losing Jerusalem, the Crusaders made several attacks

Montréal

Muslim conquests 1285–1290 Muslim conquests, 1291 Christian territory after 1291

0

50 km

Aila 0

Castle

50 miles

57


Sufi Orders 1100–1900 The Sufi orders were and remain the most important organized expression of Islamic spirituality. The word Sufism (from the Arabic Sufi, one who wears wool), is thought to derive from the coarse woolen garments worn by early Muslim ascetics who sought to develop an inner spirituality. This was sometimes expressed as the quest for union with God and it set them apart from believers who were content with the formal observance of Islamic law and ritual. Early adepts, sometimes known as “drunken” Sufis, cultivated mental states that would lead them to experience annihilation of the self in the divine presence. The desire for ecstatic union with the divine, and the pain of separation from it, is the theme of much Sufi poetry. Drunken Sufism sometimes displayed itself in extravagant displays aimed at demonstrating contempt for the flesh, such as piercing the body with iron rings or handling dangerous animals. Sober Sufism—exemplified in the teachings of Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (d. 1111)—insisted that the path to spiritual fulfillment lay firmly within the boundaries of normative legal and ritual practice. Present from the beginnings of Islam, all Sufi movements would claim to have their origins in the religious experience of Muhammad and his closest Companions Abn Bakr and Ali. Organized Sufism, however, was consolidated in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, gaining ground rapidly in Asia in the aftermath of the Mongol invasions, when the institutional fabric of Muslim life was severely dislocated. Internally the Sufi orders cemented the sociopolitical order by providing rulers with popular sources of religious legitimacy, supplementing the formal authority conferred by the ulama. Many rulers were patrons of Sufi orders and placed themselves under the 58

spiritual guidance of Sufi masters from whose baraka (blessedness or charismatic spiritual power) they derived benefit. Further afield the Sufi orders were instrumental in spreading Islam in peripheral regions such as the Malay archipelago, Central Asia, and Subsaharan Africa. Access to the normative, textual Islam of the ulama, based on the Koran, hadith, fiqh (jurisprudence), and tafsir (hermeneutics), required knowledge of Arabic, restricting its appeal. The Sufi shaikhs and pirs, however, were adept at spiritual improvisation and were able to convey Islamic teachings verbally, using local languages. The esoteric Sufi rituals, known as dhikrs (ceremonies held in remembrance of God), allowed them to develop spiritual techniques that meshed with practices derived from non-Islamic traditions such as ritual dances or controlled yoga-style breathing practiced in India. In Africa Sufis and Marabouts (from the Arabic murabit) were able to propagate Islam by assimilating local deities or spirits to the numinous forces such as djinns and angels referred to in the Koran. Ancestor cults could be accommodated by adding local kinship structures onto Arab lineages or Sufi silsilas, chains of spiritual authority linking the shaikhs and Marabouts to the Prophet and his Companions. In peripheral regions such as the High Atlas these silsilas provided a quasi-constitutional framework through which segmentary tribal groups achieved a basic minimum of cooperation, with leaders of saintly families acting as arbiters in intertribal conflicts. In all parts of the Muslim world Sufi holy men (and occasionally women) became the objects of popular veneration. In due course such cults became the targets of reformers who regarded the excessive devotion given to saintly mediators as a violation of the Islamic prohibition on idolatry.

SUFI ORDERS 1100–1900

A group of Mevlevi Sufis or dervishes (mendicants) perform their traditional whirling ritual. The “dance,” a dhikr, or “remembrance of God,” brings the adept closer to the divine, balancing spiritual ecstasy with formal discipline. The Mevlevi order was founded by Jalal al-Din Rumi (1207–73), the famous Sufi poet and mystic.

59


In contrast to the ulama, who tended to reflect the consensus of the learned, the Sufi tariqas developed elaborate hierarchical organizations with spiritual power concentrated into the hands of the leader—known variously as the shaikh, murshid, or pir. Murids (members or aspirants) were bound by the baya, oath of allegiance, to the leader or murshid who headed a hierarchy of ranks within the order based on ascending spiritual stages. Although the systems varied considerably, with some tariqas being more exclusive and tightly controlled than others, the combination of devotion to the leader and rankings within the organization made it possible for the tariqas to convert themselves into formidable fighting forces. In the Caucasus the Imam Shamil waged his campaign against the Russians from 1834 to 1839 under the spiritual authority of his murshid and father-in-law Sayyid Jamal al-Din alGhazi-Ghumuqi, shaikh of the Khalidiyya branch of the Naqshbandiyya. In North Africa Abd al-Qadir, a shaikh of the Qadiriyya, took the lead in the struggle against the French; in Cyrenaica the Sanusiyya were at the forefront of resistance against the Italian occupiers. In other regional contexts, however, the tariqas ran with the flow of colonial power. In Morocco during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the influential Tijaniya order accepted lavish subsidies from the French, who used the order to further their colonial interests. In Senegal the Muridiya order founded by Amadu Bamba (c. 1850–1927) turned away from resistance to develop a work ethic based on peanut cultivation that brought economic stability to the country under the French-dominated regime. The tariqas, in many cases, provided the leadership for the reform and revival movements that swept through the Islamic world 60

in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The term “neo-Sufism” is sometimes applied to movements that strive to balance “outward” political activity with “inner” spiritual experience, with the structure of the tariqa providing the vehicle for the transmission and implementation of ideas. A wellknown example is the Nurculuk movement in Turkey founded by Said Nursi (1876– 1960). A Naqshbandi-trained preacher and writer, he sought to revitalize Islamic thought by integrating science, tradition, theology, and mysticism in a new version of the Naqshbandi slogan of “the hand turned to work and the heart turned to God.” In contrast to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which was also influenced by Sufi ideas, the movement works with the grain of Turkey’s secular state. In recent decades Sufi ideas and devotional practices have come under attack from two quarters—modernists, who regard Sufism as retrograde, and Wahhabi-inspired Islamists, who have taken over many Islamic insitutions with financial support from Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries. Though the two agendas are somewhat different, the consequences are the same. Modernists, adapting the ideas of the European Enlightenment, began with demands for a “rational” religion. They ended by turning against religion altogether. The Islamists, reacting against the modernists, are caught in the same “all-ornothing” attitudes. Sufism occupies the middle ground between modernism and fundamentalism, enabling religion to accommodate itself to changing social conditions. Without the mediating, adaptive power of Sufism, it is unlikely that the advocates of political Islam (or “Islamism”) will succeed in accommodating the variegated strands of Islam within the “restored” Islamic order that they seek.

SUFI ORDERS 1100–1900

Sufi Orders 1145–1389 Shrine of founding saint of most important Orders

Order

Founding Saint

Site Location

Suhrawardiyya

Shihab al-din Abu Hafs Umar (1145–1234)

Baghdad

Rifaiyya

Ahmad ibn Ali al-Rifai (1106–82)

Umm Abida

Qadiriyya

Abd al-Qadir al-Jifani (1077–1106)

Baghdad

Shadhiliyya

Abu Madyan Shuaib (1126–97)

Tiemcan

Egyptian and North African tradition derived from Iraqi tradition

Abul Hasan Ali al-Shadhili (1196–1258) Pupil of a pupil of Abu Madyan who gave his name to the Order

Iranian and Central Asian traditions from al-Junaid and al-Bistami Iraqi tradition from al-Junaid RIFAIYA

Major Order in development of institutional Sufism. All subsequent Orders trace their lineage back to one or more of these Orders. Located where they first developed, although by 1500 they had spread widely beyond these regions except for Mawlawiyya, Qadiriyya, and Chishtiyya

Alwaiya Other Orders of importance in 1500, located where they were most prominent

15°

0°

15°

Badawiyya

Ahmad al-Badawi (1199–1276)

Tanta

Kubrawiyya

Najm al-din Kubra (1145–1221)

Khiva

Yasawiyya

Ahmad ibn Ibrahim ibn Ali of Yasi (((d. 1166)

Turkestan

Mawalawiyya

Jalal al-din Rumi (1207–73)

Konya

Naqshbandiyya

Muhammad Baha al-din al-Naqshbandi (1318–89) Bukhara Abd al-Khaliq al-Ghujdawani (d. 1220) is regarded as the first organizer of the Order

Chishtiyya

Muin al-din Hasan Chishti (1142–1236)

Ajmer

30°

45°

60°

60°

900°

75°

0

200 km 20

0

200 miles

Laka Balkhash Aral Sea

Black Se a Caspian Sea

Bektashiyya

Medite Tiemcen Shuaibiyya Hahiyya Hazmiriyya Sanhajiyya

Khalwatiyya Shamsiyya MAWLAWIYYA Konya

rr

an

ean

Sea

SHADHILIYYA Tanta Dasuqiyya

Khiva Rukniyya KUBRAWIYYA Bukhara Haidariyya NAQSHBANDIYYA Ightishashiyya

Safawiyya

Yunusiyya Dhahabiyya Sayyadiyya QADIRIYYA Nurbakshiyya Baghdad Sadiyya SUHRAWARDIYYA Umm Abida RIFAIYYA Nimatailahiyya

Hamadaniyya Ashtalfiyya Ajmer Shaltariyya Firdawsiya CHISHTIYYA

rs Pe

BADAWIYYA

ia

n

Gu

Wafaiyya

45°

YASAWIYYA Turkestan

lf

Tropic of Cancer

30°

Humalthira

Re

ea dS

Alwaniyya

Ba y o f Ben ga l

Alwaiyya

15°

A ra b i a n S e a

N

INDIAN OCEAN 0°

61


Ayyubids and Mamluks Saladin, depicted here as the archetypically heroic Saracen by Gustave Doré (1884), was equally admired by the Muslims and his Crusader foes for his sense of honor and humanity. His reputation in the West was enhanced by the popularity of Sir Walter Scott’s novel The Talisman (1825).

62

Having established themselves in a fragmented part-Muslim world, the Crusader kingdoms eventually stimulated a united response. The revival can be traced to the seizure of Aleppo by the Saljuq governor of Mosul, Zangi, in 1128. His son Nur al-Din, who ruled in Damascus from 1154 to 1174, consolidated his power in Syria and Mesopotamia, sending his Kurdish general Salah al-Din (Saladin) to take control of Egypt in 1169. Two years later Saladin assumed power symbolically by deposing the last of the

Fatimid caliphs. He and his descendants, the Ayyubids, broadened the appeal of Sunnism in Egypt by allowing scholars from the different legal schools to work alongside each other, while popular devotion to the House of Ali was permitted at the mosque of Hussein, where the martyr’s head is buried. From Egypt Saladin conquered Syria and upper Mesopotamia, restoring a unified state in the East for the first time since the early Abbasids. In 1187 he crowned his achievement by taking Jerusalem from the Franks. Saladin’s Ayyubid dynasty, however, was not to endure. In 1250 the last Ayyubid sultan was killed by his Turkish mamluk soldiers. They proclaimed their own general sultan, initiating more than two and a half centuries of mamluk rule. Ten years later the brilliant mamluk general Baybars defeated the Mongol invaders at Ayn Jalut in Syria. By 1291 his successors had reunited Syria, expelled the last Crusaders, and expanded the boundaries of their empire into the upper Euphrates valley and Armenia. The mamluks kept their Turkish names and the exclusive right to ride horses and to own other mamluks as slaves. For the most part they married the female slaves who had been imported with them. If they married local women or took on Muslim-Arab names, they lost caste among themselves. When the supply of Kipchak Turkish slaves began to run out the Kipchak mamluks (known as Bahris) were replaced by Circassians (known as Burjis). Though most of the sultans tried to establish dynasties, their efforts were rarely successful, since minors or weaklings were invariably ousted by more powerful rivals. Nevertheless they demonstrated their devotion to Islam by patronizing scholarship and the Sufi orders, and by the magnificent buildings, including mosques, seminaries, and inns, which they lavished on Cairo in the distinct and ornate style that carries their name.

AYYUBIDS AND MAMLUKS

Adrianople

25°

30° Constantinople

35°

Black Sea

Nicaea

40°

45°

G E O

Trebizond

BYZANTINE

H

Amasia (Amasya)

s aly

50°

Tiflis

R

G

I A Shemakha

EMPIRE

Sebastia (Sivas)

SELJUQS OF RUM

Caesarea (Kayseri)

Myriokephalon

ARM E NIA

Mayyafariqin

1128 Zangi takes Aleppo

Masyaf

Alamut

atabeg of Mosul 1171 Mosul recognizes suzerainty of Nur al-Din Hamadan

s

ris Tig

at e

Euphr

SYRIA

Kermanshah

Damascus

Hattin Acre

Jaffa Ascalon

Damietta

Raqqa

ISMAILIS

Homs

Tripoli

S e a

Maragha D I YA R BA K I R Mosul Sinjar 1127 Zangi appointed

Hamah

ISMAILIS

Limassol

1144 Zangi takes Edessa

Aleppo

35°

Caspian Sea

A Z E R BA I JA N Tabriz

Edessa

Antioch

1154 Nur al-Din takes Damascus

Baghdad

I R A N

Rama

Hilla

Jerusalem

Kufa

IRAQ

30°

Eup hra t

Cairo

1169–1171 Saladin overthrows Fatimid caliphate

N

es

ris Tig

S

Alexandria

Maras

Tarsus

CYPRUS

ARMENIANS

R S

Adalia

CRETE

U

Melitene (Malatya)

D

Iconium (Konya)

M e d i t e r r a n e a n

K

T U R K O M A N S

Smyrna Ephesus

40°

Basra

I

E G Y P T

U rs

A R A B I A

an

i

ile N

B

D

Pe

E

O

Gu

lf

Qus

25°

Medina Yenbo

R

Aswan

e HEJAZ

d

Ibrim

Aydhab

NUBIA

S

Jedda

Mecca

e

20°

a

The Muslim Near East 1127–1174

Suakin

Territory of Zangi, c.1145 Alwa N

N

ile

Territory of Nur al-Din, c.1174

ite

Other Muslim territory, c.1174 Wh Christian territory, c.1174 15°

Seat of caliphate (Abbasid) Seat of caliphate (Fatimid)

Sada Massawa

Dahlak Islands

0 0

100 km 100 miles

Sana

YEMEN

63


The Mongol Invasion

Ghenghis Khan in state surrounded by his attendants. However luxurious his court, as shown by this lavishly decorated yurt, the Great Khan remained a

ga

N LA PO

D

w sa ar ica W Legn 1 4 12 nica Leg 241 1

RY hi Mo 241 NGA 1 U

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Bl

ac

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Al

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Tif GE lis OR GI A AZ ER BA

ep

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De

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64

clear rules of succession. The descendants of Ghenghis Khan competed for his legacy, creating several independent, sometimes mutually hostile, states. They included present-day Mongolia, northern China, the realm of the Golden Horde (centered in the Volga basin), the Chaghatay Khanate in the Oxus (Amu Darya) region, and the Ilkhan dynasty, which invaded Iran and destroyed Saljuq power in Anatolia. The Mongols were not M in sk just ruthless and violent ITIES PAL C N I I R nomads. Their sysP AN SSI RU tem of communiRi

nomad to the end of his life.

Unlike the deserts of Arabia the steppelands of inner Asia are comparatively well watered, with extensive grazing for horses. The horseback nomads who dwelt there were organized along similar lines to the Arabs in patrilineal tribal formations. Like the Arab and Turkish nomads they were able to construct large federations for successful raids on cities and areas of cultivation, creating substantial empires under formidable leaders: Attila, who ravaged central Europe in the fifth century with his Huns, is a well-known example. The Chinese emperors understood the dangers of these large formations of horseborne invaders, and used their forces to break them up whenever strong enough to do so. The Great Wall had been built as a defensible barrier to keep them out. Early in the thirteenth century a new formation developed among the Mongols in a remote region bordering the Siberian forests under Ghenghis Khan (c. 1162–1227). A clever and ruthless leader, he took command of a wide grouping of tribes from about 1206. By the time of his death he had dominated most of northern China and his armies had reached the shores of the Caspian. Divided between his sons, the empire continued to expand, overwhelming the rest of northern China and sweeping through eastern Europe as far as Germany. As with other nomadic formations, however, there were no

THE MONGOL INVASION

° e 120 L

60°

° 60

na

50

Am

BURYATS

E

MO

sh

OIROTS

NA

A

IRE

TR

AN

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OF TH SHA E KHWARIZM

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and

t

NS IMA

m Karakoru 1235 capital from

EM NIXIA

Kokend

IN CH

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1226

an

LA DA KH

C

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NATE O F DELHI Delhi

T

G S U N

BENGAL

YADAVA

A ISS OR

ong

ggy

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N

30°

A chou

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t Eas na i Ch ea S

R E P I E M Tropic

ncer

of Ca

n Cantongzhou) (Gua

ASSAM

Gan ges

ian

ng

low Yel ea S

ng

Cha ng J

SULTA

I

g

u cho Zai

ng Kaife

T Chengdu

s

H

Sea 40° of n a Jap

son

Kae

Jini

ang

Hsian

Liao

E PIR

ing Pek ijing) (Be

Taiyu

Pingy

IR M SH A K

RA JE GU

EM

ng Dato xia

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g

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PIRE

D ary a Balk h Kabu l

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Bukh

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KERAITS

A O L I M O N G

Otrar

apur

ME

Ho

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Aral Sea

ur

O NG

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R

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Volga

Caspian Sea

City sacked by Mongols

0° 14

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Sea

Mongol campaign

N

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Area paying tribute or under loose Mongol control

Ye

ar

era

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Mongol Empire, 1259

100°

90°

lg

H

Ol dS

Mongol Empire, 1236

°

80°

Bu

Mongol Empire, 1206

110°

70°

G O L D E

Homeland of the Mongol tribes

LS

os co Ry w az an

Original tribe

Se a kk of ho tsk

Vl ad im ir

OIROTS

O

°

M

Mongol Invasions 1206–59

S

d ro

go

ov

vl

ia

N

Ya ro sla

families of notables actively collaborated, and even encouraged attacks on their Muslim enemies in order to gain favor with the conquerors. Members of the ulama rose to prominence and power. For instance, the Sunni historian alJuvaini accompanied the Mongol army under the warlord Hulegu to Alamut, where the last Ismaili stronghold to survive the fall of the Fatimids was destroyed in 1256. After the conquest of Baghdad two years later, al-Juvaini became its governor. Within a few generations the western Mongols had converted to Islam, opening a brilliant new era in the story of ° its development. 130

RK ITS

°

30

cations and knowledge of the latest warfare techniques were sophisticated enough to enable them to wreak unprecedented levels of destruction. In the initial conquests, entire populations of cities were massacred, without regard to age or gender. Buildings were leveled, rotting heads stacked in gruesome pyramids. Mongol cruelty was a form of psychological warfare designed to send the message that resistance was useless. As a strategy, terror was highly effective: the amirs who governed in the Iranian highlands hastened to demonstrate 40 ° their homage. The local bureaucrats and 50

Hanoi Daluo

Bay of Bengal

65


Maghreb and Spain 650–1485 e 0°

10°

ATLANTIC OCEAN

732

10°

Tours

20

FRANKISH EMPIRE

Poitiers

AVAR Limoges

Rhône

Genoa Nice Frejus

Ancona

Ad

ria

T

Barcelona

Rome

from

M

Madrid

E

Corsica

713

tic

H

U

713

Se

a

M

BA

Naples

Sardinia

A

Palma

Y

s c I Baleari

711 Granada

s nd

711

Y

Cartagena

Gibraltar

Sicily

Tangier

A

Bône Tunis Tahant

D

Meknès Fes

S

from

712

la

RD

Taranto

Valencia

Cordoba 711

B

8 652–6

698 Kairouan

Taza

683

C

670

698

M e d i

A

L

P

H

Aghmat

Gabès

A

T

E

Tripoli

647

Sijilmasa

30°

LO

711

Toledo

712

Cádiz

O ber Ti

Marseille

ro

Florence

F

721

Zaragoza

gus Ta Lisbon 711

M

Toulouse

ES

Venice

Po

O

D

Oporto

Turin

G

AQUITAINE

718 Santander CANTA BRIAN S BASQ U Eb

N

Bordeaux Oviedo

40°

KI

Lyon

~ La Coruna

Misurata

B

R

E

B

E

R

Wargla

Muslim conquests in North Africa and Europe

S

Ghadamés El Galsa

634 to 732 Conquests under Muhammad By 644 Garama By 720 Major Muslim campaign

In Saleh

Zawilah Murzuk

Further campaigns

S

a

Muslim raids

20°

66

Ghat

a

Tropic of Ca

ncer

Muslim victory Muslim defeat

h

0

300 km

Trans-Saharan trade routes 0

300 miles

r

a

D

e

s

e

r

t

t

MAGHREB AND SPAIN 650–1485

0°

30°

40°

EMPIRE

C a u c a s u s LAZICA

1

B l a c k D anu

a

l

k

a

Baku

by 66

BULGARIA

B

M t s

S e a

be

n

s

Varna Resht

Qu izi

E 716

Constantinople

R

7

–7

670

Salonika

A

n

a

t

o

l

i

N

A

I

us

r

E

Adana Aleppo

E

N

4

by 64

M Mts Ta u

Konya

Mosul

s gri Ti

Smyrna

Z

Hamadan

P

Athens

Y

I

a

Aegean Sea

T

l U zun

Hama Homs Tripoli

Cyprus

Euphrate s

Crete Candia

e

r

r

a

n

e

a

Beirut

n

e

S

Basra

Damascus

Haifa

a

Jerusalem Gaza

642 Ajdabiya

Alexandria

646

Tanta al Giza

al-Fustat (Cairo)

A R A B I A Under Muhammad

al Faiyum Awjilah

640

644

al Minya

E g y p t N

ile

R Luxor

e Medina

d

al Kharga

S

e

W ad

a

Aswan

Aidnab Jedda

Mecca

ia sS

ub

ai

ny a di Ra Wa

N

Kuffra

W

to Dongola 652

NUBIANS Suakin

67


Islamic Spain c. 1030

Al-Andalus is the Arabic name for territories

region in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

in the Iberian Peninsula that came under

They were the Almoravids (1056–1147) and

Muslim rule and influence for nearly 800

the Almohads (1130–1269). By the end of

years. The first Muslim contact with the

Almohad rule, various Christian rulers had

region came in 711. A Muslim army crossed

united to begin the period of reconquista.

the Straits of Gibraltar from North Africa

Except for the rule of the Nasrids in Granada

Christian

and by 716 a number of cities and kingdoms

until 1492, most of the Iberian Peninsula was

Mostly Berber and converts

had been defeated. The nature and extent of

lost to Muslim authority.

Mostly Arab

Muslim rule in the area was dramatically

Christian states Caliphate of Córdoba to 1031 Granada

Islamic kingdoms after 1031 Archdiocese Important Jewish community

Population

After the 1492 defeat of Granada, most Muslims and Jews fled to North Africa to avoid the

N

Inquisition. Some submitted

F R A N C E

and converted to Christianity,

Bilbao

Vizcaya

Oviedo

i l tile s t y Cas C a 3 5 r uled b

1 02 8–

Santiago de Compostela San Marcos de León

L

E

while a small number were

Guipuzcoa Pamplona

Ó

N

e

allowed to retain their faith,

42°

NAVARRE ARAGON BARCELONA

but under much more con-

Vich Barcelona

Saragossa

strained circumstances. By the

S a ra g o ssa

Zamora

sixteenth century, however, the

Oporto

Alpuente

n

Toledo

B a d a j o z

a l - A n d a l u s Lisbon

e Val

Valencia

B

e al

ar

ic

Is

la

n

ds

Merida

Córdoba Granada Ecija Lucena

Mertola

ence of Islam in the region

Niebla Seville Moron

Murcia

Mediterranean Sea

The civilization engendered in

g

Ronda

6°

0

Andalusia

was

ments in the Middle East and 3°

F

Muslim

linked to the broader develop-

Gibraltar

9°

0

36°

Málaga la M á

Cádiz

traces.

Cartagena

Granada

a

Bah r i s

remained only through cultural

Murcia

Almería

conversion and

expulsion of Muslims was

38°

Alicante

Córdoba

process of

40°

almost complete and the pres-

Denia

Badajoz

Seville Ben i Muzai n

ci a

As Sahla

Salamanca

0°

A

T

I

North Africa, but was distinc-

3°

M

I

100 km 100 miles

D

S

tive in several respects. The art and architecture associated with the cities of Córdoba, Granada, Seville, and Toledo

68

affected by the collapse of the Damascus-

remain as landmarks. The literary heritage

based Umayyad dynasty in 750. A member of

that flowered in the later period was also dis-

the family fled to Spain, becoming a governor

tinctive in its contribution to Romance litera-

before initiating a new Umayyad dynasty,

ture. But perhaps the most enduring legacies

which eventually declared Iberia and North

were reflected in the philosophical, theologi-

Africa as a separate caliphate.

cal, and legal writings of Muslims and Jews,

Inspired by a more orthodox vision of

which would exercise a great influence on

Muslim rule, the two movements arriving in

subsequent Latin scholasticism in Europe.

North Africa established control over the

Among this tradition’s most outstanding

MAGHREB AND SPAIN 650–1485 The court of the lions in the Alhambra palace in Granada. The kingdom of Granada, the

reference points were Ibn Rushd (also

last Islamic outpost in Western

known as Averroës), who died in 1198 and

Europe, held out for 250 years in

Ibn Arabi (d. 1240), who wrote many mysti-

the face of the Christian

cal works that influenced succeeding gener-

Reconquista. Despite the

ations. The great Jewish thinker Moses

external pressures, under the

Maimonides (d. 1204) also worked in this

Nasrid dynasty it remained a

most intellectually invigorating and cultur-

sophisticated and tolerant center

ally resplendent milieu.

where Islamic and Western cultures were blended in a brilliant, creative synthesis. 6°

9°

0°

3°

B a y

o f

B i s c a y Guipuzcoa Vizcaya KINGDOM R. Eb OF ro NAVARRE Burgos

A s t u r i a s G a l i c i a Santiago de Compostella

L e ó n

o Miñ R.

3°

F R A N C E Cerdagne Roussillon

A r a g ó n C a t a l o ñ a

O l d

42°

Mallén

Castrotorafe

Saragossa

KINGDOM OF ARAGÓN C a s t i l e

Belchite

Caspe

Castronuño

Tarragona

Penausende

ro R . D ou

Alfambra

KINGDOM

C

A

S

T

I

L

Culla Pulpis

E Villel

OF

Consuegra

Soure

PORTUGAL

Alconétar

Malagón

Montánchez

Ta

R. G

Coruche

Almada Palmela

Alcázar de San Juan

ua d

ia n

Torrente

Calatrava la Vieja

Montiel

Almagro

Yeste Segura

Serpa

Lora

R

Aljustrel

Caravaca

Baeza

Setefilla Mértola

alq uad .G

u i vi

Seville Cacela

Osuna

Cehegin Aledo

Alcaudete

Martos

Benameji

Granada

1275 Muslim retaken

n

e Medina Sidonia

Archdiocese Military orders Hospital

G R A N A D A

a Alcalá de los Gazules

Vejer

100 km

The Christian Reconquest

Muslim domination

Morón Cote

0

B

S

Albufeira

ic

e al

1080 1130 1210 1250 1275

r

Estepa

Marachique

Cieza Ricote

Moratalla

A n d a l u s i a

Llerena

38°

ds

Date of reconquest

a

Moura

Santiago de Cacem

ar

an

Socovos

Hornachos Usagre

Evora

Enguera

Murcia

Alange

Setúbal

Silla Sueca

Anna

Alhambra

a

l Is

Bétera Valencia

Olocau

C a s t i l e

s

gu

Lisbon

Valencia

Toledo Mora

N e w

Belver

R.

Libros

Ocaña

e

40°

Peñiscola

Onda

N

n r a r i t e M e d

Santiago lif Che Caltrava Alcántra Avis Cristo Montesa

36°0

100 miles

Ceuta Tangier

S U L T A N A T E

O F

M O R O C C O

69


Subsaharan Africa—East From the time of the ancient pharaohs the

prestigious of all Islamic lineages in the form of

Upper Nile regions of East Africa had belonged

Quraishi pedigrees, a trend that would emerge

to the same cultural universe as Egypt. Ethiopia

among other religious and tribal leaders. While

was Christianized by Coptic missionaries from

Arabic and—in some cases—Persian brought by

the fourth century, and according to the earliest

mariners retained their prestige as the language

Portuguese took the island by

Islamic sources, the Christian Negus gave

of “True Islam,” vernacular languages devel-

storm. The first Muslim

refuge to a group of persecuted Muslims from

oped rich oral literatures that would eventually

occupants were mariners and

Mecca even before the Hijra. The Arab con-

acquire written form. The first Swahili text

merchants from the Persian Gulf

querors of Egypt reached Aswan in 641 and for

dates from 1652. The Swahili culture that dom-

who settled around AD 800.

centuries continued to move southward, giving

inates the thousand-mile coastal strip from

The southernmost outpost of Dar al-Islam until modern times, Kilwa had a population of about 10,000 in 1505, when the

Mogadishu to Kilwa is the fruit of many cenPLAN OF THE GREAT MOSQUE AT KILWA

turies of interaction between the ideas brought by Arab-Persian merchants, traders, and settlers, and the indigenous peoples of the eastern seaboard with whom they intermarried. After Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 the Portuguese systematically destroyed the prosperous Swahili cities that had sprung up along the coast. In 1505 Kilwa was captured and Mombasa was sacked. By 1530 the Portuguese controlled the entire coast from their fortresses on Pemba, Zanzibar, and other islands. In the 1650s, however, the Omanis who were Ibadi Muslims

0

15 m

N

0

expelled them from Muscat, restoring the eastern part of the Indian Ocean to Muslim

50 ft

rule. The Omanis built up the trade in cloth,

70

the Upper Nile region its predominantly Arabic

ivory, and slaves between East Africa and

character. The Funj sultanate, which main-

India. In the nineteenth century, under the sul-

tained a monopoly on the gold trade that last-

tan Sayyid Said bin Sultan (1804–56), Muscat

ed until about 1700, was created by herders

and Zanzibar were briefly united under a sin-

moving downstream along the Blue Nile. It

gle ruler, opening the way to settlement by

consolidated the Arabic influence by attracting

new waves of Muslim immigrants from South

legal scholars and holy men (known locally as

Arabia. Much of Zanzibar was turned over to

faqis) from Egypt, the Maghreb, and Arabia.

the commercial production of cloves and other

The Arab character of East African Islam

spices, using slave-plantation methods similar

was reinforced by the proximity of the coastal

to those employed in the United States. After

regions to the Hejaz and Yemen. From an early

the division of the empire between the sons of

period Somali cattle-breeders acquired the most

Sultan Said, Zanzibar came under increasing

SUBSAHARAN AFRICA—EAST

pressure to abolish the slave trade by

Mediterranean Sea

the British, who used their navy to

Alexandria

enforce the antislave trade laws and

Cairo

30°

MA M LU K

to pursue their own commercial

EMPIRE

interests. After becoming a British

N ile R

Muscat

R

to a new wave of immigrants from

ed

Se

Aswân

Tropic of Cancer

protectorate, Zanzibar played host

Qusayr

r ive

Libyan Desert

British India. Many of

a

Faras

Jedda

A

Mecca

r a

b

i

migrants were Muslims from minor-

N ubian Desert

ity communities including Momens,

20°

Suakin Old Dongola

ALWA

an

Berber

of

Dahlak

rd

Soba

Ko

Sennar

D

10°

A

A

T

Ithnashari Khojas, and Ismailis.

Shihr

Mocha Aden

Socotra

Saylac R. ETHIOPIA Berbera AGAU A DA L Debre Libanos Debre Birhan

W

R

H

M

U

Lalibela

e

l

h i te N

A

H

Y E MEN

Axum

i Bl u e N

ile R.

DARFUR

Dibarwa

F U NJ

these

a

Ras Xaafuun

S OM A L I

Bernra

y

Dakar

V a l l e

NILOTES

Jasiira Mogadishu Baraawe

f t

Lake Turkana

Equator 0°

OR OM O

I

N

D

I

A

N

S WA H I L I

i

Bigo

C I T Y S TAT E S

R

Lake Victoria

O Ungwana Gedi

C

E

A

N

Shanda Manda Malindi

Mombasa

N

Pemba Lake Tanganyika Sanga

Zanzibar

Kikulu Kamilamba Kalongo

Mafia Kilwa Kisiwani 0

10°

Comoro Is.

300 km

0

300 miles

Lake Nyasa Vohémar

W

SHONA

Zamb ez i River

K I

L

East African Slave Trade

20°

Great Zimbabwe

Khami TORWA

Mapungubwe Manekweni Li m popo R Tropic of Capricorn iver

The entrance to a private house in Stone

to 1500

MWENEMU TA PA

Town, Zanzibar. The decorated portals Tananarive

Slave trading states

Madagascar

Approximate area supplying slaves

carved from local hardwoods or trees

Sofala

Chibuene

imported from the mainland symbolized the

Slave routes

social status of the house’s owner. The walls

Other kingdoms and states

are made from coral rag and need constant maintenance to prevent destruction by

30°

40°

50°

torrential monsoon rains.

71


Subsaharan Africa—West The expansion of Islam in West Africa was

reunited the petty principalities of al-Andalus

largely peaceful. The introduction of camels for

to ward off the threat of the Christian recon-

transportation into the Sahara sometime before

quest. There were some forcible conversions of

600 had established a growing network of

Africans south of the Sahara, but these were

The portrait may be of Mansa

caravan routes between the Maghreb and the

mostly rare. The earliest converts were usually

Musa of Mali, whose wealth

Sahil (shore), the vast belt of grassy steppelands

the royal families that had always relied on reli-

made a great impression on his

that lies between the Sahara and the tropical

gious prestige to extract taxes or military serv-

contemporaries when he traveled

forests of Guinea. The principal export from the

ice from subordinate clans and communities. As

to Mecca in 1324–25.

south was gold from Bambuko on the Senegal

Muslim merchants settled in Sahil cities (most

River, which was

of which had their own Muslim quarters by the

for centuries the

late tenth century) the royals would seek to ben-

principal source

efit from the cultural prestige they carried by

of gold for the

adopting Islam as the court religion.

Detail from a fourteenth-century Catalan map showing a king AD

enthroned, with his royal regalia.

Maghreb,

West

For the most part local kingdoms continued

Asia, and Europe.

to form and re-form under different tribal

Gold—along

dynasties, with Islamic rituals and practice

with slaves, hides,

intermingling with tribal customs. With each

and ivory—was

new state the capital would become a center of

exchanged

for

wealth and Islamic learning, as rulers sought

silver,

prestige by patronizing religious scholarship.

handcrafted arti-

The most spectacular cultural center was the

cles, dried fruits,

Tuareg city of Timbuktu on the Niger. The

and cloth. More

Tuaregs were a camel-borne elite who grew

significant than

rich from the trans-Saharan trade, using slaves

the trade, how-

to exploit the salt mines and settling serfs

ever, was the dif-

from African tribes to cultivate the oases

fusion of ideas.

along their routes.

copper,

72

Islam was brought south by merchants, teachers,

The most celebrated Muslim ruler from

and Sufi mystics the French had named

Subsaharan Africa was Mansa Musa (1307–32),

Marabouts Arabic Murabits. The latter were

king of Mali. He made the pilgrimage to Mecca

often members of saintly families who acted as

in 1324–25 in the grandest possible style, leav-

hereditary arbiters among rural tribesfolk.

ing an impression that would last for genera-

In the eleventh century Murabits from the

tions. Unlike the Nilotic Sudan where the

Lamtuna Berber group established a center in

Arabic language took root, Islam was diffused

Mauretania for the propagation of Islam, from

in local vernaculars from a relatively early

where they launched a jihad against the kings of

stage. From around 1700 (and possibly earlier)

Ghana, rulers of the largest and wealthiest of

scholars and teachers developed a modified ver-

the West African states. The reforming zeal of

sion of Arabic script to convey Islamic teach-

the Murabits (known as Almoravids in Spanish)

ings in Fulfulde and Hausa, the leading lan-

carried them northward to Iberia, where they

guages of the western Sahil.

SUBSAHARAN AFRICA—WEST

10°

Ghana and Mali Empires

0°

Gharnata (Granada)

Ghana Empire, c. 1000

Algiers Tangier

Almoravid state, 1055

Tunis Tlemcen

Almoravid state, 1100

Fez Mali Empire, c. 1350

MOROCCO

Travels of Ibn Battuta, 1352 Trade route

Marrakesh Sijilmasa

Alluvial gold

30°

Ghadamés

Canary Islands Tuat

S Tropic of Cance

a

h

a r a

D e

s

e

r t

r

Taghaza Wadan (Ouadane)

20°

Ribat

B

Chinguetti

E

R

B

R

E

S

T U A R E G

SANHAJA

LAMTUNA

Tadmekka

Awdaghust Walata

SONINKÉ

Timbuktu Gao

TOKOLOR Se

G am b ia

R.

ne

g al

MOSSI

Kumbi Saleh

Koukya

Ghana Empire capital

R.

BAM B

SONGHAY

Kirina

Sokoto

Niamey

Ni

O UK

MAL

SOSSO

Azelik Jenne

INKE

ge

r

BURE

Niani

R.

10°

R.

Sassandra R.

Volt a

Akan goldfields

Bito

N

0 0

300 km 300 miles

73


Jihad States From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century a series of jihad movements occurred in West Africa that led to the creation of a number of Islamic states and transformed the presence of Islam in the region. Most of these jihads involved rebellions by nomadic tribesmen against nominally Islamic rulers who held to traditional African concepts of divine kingship, mixing rituals of pagan origin with symbols Mudbaked mosque at Djenne, Mali. Designed in the local vernacular style,

O

the building fabric is

merging with the local elites prior to the French conquest. The most famous of the West African jihad leaders was Uthman Dan Fodio (1754–1817) a mallam (religious scholar) from a well-established family of scholars in the independent Hausa kingdom of Gobir. After attacking the king for mixing Islamic and pagan practices, Dan Fodio fol10° lowed the classical Muhammadan scenario of making the hijra beyond the borders of the kingdom, before waging jihad against the king and other Fez Hausa rulers in Marrakesh C the name of C a purified O R O M

constantly renewed from the material of which it is made.

BANNU HASSAN Ouadane Argvin

1810 Oualata

WALO St. Louis

CAYOR BOAL 177

1688

6

MOSSI STATES

Mali Bamako

MANDINGO FUTA JALLON

Cachea

Gao

Segu Jenne

RO

BONDU

SEGU

TO

Gorée Fort James

Timbuktu

KAARTA

TA

74

MASINA

FU

derived from Islam. The leadership of these movements usually came from the literate class of ulama—scholars, teachers, and students— who had studied with Sufi masters locally or had acquired their reformist ideas in Mecca and Medina. Their followers were Fulani cattleherders moving south in search of pasture, who resented taxes imposed on them by the Hausa kings, joined by disgruntled peasants, runaway slaves, and other outcasts. Ibrahim Musa (Karamoko Alfa d. 1751), a Fulani torodbe (scholar), waged a struggle against the local rulers. This resulted in the creation of the state of Futa Jallon in the uplands of Senegambia. The jihad movement (which Ibrahim Musa’s descendants exploited to capture slaves for export and work in plantations) spread to Futa Toro in the Senegal River valley. Here torodbes formed an independent Islamic state, before

Chinguetti

FULA

1725

Ouagadougou

KONG EMPIRE Kong

Bunce Island

SUSU

OYOLA Little Cestos

N

0

0

ASANTE Kumasi Axim

200 km

200 miles

Accra Elmina

JIHAD STATES

Islam. His preaching conveyed a powerful message of social justice in the classic manner of Muhammad, mixing theological attacks on idolatry with denunciations of illegal taxes, sequestration of property, compulsory military service, and the enslavement of Muslims. By 1808 the movement had overthrown most of the Hausa kingdoms; in the next two decades it

expanded to include most of what is now northern Nigeria and the northern Cameroons. In 1817 Dan Fodio retired to a life of reading, writing, and contemplation, leaving the empire to his son Muhammad Belo, who became the Sultan of Sokoto—the most powerful Muslim emirate in what eventually became the British colony of Nigeria.

Jihad States c. 1800 Extent of Islam, c. 1800 Center of Islamic learning European trading post, 1600–1800 Arab trading post or city States established by jihad with date

SAN 10°

0°

20°

Major tribe

40°

30°

50°

Tunis

E

Tlemcen

ALGIERS

O

Alexandria

ip

oli

T

Cy

O

M

A

a

30°

P

Cairo

Egyp t

N

E

M

Asyut

Re

T

ic rena

I

Tr

R

M e di te rr ane an S e a Tunis

d

T U A R E G

Medina Aswan

Tropic of Cancer

Se a

Mecca

Jedda 20°

C H A D A R A B S

AIR

Dongola

Suakin

FUNJ Massawa

HAUSA STATES

Kukuwa

S

Kano

O

K

BORGU

DAHOMEY

OLD

Lagos

Porto Novo Quida

DARFUR

Sennar

Axum Gondar

El Fasher

Zabid

AWSA Awsa

GI

O INGALA T O O 1 OY

ETHIOPIA

RM

BENIN

IGBO Old Calabar

Aden Saylae Berbera

10°

I

804 –17

Benin Brass

Wara

Ngarzagmu

BA

MAHI

WADAI

BO RN U KAN E M

Hodeida

Harer

BOBANGI

GALLA

NILOTES

S OM

A LI

OROMO

Bohney

BABWA

Mogadishu Baraawe Equator

75


The Indian Ocean to 1499 Before the advent of Islam the Indian Ocean

(Socotra), to northeast Africa (Adulis and

was part of an overlapping and interconnect-

Opone in Axum/Ethiopia), and down the

ed local, regional, and transcontinental net-

coast of East Africa by way of Menouthias

work of trade routes stretching between

near Pemba as far as Rhapta (whose site is yet

China, Southeast Asia, East Africa, and the

to be discovered, but may be Bagamoyo on the

Mediterranean.

coast of modern Tanzania). The other route

The Periplus (Circuit) of the Erythrean °

°

Al

ex

guide of the first century, describes two maritime trade routes commencing from ports on

an

Al

dr

An

ia

tio

lis

po

ch

iro

Jer u

m

em

la

Ba

gh

ates

chants of the classical Greco-Roman world

sal

E u ph r

Ay

N

He

copper, spices, and slaves to their partners on Ay

d

ra

z

ab

Jed d

a

az

din

rain

ia n

Bah

Me

Gu

f

l

A

Sea

Dhow is a generic term for a variety of

a

cca

R e d

Arabia by Muza (Mocha) and Dioscurides

Shir

Me

P e rs

went down through the Red Sea to southern

da

nb u

dh

lateen-rigged craft that plied the Indian

R

A

O

B

I A

San ’a

Ocean. Designed for seasonal

Mo ch

monsoons, the dhows stayed close to the

Ax

coast, planning their runs to coincide

um

a

f r i c a

gad

mb

asa

Zan

ziba

r

r

en

Ber ber a

Mo

Mo

Shih

Ad

Zay

la

A

z

Bas

ja

Ya

the western Indian Ocean littoral. One route

bri

sul

Tigris

lzu

engaged in the trade of items such as textiles,

Ta

Mo

Qu

Kome, and Berenike). These connected mer-

ishu

Pem

ba is

land

Kilw

a

Madagascar

76

Tif

ep

Ca

the Red Sea (i.e., Myus Hormus, Leuke

with the monsoon cycles.

40°

30

20

Sea, a Greek-language merchant-mariner’s

Soco Islan tra d

Suha

r

m

an

THE INDIAN OCEAN TO 1499

veered toward India’s northwestern shores by

powered navigation, the northeast monsoon

Barygaza (Broach) and then south to Muziris

allowed the large lateen-rigged sails of the

Cranganore and Komar (Cape Comorin).

Arabian, Persian, and Indian dhows to sail

The movements of people and goods were

such routes as Aden to Cochin with the sails

regulated by the Indian Ocean’s predictable

trimmed to keep the ship pointing as closely as

monsoon cycle. The benign northeast or win-

possible into the direction of the wind. They

ter monsoon lasts approximately half the year

traded up the Malabar coast of India on the

(from November to March). Before the days of

opposite tack before returning with their sails

50°

60°

70°

80°

° 120

110°

100°

90°

Caspain Sea

A Se ral a

° 130

rum arako

K

Trade routes to 1500 Trade routes

Urg

ench

S yr D Sama rkand

ara

ary

g Beijin

A

Kashgar

m uD

Under Islamic control

a

Hu an gH e

Buch

P E R S I A

ary

a

low Yel ea S 30°

ng

Kaife

Hera

t

ang

Luoy

Hor muz

s Multan

I

H

C

Ha

t

Mus Is. ira

ic of

Trop

A r a b S e ai a n

er

Canc

zhou Quanchou) an (Chu

Delhi

Ahmedabad Cambay Broach Diu Surat

ou

ng Jia

Lhasa

Daybul

nzh

A

N

Cha ng

u Ind

Mu sca

° 40° 140

20°

n Cantou) ngzho

Gan ges

(Gua Chittagong

Hanoi

Daman

I N D I A

Annam M

Burma

uth So ina h C a Se

e

g kon

oast

bar C Mala

Champa B a y

o f

10°

B e n g a l

Khmer

o

dana

Sulu Sea

Calicut

Gulf of Siam

Quillon

Cape Comorin

Min

bes Cele a Se 0°

Maldive Islands Malacca

Born

eo

S u m a t

I N D I A N

r a

Java Sea

Flore

s Sea

O C E A N 10°

Java

77


Saljuq ruler on his throne. Their position at the western end of the Silk Road enabled the Saljuq sultans to indulge their taste for luxuries, such as the finest Chinese silks and jewels, from Central Asia. Manuscript, 13th century.

78

full and their yard arms swinging free before

trade routes were caught up in increasing

the wind. The southwest monsoon, which

rivalry between the Byzantine and Sasanian

brings rain to western India and generates

(Persian) Empires. The Byzantines supported

more turbulent weather, was best avoided.

Ethiopian raids on South Arabia from ports

By the seventh century, the trading worlds

on the Red Sea, while the Persians secured

described in The Periplus had long disap-

their control over the Persian Gulf (Bahrain)

peared. Western Indian Ocean ports and

and southern Arabia at Aden, Suhar, and

THE INDIAN OCEAN TO 1499

Daba. In between the two empires were the

Political and economic control over Indian

Quraish, who would become the first

Ocean trade routes by Muslim dynasties based

Muslims engaged in land-based trade at their

in the Middle East was complemented by the

sanctuary at Mecca.

growth of Muslim communities, mercantile

The early trajectory of Muslim conquest

centers, and independent states around the lit-

and expansion was away from the Indian

toral, many of which have complex and multi-

Ocean and toward the Mediterranean. But

stranded histories that have yet to be studied.

successive Muslim dynasties made efforts to

The eastern African coast, and its Swahili-

gain political and economic control over the

speaking peoples, had multiple connections to

Indian Ocean. The Umayyad conquest and

the Arabian Peninsula, the Persian Gulf, and

occupation of Daybul in Sind in 712 was a

India. Muslim settlements (mosques and bur-

first step in this direction. Subsequently, the

ial sites) at Shanga date to the latter half of

Abbasids’ founding of their capital Baghdad

the eighth century and there is evidence to

in 762 near the Tigris, with its access via

support the presence of local Muslim dynas-

Basra to the Persian Gulf, provided further

ties and their control of island settlements on

impetus to Muslim maritime trade and settle-

Pemba, Zanzibar, Mafia, and Kilwa between

ment from the shores of East Africa to south-

c. 1000 and 1150. Many of these communities

ern China. Mariners’ reports collected in the

were thriving when Ibn Battuta visited the

Akhbar al-Sin Wal-Hind (c. 850) provide a

region by way of Mogadishu in 1331.

glimpse into what a typical round-trip mer-

Ibn Battuta is also a source of information

cantile sea voyage from Siraf (south of

for the presence of Muslims along China’s

Shiraz) to Canton would have been like in

southern coastline up to Quanzhou (Zaitun),

Abbasid times. Contemporary maritime

which he reached in 1347. At Quanzhou, buri-

activity in the southwestern Indian Ocean,

als and a mosque (c. 1009) mark the presence

from Arabia to East Africa (Bilad al-Zanj), is

of a Muslim community at the trading port.

attested to in the Muruj al-Dhahab of al-

The histories of Muslim communities in

Masudi (d. 928).

Southeast

Asia

are

also

informed

by

In 969, the Fatimids conquered Egpyt and

transoceanic trade. By the fifteenth century, it

founded Cairo, posing a serious political and

was the entrepot of Malacca on the Malay

commercial challenge to the Abbasids. The

coast that emerged as a major maritime cen-

Fatimids succeeded in diverting trade in the

ter in the larger Muslim Indian Ocean trading

western Indian Ocean from Baghdad and the

network, eclipsing centers on Java and

Persian Gulf to Fustat and the Red Sea. The

Sumatra. Malacca had a sizeable Muslim

commercial importance of Egypt and the Red

population that had strong connections to

Sea trade route to the western Indian Ocean

western Indian merchants and ports such as

was maintained by the Fatimids’ successors,

Cambay (Gujarat). Ironically, Ibn Majid, the

the Ayyubids and Mamluks. Documents from

mariner credited with piloting Vasco da Gama

the Cairo Geniza collection offer evidence of

through the Indian Ocean in 1498, provides an

the complex network of Fustat-based traders,

unfavorable description of Malacca. The port

stretching between North Africa and India via

fell to the Portuguese in 1511, marking the

the western Indian Ocean, operating between

firm establishment of the first European mar-

the eleventh and thirteenth centuries.

itime power in the Indian Ocean. 79


The Indian Ocean 1500–1900 to the harbor of Muscat were originally built by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century on the site of earlier strongholds. After surviving Ottoman attacks, the Portuguese garrisons surrendered to the Omani Imam Sultan bin Saif in 1650.

40 °

O TT OM PIR AN EM

30

°

u

wa 152 0–2 2

Portuguese town

G

ssa

Portuguese factory

n

Ma

Bah 151 rain I 5 . Tro –1622 pic of C anc

sia

Portuguese possession with date of acquisition

lf

er

Ade

n1

f

524–

c

EMPIRE

O C E A N

e 150

7

0 Equato

r

80

0

500 km 500 miles

Syriam 1520

–1613

M

I N D I A N

biqu

BU RM A Bay of Bengal

1505 A njediva 1560–16 37 Bhatka i 1510–16 16 Cannanor Mangalore e Cal icut 1510–1616 1502 Cochin Jaffna 1560 Quilon Batticaloa 1512 Colombo 1519–1638 1518 Galle Sri Lanka Maldiv e Is. 1518–1640 1518

Mo g aw adishu a

oçam

Hooghly 1537–1640

Surat 1540–1 615 Daman 15 58

Masulipatam 1570–1605

Bar

to M

Cambay1539

A

Soc 1516 otra I. –11

Diu 1535 1530 Bom bay Chaul 1509

N

a

M Mo alind mb i 152 a Pem sa 150 0 5–2 Zan ba I. 8 1 Kilw zibar I 520 . aK 1503 i 1505 siwan i

Agra

MOGUL

N

i

Delhi

A

Arab ia Sea n

38 Gu lf o f A d e n

r

HU MANC

Ban da Hor r Abba m s 150 1515– uz 7–16 22 1622 Mas k 1550– at 1650

Portuguese trade routes

A

FA

VI (PE D EM P RS IA) IRE

Per

°

i a a b A r

c. 1580

E

Red Sea

Indian Ocean

20

SA

Red Sea

Vasco da Gama’s voyage around the Cape of Good Hope in 1498 was an epoch-making 20 ° event, putting an end to the Muslim monopoly of trade in the Indian Ocean and opening the way for the British and Dutch Empires in South Asia and the East Indies. The era of European imperialism began with merchant adventurers who established trading posts in the southern seas, which became the bases for further expansion. The Portuguese were the pioneers, taking Kilwa and sacking Mombasa in 1505 before establishing bases in Zanzibar and Pemba. In 1509 they defeated a combined Egyptian-Indian fleet to take Goa on the Malabar coast. In 1515 they conquered Malacca and in the same year Hormuz on the Persian Gulf. Portuguese hegemony was soon replaced by that of the Dutch, whom the Portuguese had tried to exclude from the lucrative pepper and spice trade.

The forts guarding the entrance

SI A M

a

Ayutthay

e

Singapor 1526

Malacca 1511–1641

Pasei 1514–1641 Atjeh 1520–24 Pidie 1509 Su Baros 1519 m N a

tr

a

Bantam 1512–96

OTTOMAN EMPIR

ZI P (J AN AP G AN U )

THE INDIAN OCEAN 1500–1900

a

SA

FA

Per

E

P U EM MANCH ) A N (CHI

VI (PE D EM P RS IA) IRE

sia

n of C

u

pic

anc

lf

er

Delhi

ng)

i a

s Is. dore Pesca 1622–24 dia eelan Ft. Z 1624–62 o Maca 5 5 5 1

Agra 1602

1612

N OC

EA

C

FI 1640 Hooghly CI Serampore A A P RM BU 1616 1 Lambok I. Ph A Pipli 1674–92 (Dutch protectorate) MOGUL N i l 1637 Sumbawa I. ip Bay of h –49 EMPIRE pi Sout a Syriam 1635 Bengal 1669–75 (Dutch protectorate) ne Chin Masulipatam 1605–1781 Neth. M A I 2 Kupang SI s. Sea a 1637 N 1510 Goa Ayutthay eth., 16 1640 Port. Armagon 1620 1611 English 38 En anao I. 1607 d Madras Pulicat 1609 1653 Neth. n n a 1565–17 glish Bhatkal i w M /1642 la a 81 Manga P 163 9 Sadras 1658 lo 1596 1663 Canna re Tranquebar 1616 nore Negapatam 1658 rch. 1663 Cochin A u l Jaffna 1658 Su /46–63 1661 Quilon ilalo era 8 3 Trin 6 coma li 1 Dja almah21 1639 Tutticorin o w H –16 enad 7 Negombo 1640 ttani 1602 Ne nea Pa M 1658 5 Colombo 16 1522 ui ah 1642 G ed n 1656 Galle Sri Lanka K 7 ei a 7 Pas mudra l Maldiv 1601 English Atjeh 1657/ Sa Is e Is. 1640 1644–1795/1815 Perak 1655 a 1649 Neth. cc I. Is. Pidie 1520–1640 41 9–50 am olu alaccare161641 Aru 3 bas 160n e o M M m a S Cer 8/52 I. 2 r Tiku Jahogapore1526 6 o u 1 r B 0 s 16 be Bu 2/58 Sin tan I. 1641 s ana I. Cele Bin 162 Is. Sukad7–35 Neth. 1519–1668 Port. Baro bar 0 1628–175 a I. 160 I A 1668 Neth. uton67 etar I. anim ish kassar m gl B T N gk En an 2 / W 75 N O Ma 67 Port. a t 1615 biB1668 illiton I. 161 1641 PriamanPadang 1613 1672 16 16 B C E A N r aDjam 1545– 70 English 0 1659 g 1668 S e a r 152 1601– –15 Neth. an o b em 1663 Painan m al P 1607 7 Neth. ntuka Ti Java Indrapura 1648/6 rt Lara 1667 1616 2 0 500 km 1659 to Neth. Fo Batavia a Is. w Ja va 1 a b 1630–64 English 1610 d Sum Equato 0 500 miles ok an r Lamb Surat 1618–83 Daman 15 58

N

Diu 1530–1 15 664 Port 35 1661 En . Bombay Arab glish ia Chaul Sea n 1509–17 37

lf o f A d e n

elu

(Ke

Sal sa) San Ft. 2–62 Formo 164 wan ( Tai 62 – 1624

G

a b A r

Tro

him aS neg Ta 2 154

or vad

Ahmedabad

Gu

E IR

ki asa Nagshima) (De –1859 1 164 t Easna i Ch ea S

A

ds

M

ZI P (J AN AP G AN U )

Su

I N D

P EM

(CH

IR

E

a im Sh ega n Ta 2 154

t Easna i Ch ea S

gpo Nin –45 1533

IN

A)

w gcho Chan47–49 15 n o t Can hn I. ow Shan) o J t h o S Maca 5 (Shangc 155 1555

h Sout a Chin a Se

Ph

N OC

PA ili

pp

in

1564

Ja va

e Is. 21 Spic 1621 –16 – 1512 1522 nate r e T an I. Batj 1558

orneo C

Sea

FIC

.

ado Men1540

B

CI

ssar Maka 667 1 1545–

EA

e Is

Java

Indian Ocean

es eleb

a ntuk Lara 1557 Fort

.

na I boi Am 1–99 1 15

520

Tim

or 1

The Dutch defeated the Portuguese at Amboyna in 1605, taking Banda in 1621, Ceylon (Sarandib, now Sri Lanka) in 1640, and Malacca in 1641. Batavia (now Jakarta), which would become the capital of the Dutch East Indies, was founded in 1619. Although the process was a gradual one, the Portuguese intervention introduced changes in the patterns of trade and in the political economies of the Muslim states in the region. By the end of the seventeenth century England and Holland, two small countries perched on the western periphery of Eurasia, had become (with France) the dominant forces in world trade. Cargoes of raw commodities—timber, grain, fish, and salt— replaced the traditional trade in luxury goods. The shift in cargoes heralded even more far-reaching changes, whereby the world would be divided between colonies producing raw materials and industrial and

c. 1650

Dutch possessions Portuguese possessions Spanish possessions British possessions Danish possessions Factory

81


As the British began to establish themselves in India, they imported their own architectural styles, as shown in a watercolor of a house built at Chapra in 1796.

commercial centers producing high-value goods and services. Viewed from the perspective of the twenty-first century, Vasco da Gama’s voyage represents the beginnings of a process that culminates in “globalization.” Two technological factors drove these changes: better sails and gunpowder. Their position on the eastern shore of the Atlantic had encouraged the Portuguese to develop powerful naval vessels capable of riding the Atlantic storms and sailing closer to the wind than the lateen-rigged Arab dhows. The Portuguese ships were larger and sturdier than their Arab and Persian counterparts, and thus able to hold more cargo and engage in longer runs. The new route around southern Africa to the Indies bypassed the West Asian trade routes, bringing goods from South Asia and the Indies—spices, cloths, and other valuable commodities— directly to Lisbon, enriching the merchants there but cutting out the intermediate beneficiaries of the trade between Europe and Asia 82

(these had included the Venetians and Genoese who plied the waters of the eastern Mediterranean as well as the Muslim Eg yp t traders who carried goods by land). The gunpowder revolution—like the revolu20 ° tion in sailing techniques—was gradAn ual, but reached equally far in its Eg gloyp consequences. With the developSu tian da n ment of cannon, stone fortresses ceased to be impregnable, lending the military advantage to ET HI OP IA well-organized central powers that could afford to make the costly investment in artillery Bri tis hE and firearms. As military ast Af ric a technology advanced, a shift Ge rm an took place in the balance of Ea Af st ric a power between the tradiZa nzi bar tional warrior classes, for whom military prowess was vested in notions of tribal solidarity, honor, prestige, and courage (classic virtues of the nomadic conquerors), and economic powers

30

°

THE INDIAN OCEAN 1500–1900

with sophisticated administrative centers capable of keeping up with the latest military technology. Under European pressure the fragmented Muslim states that followed in the wake of Arab caliphate and the Mongol invasions were consolidated into larger units dominated by the three great “gunpowder empires”: Ottoman Eurasia, Shiite Iran, and Mughal India.

Indian Ocean

1800 – 1900 Spheres of influence, c. 1907

European, U.S., and Japanese territories in Asia

Russian Empire, 1855

British

British

Allied to British administration

French

French

To Russia by 1900 Occupied by Russia, 1900

Russian

Dutch German Treaty Port in China, with date of opening

Portuguese Japanese German

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Rise of the Ottomans to 1650

attacking the French town of Toulon in 1545.

S Milan

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REP. OF GENO A

below depicts an Ottoman fleet

SWISS CONFED.

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Magnificent.” The painting

FRA

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reign of Suleiman I “the

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

Paris

A

The great period of Ottoman expansion occurred during the

The Ottoman Empire became the most farreaching of all the Islamic states. It began its remarkable expansion as a frontier state conducting raids on Byzantine territories from Bithynia near the Sea of Marmara early in the thirteenth century. In 1242–43 the Mongols defeated the Saljuqs, making them vassals, and pushing increasing numbers of Turkish nomads into the peninsula in search of pasturage and booty. The breakup of Saljuq power led to the creation of several petty states under loose Mongol overlordship. After taking Bursa, which they made their capital in

10°

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Venice VE RE NE PU TIA BL N IC P AP A L S T AT E S

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N A P L ES

40°

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S A R D I N IA T yrrehenian Sea

Barbary Coast Algiers Bona

SICILY

Tunis

ALGERIA MALTA

1518

TUNIS 1574 Jerba 1560

Tripoli

TR 30°

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1551

Wargla 1566

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1326, the Ottomans became players in the factional strife that beset the Byzantine Empire in its latter days. It was as auxiliaries to one of the contending parties that they first crossed the straits and occupied Byzantine territory in Europe. They occupied Greece, Macedonia, and Bulgaria, and finally established their control over the western Balkans by defeating the Serbs at the Battle of Kosovo in 1389. Successive campaigns involving coalitions of Latin and Orthodox powers 84

h

a

Expansion of the Ottoman Empire 1328–1672

20°

Ottoman territory, 1328

Ottoman territory, 1520 (Selim I)


Ottoman vassal from 1541


Ottoman territory, 1566 (Suleiman I)

Ottoman territory, 1402 (prior to Mongol attack)


Ottoman territory, 1481 (Muhammed II)

Ottoman territory, 1630–72



RISE OF THE OTTOMANS TO 1650

30°

20°

POLAND

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85


(including Naples, Venice, Hungary, Transylvania, Serbia, and Genoa) failed to stem the Ottoman advances into Europe. In 1453 Constantinople fell to the forces of Mehmet the Conqueror, fueling Ottoman imperial ambitions and providing the basis for further expansion. In 1521 the Ottomans captured Belgrade from the Hungarians. By 1529 they had reached the gates of Vienna, the Habsburg capital. By the time of the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566 they controlled a swath of European territory from the Crimea to southern Greece. Ottoman victories were even more spectacular in the lands of Islam. After defeating the Safavids at Chaldiran in 1514, the Ottomans annexed eastern Anatolia and northern Mesopotamia, enabling them to control the central Asian trade routes linking Tabriz and Bursa. In 1516 and 1517 they took over the Mamluk Empire in Syria and Egypt, giving them control of the holy places of the Hejaz. Building on the Greek seamanship acquired from their Byzantine predecessors, they contested the power of Venice in the eastern Mediterranean and challenged the dominance of Habsburg Spain in the western Mediterranean, taking Algiers (1529), Tunis (1534–35), Jerba (1560), and the strategic island of Malta, the last Crusader stronghold, in 1565, as well as Cyprus in 1570. This string of naval victories finally provoked a successful counterattack. In 1571, the defeat of the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto by a Venetian–Habsburg coalition was celebrated all over Europe as a triumph for Christendom. Although the Ottomans refurbished their fleets and retook Tunis in 1574, a balance of power was achieved in the Mediterranean, confirming the frontiers that remained between the Muslim lands to the south and Christian lands to the north. Paradoxically the early Ottoman state was both militantly Islamic and strongly influenced by Greek culture, heir to the Saljuqs 86

but also to practices and structures derived from the Roman–Byzantine Empire it replaced. Straddling the Christian Balkans and the western reaches of Dar al-Islam, it was a bridge between rival civilizations. Being close to Constantinople, which had long been the goal of Muslim conquest, the state ruled by the Osmanli family (from which the English spelling Ottoman derives) attracted many of the ghazis (holy warriors) seeking glory in the jihad against Christendom. In Anatolia these Turkish incomers and pastoralists tended to be prejudiced against the Christian villagers, some of whom may have converted to avoid persecution. Among the incomers, however, there were also dervishes and members of Sufi brotherhoods from Inner Asia, such as Hajji Bektash (d. 1297). He preached versions of Islam that tended to merge Islamic beliefs, both Sunni and Shiite, with Christian beliefs and religious practices, facilitating the conversion of Greek and Armenian-speaking peoples. The Ottoman rulers assisted this process by excluding bishops and metropolitans from their sees, leaving the Christians without leaders, and by replacing the Orthodox infrastructure of hospitals, schools, orphanages, and monasteries with Islamic institutions staffed by Persian and Arab scholars. By the fifteenth century more than 90 percent of the Anatolian population had become Muslim, though substantial minorities of Christians and Jews remained in the cities. While the peasants were mostly converted, the nobility and civil servants of the old imperial system were integrated into the Ottoman armies and administration, giving the state a distinctly Byzantine character. Though a measure of religious autonomy was permitted through the millet system of self-governing minorities the Ottoman state was highly centralized. In other Muslim lands (including some of the Arab provinces that came under the looser forms of Ottoman dominion) the practice of

RISE OF THE OTTOMANS TO 1650

Islam in law and society was virtually self-regulating. The rulers appointed the qadis (judges) but in most other respects allowed the religious institutions such as the mosques and madrasas where the ulama were trained, the networks of Sufi lodges, and the guilds of artisans that were often connected to them, to flourish independently. By contrast with other Islamic regimes, the Ottomans dominated, controlled, and shaped the societies they governed. Though theoretically subject to the Sharia, the sultans supplemented the divine law with firmans (decrees) regulating the status and duties (including dress codes) of all their subjects. They brought the ulama, the Sufi lodges, and the guilds of artisans under state control by dictating appointments, grading, and licenses. Society was divided into two classes: the rulers and the ruled, the principal distinction being the right of the askeri (rulers) to exploit the wealth of the subjects through imposts and taxes. In theory all the land was the personal property of the sultan. The ruling elites were not confined to the ranks of pashas, beys, and ayan (Muslim notables) who dominated the empire in the provinces: they included patrician Greek families, ecclesiastical authorities, and prominent Jewish and Armenian bankers, as well as princely families from the Balkans.

This portrait was intended to show Suleiman to his royal peers in Europe. The Ottoman sultans did not display their images to their own subjects until late in the nineteenth century.

87


The Ottoman Empire 1650–1920

10°

G ERMANY

50°

Paris

Vienna

F R A N C E

AUSTRIA-

SWISS CONFED.

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Milan

Venice Po

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At its peak in the sixteenth century the Ottoman system was highly efficient. But it also contained crucial weaknesses, notably the system of succession. In nomadic societies the absence of a fixed mode of succession has a sound Darwinian rationale: after a struggle with his peers, a chief will emerge who is fittest to lead his tribe. Transferred to the center of an imperial system, the result will be civil war.

0°

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Abdul Hamid II was the last

Y

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Ottoman sultan to wield Barcelona

effective power over the Empire. 40°

An absolute monarch and Ba

ri lea

s land c Is

Sardinia

T y rrehenian Sea

opponent of political liberalization, he nonetheless encouraged educational, legal,

Sicily Barbary Coast

and economic reforms.

Algiers

Bona Tunis

Algeria 1830 French

M A LTA

Tunisia 1881 French

Tripoli

Tr

ipo

li

Wargla 30°

Fez

After a series of fratricidal struggles, the Ottomans dealt with the problem of the succession by confining the sultan’s male relatives to the palace’s Inner Courtyard or harem, thereby preventing future sultans from acquiring vital knowledge of military and secular affairs. From the seventeenth century the Ottoman sultans, who came to power as a result of “Byzantine” maneuvers and harem intrigues, lacked experience in the field and familiarity with the realities of politics. The power of the state and the army held up briefly under ruthless viziers such as Mehmed Koprulu 88

S

zan1 9 1 2

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a

Ottoman Empire 1683–1914 Territory lost by 1718 Territory lost by 1812 Territory lost by 1881

N

A

Territory lost by 1914 Ottoman Empire, 1914

20°

1811

Date granted autonomy

1830

Date of territory lost

0 0

200 km 200 miles

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1650–1920

20°

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1878

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89


(r. 1656–61), son of an Albanian Christian, and his son Ahmed (r. 1661–76), allowing further expansion north of the Crimea and (after Ahmed’s death) even a second siege of Vienna (1683). The process of decline, however, proved irreversible. The influx of Spanish silver from the Americas created a massive inflation problem, undermining the commercial classes and the ability of government to pay for troops whose modern weaponry (muskets and gunpowder) required cash rather than booty. Provincial governors and local magnates gained power at the expense of the center, hiring private armies or raising taxes for themselves. The Janissaries, who had evolved into a privileged body within the state, became enmeshed in large-scale nepotism and misrule. Land concessions that should have nurtured agriculture degenerated into tax-farms, driving cultivators off the land, and creating gangs of rural bandits or urban migrants who drifted into cities already overcrowded and subject to famine, plague, and disorder. The millet system, which allowed the Christian and Jewish communities (and in Iraq the Shiite) a high degree of administrative autonomy, undermined the legitimacy of the state by privileging Western traders and encouraging Greek and Balkan Christians to look toward the Empire’s enemies in Russia and Western Europe for inspiration and support. Internally decentralized, the Empire proved no match for the rising powers of Europe, whose military and economic systems were beginning to benefit from the revolution in scientific thought. During the last two decades of the seventeenth century, the European powers made significant advances at the Empire’s expense. Between 1684 and 1687 the Habsburgs took most of Hungary north of the Danube and took Serbia in 1689. The Venetians seized Dalmatia and southern Greece (Morea). Poland invaded Podolia, and the Russians, under the newly modernized army of Peter the Great, took Azov in the Crimea. Although the Ottomans regained 90

some of these territorial losses during the first half of the eighteenth century, in the longer term they were unable to stem the tide of Russian advance. In 1768 the Russians began a new campaign, occupying Moldavia and Wallachia (modern Romania) and the Crimea. Under the humiliating terms of the treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarca (1774) the Ottomans were obliged to allow Russia a foothold on the Black Sea, as well as freedom of navigation and commerce, with access to the Mediterranean and to overland trade in the Empire’s Asian and European provinces. Although Moldavia and Wallachia remained technically under Ottoman suzerainty, the increased autonomy they were granted laid them open to Russian manipulation. Under Russian pressure a clause permitting the erection of a Russian church in Istanbul would be converted into a general right of Russian intervention on behalf of all the sultan’s Orthodox Christian subjects. The flow of ideas that followed in the wake of European victories would prove even more devastating than military defeats. Napoleon Bonaparte’s brief occupation of Egypt in 1798 planted the seeds of modern scientific thought and revolutionary change in the Empire’s wealthiest (but most neglected) province. By defeating the neo-mamluk amirs who governed Egypt under Ottoman authority, Napoleon opened the way for penetration of Western ideas under the modernizing dynasty of Mehmed Ali (r. 1805–48), an Albanian officer who seized power in 1805, making himself an independent ruler in all but name. The colonial ambitions of a restored French monarchy led to the loss of Algeria from 1830 and the establishment of a protectorate in Tunisia (1881). The winds of nationalism that tore through Europe in the wake of the French Revolution reached the Christian communities in the Balkans, starting with the Serbian revolt of 1804–13 and the Greek war of independence (1821–29). They culminated in the treaty of San Stefano in 1878, by which the Ottomans

THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE 1650–1920

were forced to concede the independence of Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro. The final dismemberment of the Empire was only postponed because of rivalries between the European powers, with Britain and France propping up the “sick man of Europe” against Russia in the Crimea (1854–56) while Austria competed with Russia for ascendancy in the Balkans. In 1911, Italy invaded Tripoli and Cyrenaica, forcing the Ottomans to concede their suzerainty. In 1912, the combined Balkan powers (Serbia, Bulgaria, Greece, and Montenegro) took all the remaining Ottoman territories in Europe, except for a strip of land around Istanbul, before arguing among themselves. In August 1914 the rivalries between the European powers in the Balkans erupted into a

worldwide war, with the Ottoman Empire ranged alongside Austria and Germany against Britain, France, Italy, and Russia. The defeat of the Central Powers in 1918, the abdication of the sultan in 1922, the abolition of the caliphate in 1924, as well as the exchange of populations between Turkey and Greece in 1921 brought the Ottoman Empire to its end.

The Dolmabahçe Palace, Istanbul. The classical Venetianstyle facade of this palace, like others built for the Ottoman sultans in the nineteenth century, reveals change in cultural orientation, as they abandoned their former seclusion and displayed their power like European monarchs.

91


Iran 1500–2000 The history of modern Iran began with the

tombs of Sufi saints desecrated, and khanaqas

ruling Safavid dynasty (1501–1722) which

(hostelries) given over to Shiite youth. Jews and

established Twelver Shiism as the state religion.

Zoroastrians were subjected to forcible conver-

The dynasty’s founder Shaikh Safi al-Din

sion. The pilgrimage to Mecca was discouraged in

(1252–1334) was a Sufi teacher and mujaddid

favor of ziyaras (visits) to the lavishly-endowed

(renovator) of Sunni allegiance who started a

shrines of the Shiite imans. In the eighteenth cen-

movement of reform among the tribes of eastern

tury, following the disintegration of the Safavid

Anatolia

and

Empire, Iran endured a period of anarchy with

northwestern Iran.

Ottomans and Russians controlling the north, and

His

descendant

Afghans, Afshars, Zand, and Qajar tribal chiefs

Ismail

vying for power in the south. Though Nadir Shah,

(1487–1524) acti-

an Afshar chieftain who proclaimed himself Shah

vated

popular

in 1736, curbed the power of the Shiite ulama, the

eschatological

turbulence of the eighteenth century permitted the

expectations in the

ulama to obtain a higher degree of institutional

period of disorder

autonomy than their Sunni counterparts.

Shah

following the collapse

of

Under the Qajar dynasty (1779–1925) the pow-

the

ers of the Shiite ulama were enhanced by zakat

Timurid Empire by

and khums (religious taxes), which were paid to

Shah Suleiman and his courtiers

proclaiming himself the Hidden Imam, or

them directly, while their custodianship over

with Western visitors, shown

expected Shiite messiah. Led by a fearsome band

shrines and waqfs (charitable trusts) gave them

against a lyrical European-style

of warriors known as Qizilbashis (red heads)

access to rents from land and housing. The loca-

landscape. The Safavid rulers

from their distinctive red turbans, the movement

tion of two of the most important shrines at

exported carpets and silk to

enabled Shah Ismail, who proclaimed himself

Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, in Ottoman-controlled

Europe as well as ceramics

king in Tabriz in 1501, to conquer most of Iran in

territory, gave them a power base outside the

the course of the next decade.

domain of the state. The mourning ceremonies

designed by Chinese craftsmen for the Western markets. They

Though the power of the Safavid state, based

commemorating the martyrdom of the Imam

on the brilliant new capital built by Shah Abbas

Hussein at Karbala and the associated taziya (pas-

figurative painting by claiming

(1588–1629) in Isfahan, was limited, relying for its

sion plays) became characteristic features of pop-

that the Imam Ali, revered by

authority on a network of uymaqs or smaller

ular religiosity, making Shiism a component ele-

the Shiites, had been a painter as

chieftains and the traditional iqta system of tax-

ment in Iranian national identity.

well as a calligrapher.

farming, the Safavid strategy of religious consoli-

As pressures from Russia and Britain began to

dation gave Iran the distinctive Shiite character it

impinge on Iran in the nineteenth century, the

retains to this day. Once the Qizilbashis had done

ulama came to the forefront of nationalist resist-

their work Ismail’s messianic claims were deem-

ance. In 1873 they forced the Shah to cancel far-

phasized, and Shiite scholars were imported from

reaching economic and financial concessions

Syria, Iraq, Bahrain, and al-Hasa to promote the

made to a British citizen, Baron de Reuter, and in

“official” version of Twelver Shiism, according to

the 1890s they led a national boycott against a

which the return of the Imam/Messiah is indefi-

tobacco monopoly granted to another Briton,

nitely deferred. Sunnism was suppressed, the

Major Talbot. The political momentum engen-

broke with the traditional religious hostility toward

92

IRAN 1500–2000

dered by the tobacco agitation culminated in the

es and agribusiness (in which the ruling family had

Constitutional Revolution of 1906, when a coali-

interests), while alienating the ulama, many of

tion of liberal ulama, merchants, and members of

whom were themselves wealthy landowners or

the Westernized intelligentsia forced the Shah to

controlled extensive waqfs in land. The sudden

convene a national assembly and to submit to a

increase in oil prices after 1973 increased wealth in

form of parliamentary government. A brief period

the small modernized sector of the economy, while

of constitutional rule, during which tensions

adversely affecting small businesses in the bazaari

between conservative ulama and the liberals came

community, which had close links to the ulama.

to the surface, was brought to an end by the

The corruption of the Pahlavi family and ruthless

Russians in 1911, when they intervened to restore

repression by SAVAK, the secret police, alienated

the Shah’s autocracy.

the educated middle classes, and especially the

In 1925 Reza Khan Pahlavi, an officer in the

younger generation of students, who had come

Cossack Brigade, came to power after a period of

under the influence of Marxism and the leftist ver-

instability following the Russian Revolution. Reza

sions of Islamic ideology promoted by Dr Ali

Shah instituted a radical modernizing regime that

Shariati and Jalal Al-e-Ahmed, author of a highly

sought to break the power of tribal leaders and to

influential tract entitled Westoxification. Poor

curb the autonomy of the ulama by introducing

rural migrants to the cities provided the tinder for

secular education and government supervision of

revolution.

religious schools. Secular courts were established

Under a deal reached between the Shah and

depriving the ulama of their legal monopoly,

Saddam Hussein, Iraq expelled the dissident cleric

which included the lucrative business of registering

Ayatollah Ruhallah Khomeini from the Shiite cen-

land transactions. During the Second World War

ter of Najaf, where his lectures calling for a

Britain and Russia, who needed a compliant

restored Islamic government under ulama supervi-

Iranian government to facilitate the passage of

sion found a receptive audience among ulama and

war material to the eastern front, forced Reza

students. From his place of exile in a Paris suburb

Shah to resign and replaced him with his son, the

Khomeini had access to the international media,

young Muhammad Reza.

while taped copies of his fatwas and sermons

After the Second World War oil, first discov-

denouncing the Shah were smuggled into Iran.

ered in 1908 and leased to the British under gener-

Early in 1979 a series of massive demonstrations,

ous concessions, became a bone of contention

timed to coincide with the ritual of Ashura (the

when the nationalist Prime Minister, Muhammad

Day of Mourning for the Imam Hussein), forced

Mosaddeq, attempted to nationalize the Anglo-

the Shah into exile, bringing Khomeini home to a

Iranian Oil Company. In the crisis engendered by

tumultuous reception. For ten years, until his

a boycott of Iranian oil by Western oil companies,

death in 1989, he ruled the Islamic republic as the

the CIA intervened to help the army restore the

supreme religious leader. Although the Ayatollah

autocratic Pahlavi regime.

Khamenei, Khomeini’s successor as the supreme

The collapse of the regime in 1979 and the

religious authority, lacks Khomeini’s charisma, the

ensuing Islamic revolution were the result of a

right of the Guardianship Council which he con-

complex combination of economic, cultural, and

trols to vet candidates for the parliament has effec-

political factors. Far from benefiting small tenants

tively curbed its power to introduce changes that

and landless peasants, the Shah’s ambitious land

the religious establishment regards as being con-

reforms in the 1960s favored large-scale enterpris-

trary to its interests. 93


Central Asia to 1700 The history of inner Asia, like that of the Fertile

ed Turkish-Mongolian power in Central Asia,

Crescent where Islam originated, was dominated

creating an empire that would stretch, at its

by the relationship between nomadic pastoralists

height, from western India (including Delhi) to

and settled peoples. In the vast semiarid steppe-

the shores of the Black Sea. After defeating the

lands to the north and east of the Black and

Ottomans at Ankara in 1402, where he captured

Caspian Seas lived peoples whose livelihoods

the sultan, Bayazid I (r. 1389–1402), he became

depended mainly on cattle, horses, goats, sheep,

well known in Europe. The disruption of

camels, and yaks. They were organized into patri-

Ottoman power in Anatolia relieved the pressure

archal kinship groups based on families, clans,

on Constantinople (which survived for another

and confederations or hordes, the greatest of

half century) and reopened the trade routes to

which was that organized under the leadership of

China, while his defeat of the Golden Horde

Ghenghis Khan and his successors. Under

assisted the rise of Christian Russia.

the leadership of Ghenghis Khan’s son Batu (r. 1227–55) the Golden Horde of Mongol-

Yelet

s

Turkish people (who became known as Tatars in Ode

Russia) established its base from two sarays

ssa

(palace headquarters) on the Volga River. From here they conquered the Ukraine, southern OT

Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Russia, creating a

TO

Con

vast empire of which the ruler in Moscow was the

stan

principal tributary. Leading Tatar families became

M

tino

AN

Bla EM

ple

Ath

contact with the sedentary peoples of Iran,

The Shah mosque (now Imam

Silk Road, Islam in inner Asia acquired a mystical,

mosque) in Isfahan, with the

pluralistic character resulting from its encounters

names of God and Muhammad

an

ea

with Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Nestorian

between 1612 and 1630, its

(r. 1326–34), the ruler of the lands in Transoxiana

ascu

xan

1400

dria

salem

political strategist and military commander. By uniting Transoxiana and Iran (previously ruled by the Ilkhans, descendents of Hulegu) he regenerat94

AT

E

a

known as Tamerlane in the West, was a brilliant

UK

i

Though lame from birth Timur (r. 1370–1405),

AN

b

ed by the impoverished clan of Turkomans.

ML

a

erly exploited by Timur Lenk, a member respect-

LT

r

MA SU

A

Cairo

bequeathed by Ghenghis Khan to his second son epitomizes the style and

Chagatai, caused a split in his clan. This was clev-

s

Jeru

spectacular blue-tiled decoration

splendor of Shah Abbas.

po

es

The conversion to Islam by Tarmarshirin

Dam

Ale

Alep

r at

characters on the minaret. Built

1400

n S ea

ph

Christianity, and older traditions of shamanism.

ON

D

RUM

Eu

written in bold geometric

JUQS OF

err

BIZ

140 by T 2: Ottom Sivas Baye imur. Ott ans defe 1400 zid I oman ated dies S u lt in ca Kon ptivit an SAL ya y

Khwarzm, and Transoxiana. Brought by the merdit

TRE

ara

y 140 rna 2

Sea

R

Ank

Sm

Me

a

ck

E

Muslims from the mid-thirteenth century after

chants and Sufi dervishes who traveled along the

PI

ens

Kaff

Mosu

l

CENTRAL ASIA TO 1700

Under Timur, his successor Ulugh Beg

distinguished scholars, artists, historians, and

(r. 1404–49), and the Uzbek Shaybanids

poets of his time, setting the stamp of “royal”

(1500–c. 1700) who inherited Timurid power in

Islamic high culture that would be imitated

inner Asia, Herat, Samarkand, and Bukhara

with rather more refinement by his successors.

were transformed into world-class cities. They

He was broad-minded on religious matters.

were embellished by the plunder and legions of

Though a Sunni Muslim who launched his con-

skilled craftsmen and artisans Timur and his

quests in the name of the Sharia under the pre-

successors had imported from Persia, India,

text that his enemies were apostates and trai-

Iraq, and Syria. Though utterly ruthless and

tors to Islam, he gave his protection to the

cruel (before taking Delhi, he had thousands of

Shiites. Shaikks (Sufi pirs) were his chief spiri-

male prisoners executed so they would not be

tual advisors. The Naqshbandi Sufi order,

able to change sides) Timur was far from being

named after Baha al-Din Naqshband (d. 1389),

an ignorant barbarian. He mastered Persian,

who is buried near Bukhara, put down deep

and surrounded himself with some of the most

roots in inner Asia during this period.

K H A NAT E

O F

T H E

The Dominions of Timur

E H O R D

G O L D E N

Timur Empire

New Sa

Ottoman Empire

ra

Vo

1395: Capi i Horde sack tal of Golden ed by Tim ur

lga

ke La

Empire of the Great Khan

kh ash Bal

Sultanate of Delhi

Astrakhan Khanate of the Golden Horde

Aral Sea

Ca

CHA

sp

Derben

ian

t

nt

137

9

1404: Timur dies during a planned invasion of Chin nd and is buried at Samarka

Samarkand

Bukhara Tabriz

Mamluk Sultanate

N

AT E

Chagatai Khanate

KHA

Tashke

Otrar

Urgench

Sea

Tiflis

GA

TA I

Major attacks and campaigns

iana ter as Transox

shgar

Ka

m ur becomes 1369: Tim ana, formerly of Transoxi Chagatai Kharate part of the

0

u Da

1383

138 1

0

Am

Balkh

O F Isfahan

1387

T I M U R

Herat

Kabul

Kandahar

Multan

Pe N

rs

Delhi ur invades India 98: Tim

s

Shiraz

In du

1401

E M P I R E d

500 miles

E TH OF E PIR N EM HA T K A E GR

rya

Nishapur Baghda

500 km

13 cks Delhi and sa

ian

Gu lf S U LT

OF TE ANA

DEL

Ganges

HI

95


India 711–1971 Islam first appeared in the South Asia subcontinent with the Arab invasion of Sind (711–713). In the tenth century Fatimid dais (missionaries) from Cairo converted local rulers in Multan to Ismailism. However, these were replaced by Sunni governors appointed by the Ghurids in the aftermath of the conquest of the Punjab by Mahmud of Ghazna, who sacked Lahore and devastated northern India in 1030. The systematic conquest of the subcontinent began with the Ghurids, who occupied Multan, Lahore, and Delhi (1175–92) before one of their generals, Qutb al-Din Aybeg, established the first of several independent sultanates in Delhi. These endured from 1206 to 1526 under a succession of different dynasties. The Delhi sultanates help to establish the distinctive character of Indian Islam, a legacy carried by the Timurid Mughal Empire founded by Timur’s grandson Babur in 1526. This lasted more than three centuries until its dissolution by the British after the “Mutiny” or Great Rebellion in 1858. The Mughal Empire absorbed a number of independent Muslim dynasties that had been established in Bengal (1356–1576), Kashmir (1346–1589), Gujerat (1407–1572), and the Deccan (1347–1601). At the Empire’s greatest extent under Aurungzeb (r. 1658–1707) the emperor’s name was read from the pulpits of mosques as far apart as Kabul and Mysore. Some of the early Muslim rulers were fired with iconoclastic zeal against “idolators” and destroyed Hindu temples, replacing them with large mosques intended to symbolize Islamic domination. The Tughluq dynasty (1320–1413), however, initiated a pattern of tolerance that would help to establish a pluralistic version of Islam in India that contrasted with the more rigid and austere varieties of earlier times. To counter the political influence of well-established Muslim families, the dynasty’s founder Muhammad Tughluq (r. 1325–51) appointed non-Muslims to military and government offices, took part in local festivals, and allowed the construction of 96

temples. While there was an initial period of Muslim immigration into India from Afghanistan and Central Asia after the conquests, the process of conversion and Islamization was slow and relatively limited. It is doubtful if more than 20 or 25 percent of the Indian population became Muslim, with the Muslim populations concentrated in the Indus Valley, the northwestern frontier region, and Bengal. While the ruling classes were the descendants of warriors from Afghanistan, Iran, and inner Asia, most of the converts were from the lower Hindu castes or tribal and rural peoples whose lives were improved by joining the religious community of the rulers. The fullest diversity of Islamic faith, practice, and tradition came to be reflected among Indian Muslims, Sunni, Shiite, and Sufi, with a vast number of variations. The pluralistic character of Indian Islam is reflected in its magnificent architectural heritage where motifs drawn from Islamic and Hindu vernaculars were blended into a new, creative synthesis. Muslim devotional literature, including poetry, exists in a large number of Indian languages in addition to Arabic and Persian, the languages taught in the institutions of higher learning along with law, theology, and mysticism. While the ruling dynasties reflected an urban pattern of Muslim life, which had much in common with the cosmopolitan culture of other Muslim regions such as Iran and Central Asia, rural Muslim populations retained a strong vernacular heritage, with local Hindu rituals and customs often mixed with Islamic beliefs and practices. Sufi teachers and religious orders played a particularly important role in the spread of Islam in South Asia. Among the most important tariqas were the Suhrawardiyya and the Chistiyya. Though organized hierarchically in a way that fitted the character of Indian society, the social roles of the tariqas differed greatly. Whereas the Suhrawardis maintained close relations with the Delhi sultans, benefiting from endowments and gifts of land that gave their leaders the status of

INDIA 711–1971

70°

80°

90°

Banu

Muslim India ri Major religious sites, c. 1100–1400

nd R. Ind us

Srinagar R . Shel um

Buddhist shrine

R. d In

Ghazni Kurram Pass

H

elma

Kabul

us

Hindu shrine

Brahmaputra

R. C

b

Punj ab

30°

na he

R.

Muslim shrine

Nagarkot and Kangra Jawalamukhi R. Su Lahore tlej

vi Ra

Dipalpur

Multan

lej Sut R.

Uch

H Thanesar

i Gangadvara

Lhasa

m

Tahari c. 1192

Sirsa

a

R . Brahmaputra

l a

us

Th a r Desert

R.

In d

y Delhi R. G

Pushkar i un

Ajmer

C R.

bal ham

Tirhut R. Brah m a

R

.J um

na

Jaunp

Khajuraho

Gujerat

R

Girinagara Baruch R . Ta

R. Mahanadi

Burhanpur

Orissa

he G M o u t h s of t Ratnagiri

an

ge

Bhubaneswar Konarak

s t

Bh i

a

a m

D e c c a n

h

Bay of Bengal

G r

n

Bidar Gulbarga

e

Bijapur

s

t

Golconda

Vijayanagar

Chola state at its maximum extent, c. 1100

R . Penner

Eastern border of Ghaznavid Emirate, c. 1150

CHOLAS

Chandragiri Kanchipuram Mamallapuram

La

Sringeri Sravana

cca

uve R. Ca ry Chidambaram

Empire of Muhammad of Ghur, c. 1206 Expansion of the Delhi Sultanate Under Qutb al-Din Aybeg, 1206–10

div

Under Itutmish, 1210–36

Kumbakonam

n sla e I

Tanjore

ds

PA N D Y A S

Under Ala-al-Din Khalji, 1296–1316

it tra kS

Madurai

Under Muhammad ibn Tughluk, 1325–51

Pal Jaffna

Korkai

Timur’s invasion, 1398–99

Gulf of Mannar

200 km

Chittagong

. Indrava t i

E

R.

s a t G h

10°

Puri

Daulatabad vari

Balligave

N

Bengal

R

R. G oda

a istn R. K

Arabian Sea

Sonargaon

Ga ng e

M a l w a

Mandu

p ti

Sanchi da a rm . Na

Gulf of Cambay

e r n W e s t

20°

R. Son

Sylhet

s

Arbuda Ahmadabad

Khambhat

Somnath

Pandua Gaur

R.

a

o f C utch

Bihar

tra pu

s

ut d M oe In th

G.

Maner Nalanda Bodh Gaya

Dharmanatha

Rann of Cut ch Tropic of Cancer

R u r . Gogra Jaunpur

Prayaga Warandsi

Canderi

hs us o f

0

s Kathmandu

ang es Mathura

R. L

0

a

Anuradhapura

Vijayanagar at its maximum extent, c. 1485

200 miles

Ceylon

Polonnaruva

Kandy INDIAN OCEAN

97


60°

Hu

90°

80°

Major European trading settlements, c. 1700

rg

Ka sh

70°

A mu D arya

French settlement

A F G H A N I S TA N Hari Rud

Dutch settlement

Kabul Peshawar

British settlement

I

d

Kabul

Kashmir

us

an

ar

lm

Sut lej

Lahore

b

man H el

i av

Ch en a

30°

R lej Sut

Delhi

H

Multan

i

Samana

Multan

Dehli

Baluchistan

Hi

Lucknow

Agra

Ju

Hindaun

mn

a

A g r a

Rann of Cu tch

Bengal Kasimbazar

Hooghly

ada N ar m

M a l w a

Baroda

Gujerat

Asirgarh

Broach

Daman

n t e r RATHAS W e s MA

Bombay Chaul Janjira

God

Khandesh

Nagpur

Assaye

ava ri

Berar

Ahmadnagar

Golconda

Satara

Hyderabad

O

s ri

sa

Bay of Bengal

Bimlipatam Vizagapatam

t

Vi j aya n a g a r

Masulipatam

a

Nizampatam

The Mughal Empire

E

1526 – 1707 Nellore

t

Mughal conquest by 1525

Chandragiri

s

Bhatkal

Pulicat Madras Sadras Pondicherry Fort St. David Tegnapatan Tranquebar Negapatam

Bijapur Mangalore

c La

ca

very Cau

di

Calicut

ve

Tanjore

Is

Cochin

la

nd

s

Quilon

Madura

Mughal conquest by 1539 Empire at Akbar’s death, 1605 A g ra

Empire at the death of Shah Jahau (Aurungzeb), 1707

Strait lk Pa

Maratha raids, 1664–1700 Maratha territory, c. 1700

Gulf of Mannar

Under Maratha influence, c. 1700

Ceylon Colombo

0

98

200 miles

Mughal subab (province)

Tuticorin Kayal

200 km

of M o uth es the Gang

G

Golconda

Bijapur

a G h

Goa

s t

a h

Ahmadnagar

Vengurla

INDIAN OCEAN

vati ndra

D e c c a n

Poona

Balasore

Gondwana

Karanja

I

Gulf of Cambay

Pipli

Mahanadi

Buranphur

Surat

Bassein

Serampore (Frederiksnagar)

Dacca

Plassey Chandernagore Chinsura Chittagong Calcutta

n

o f C utc h

Diu

0

Rajmahal

Son Sarkhej Ahmadabad

tra

Patna

Benares

Allahabad

Cambay

20°

Bihar

Allahabad

Gwalior

L u ni

Brahm a p u

ra

r

so us f

Ara bian Sea

N

O u d hG og

Lahari Bandar

G.

10°

y a s

JATS

e

t h nd ou . I MeR th

er

l a

Biana

Jodhpur

RAJPUTS Tropic of Canc

Laswari Fatehpur Sikri

B rahmaputra

a

Ga SATNAMIS nges

Ajmer

Lhasa

m

Panipat 1526

s

ngo l

In du s

Th a r D e s e r t Aj mer (Raj putana)

Ta t t a

Portuguese settlement

Attock

SIKHS Lahore

Kandahar

Danish settlement

T I B E T

In d

Fa

He

us nd

H ud h ra

JATS

People in rebellion against the Empire, c. 1700 Battle

INDIA 711–1971

India, Invasions, and Regional Powers 1739–60

Mughal decline, when the British became the dominant power in India. Reformers in the tradition of Shah Wali Allah encouraged Muslims to avoid collaboration with power or social mixing with non-Muslims. While Sufi devotional practices (including worship at the shrine of saints and colorful popular festivals) continued to attract the poor, the reformist currents gained ground among the emerging class of literate professionals. The reform college of Deoband, founded in 1867, used the new technology of print in Urdu and the burgeoning rail network to reach a mass Muslim audience throughout the subcontinent, BUKHARA

u D ar ya

60°

173

7

R. A m

English base, 1700 French base, 1700 Portuguese base, 1700 Dutch base, 1700 British territory, c. 1785 Maratha territory, c. 1785 Mysore territory, c. 1785 Center of Gurkha power, c. 1785 Campaigns Nadir Shah of Persia Ahmad Khan Abdali of Afghanistan 1759

50°

40° Haidar Ali of Mysore

Faizabad

Gurkhas 1738 1752

.I

u nd

Rawalpindi 1 75

2

R. I ndu s

Kandahar

Lahore 17

57

T

BELUTSHISTAN

1761

Multan

R

R. In d

N

Rampur .G an ge

AGRA

E P A L 1790

176

Lucknow

1

Ajmer

1787

Kathmandu

Agra

Sind

e

1761

Benares

Bihar

Lhasa

1792

Bhutan

1789 R. G Bengal ge an

179

Dacca

0

Tropic of Cancer

1720

t

R . Brahmaputr a

Dehli

R A J P U TA NA

b

1790

DELHI

u

Hyderabad Karachi

i

1739 1739

1761

Jodhpur

Battle

Ladakh

Lahore

v Ra R.

Punjab

Quetta

Marathas

C H I N A

s

im

AF G H AN I S TAN

kk

1738

30°

Chinese R

1739

Si

Kabul

KASHMIR

1738

Chandernagore Calcutta

M A R AT H A

Gujerat

CONFEDERACY

Diu

ck

Nagpur rs

ta

1724

Cut

n

C

ir

Bay of Bengal

th

er

Nizam’s Dominions

Hyderabad GOLCONDA

or

Bombay

ca

R. G oda var 1760 1791-92

N

20°

Yanam

1736

Goa

Arabian Sea Bangalore

Mangalore

1771

1783

Mahé div

10°

TR AN AV

Gulf of Mannar

E

ds

0

R CO

an

0

Madras 1780

200 miles

Ce y l o n (Dutch)

Colombo

200 km

Pondicherry Karikal Negapatam

it tra kS Pal Jaffna

COCHIN

Cochin

sl e I

N

1769 1776 1779 1759

C

cca

MALABAR

1779

a r n a t i c

MYSORE 1740

La

provincial notables, the Chistis made a point of refusing endowments and rejecting government service, living by cultivating wastelands and from donations by their devotees. The pirs (Sufi shaikks), who won converts among tribal or marginal peoples or from the lower Hindu castes, used local languages (including ritual languages) to convey the Islamic message in social and religious milieus that were very different from those prevailing in the regions where Islam originated. At a popular level it mattered little if a holy man presented himself as a Muslim or a devotee of Shiva: what inspired bakhti (devotion) was his individual aura of holiness. At an intellectual level the philosophical justification for religious collaboration between Islam and what would come to be known as Hinduism (a term invented by Europeans in the nineteenth century) could be found in the writings of the great Andalusian mystic Ibn al-Arabi, whose doctrine of “unity of being” could be harmonized with the spiritual teachings of the Vedas and the Upanishads. The high point of HinduMuslim religious harmony was reached during the reign of Akbar I (1556–1605), a supporter of the Chistis who instituted the Din-i-Ilahi (divine religion). This was an imperial cult with Akbar at its center combining the roles of Sufi master and philosopher-king. In due course, however, practices seen by the ulama as syncretic or idolatrous would become the targets of reformist movements inspired by more orthodox teachings emanating from the centers of Islam to the west. The leaders of this tendency were Shaikh Ahmad Sirhindi (1564–1624) and his follower Shah Wali Allah (1702–63). The public form of this reaction began under Akbar’s grandson Aurungzeb, who reversed the policy of accommodation with Hindus. He imposed the jizya (poll tax) on nonMuslims, ordered the destruction of Hindu temples, and founded Muslim colleges for the study of the Sharia, as well as banning music at court. The reformist currents helped to preserve a distinctive Muslim identity during a century of

INDIAN

Kandy

OCEAN

99


reinforcing Muslim communal distinctiveness. “To like and appreciate the customs of the infidels,” wrote leading Deobandi scholar Maulana Ashraf Ali Thanawi, “is a grave sin.” The sense of Muslim separateness was encouraged by the British, who tended to stress the importance of religious ties over family, lineage, language, caste, regional, or class affiliations among India’s variegated communities. The Indian Councils Act of 1909 institutionalized sepRUSSIAN EMPIRE

AmB U K H A R A 60° uD ar ya Faizabad

Herat

a

l wa

Jammu Amritsar Lahore Jullundur

Punjab vi Ra R. tl u S R. pu

N

C

T

H

i

b

I

e

Meerut Dehli

Jodhpur

Indus Hyderabad Karachi

Erinpura

A

t Lhasa

r

Rampur

N

E P A L

B rahmaputra Lhasa

an Bareli ge s Kathmandu Mainpura Sitapur B h u tan Agra O u d h Lucknow Ajmer Azamghar Kanpur B i h a r Darjeeling Nimach 1 85 Patna 7–5 Gwalior 8 Ga Benares Kalpi ng Jhansi Allahabad Nimach 18 Fatehpur 57 I N D I A B en gal Dacca Sikri Bhopal Dum-Dum Chandernagore Indore Jabalpur Calcutta Mhow

Rajputana 1818 British protectorate

Sind

N

Firozpur

G

h Ba

Baluchistan PERSIA

Kashmir and Jammu Peshawar 1846 British protectorate In

Ch Ind us en ab b

Quetta

1753

s du

30°

cy gen er A nti o r n am st F itai s s

Ea o Br A rth 14 t No 913– a

1 tr ma p u Brah

Carchar

1882 British protectorate Manipur

1886 British protectorate

es

Tropic of Cancer

Rann of Cuch Arabian Sea

Baroda

British Conquest of India

Bombay

Coorg

Mahé Cochin

Tr a

Laccadive Islands

van

British campaigns

100

Anjengo Trivandrum

re

Major center of uprising

co

Area most affected by the Indian mutiny of 1857

a r n a t i c

Mangalore

C

Mysore 1831 British protectorate Bangalore

Other territories

French

o

h rt

e

rn

C

ir

c

Lower Burma 1857

s ar

Rangoon Bassein Moulmein

Bay of Bengal

Yanam

1826

Goa

Boundary of British India, c. 1890

Portuguese

N

Bijapur

Minor dependant state

10°

1826

Cuttack

Cut

Hyderabad

After 1858

Under British supervision, later annexed

Orissa

Berar God ava ri Poona Nizam’s Dominions

1815–1858

Dependant state

1886 to Britain Chittagong formerly Chinese territory Mandalay

ck

Nagpur

Daman

ta

Diu to Portugal

1753–75 1792–1805

U ppe r Bur ma

Central Indian Provinces

Surat British 20° annexation

200 miles

Ladakh

1891

Kandahar

200 km

0

Rawalpindi

1839

40°

0

1893

1842

A F G H A N I S T A N Kabul

50°

Tu r k e s t a n

s h K u

u n d H i

arate Hindu and Muslim electorates at local level, thereby consolidating a separate identity of Muslims legally and politically. From there the “two-nations” theory, which held that Muslims and Hindus constituted distinct and separate nations, was a small but inevitable step. The same logic decreed that the Muslims of India were entitled to their own territorial homeland. The state of Pakistan, created on Indian independence in 1947, was constructed out of a disparate variety

Andaman Is.

Madras

1857

Pondicherry Karikal ai Str k l Pa Jaffna

Gulf of Mannar 1815 1818 Colombo

Trincomalee

Kandy C eylo n 1798 to Britain

INDIAN OCEAN

INDIA 711–1971

60°

50°

TAJIKISTAN

Xinjiang Uygur Zizhiqu 1963 claimed by India as part of Kashmir border agreed by Pakistan and China

Faizabad

C H I N A

Area of sporadic conflict since 1964

AFGHANISTAN

Under Pakistani control

control 1 9 7 L ine of 1

Kabul

Ja mmu a nd Ka shmir

Rawalpindi

under Indian control

Ind us

1971

Aksai Chin area claimed by India, occupied by China 1962 Chinese attack on Aksai Chin area

In

s du

Tibet

Himcha l Pra desh

N

Lahore

30°

en ab

P A K I S T A N

Amritsar 1965

Punjab Sikh struggle for separatist state (Khalistan)

Ch

of Muslim communities located in the territories of Sind, Baluchistan, the Northwest Frontier province, the western half of the Punjab, and a part of Bengal, a mainly Muslim territory located more than a thousand miles to the east, separated by Indian territory. In western Pakistan, more than half the people were Punjabis, some 20 percent were Sindhis, 13 percent were Pashtuns, and 3–4 percent were Baluchis, with the remainder, apart from small Hindu and Christian minorities, Muhajirs, or refugees from India. The exchange of populations following partition led to a massive bloodbath, in which hundreds of thousands of people were killed in communal rioting. The unresolved dispute over Kashmir, where the Hindu ruler chose to accede to the Indian Union against the wishes of his Muslim subjects, has contributed to three wars between India and Pakistan, in 1949, 1965, and 1971, as well as to a continuing cycle of insurgency and repression. Pakistan’s political fragility was reflected by the succession of military governments that alternated with periods of precarious democratic rule by parties accused of corruption and lacking Islamic legitimacy. In the final analysis the army, controlled by the British-trained Punjabi officer class, proved the only institution capable of holding the country together. In 1971, with military help from India, East Pakistan broke away from western Pakistan to form the independent Muslim state of Bangladesh. The fractious relationship between India and Pakistan (both of them now nuclear powers) has yet to be resolved. The erosion of India’s secular culture consequent on Hindu political revival and official Islamophobia occasionally tolerated in some states—notably Gujerat—has made the position of the Muslim minority remaining in India— which numbers some 120 million, about 10 percent of the population—more vulnerable than at any time since partition. The legacy of the Muslim conquests has yet to be fully absorbed in Indian popular consciousness. A mosque in Ayodhya, said to have been built by Babur on the site of a temple devoted to the hero-deity Rama,

I N D I A

NE

Haryana 0

200 km

Dehli

us Ind

Ga n 0

200 miles

and destroyed by Hindu militants in 1991, is still a powerful source of contention between India’s Hindu and Muslim communities. In the communal riots that followed the mosque’s destruction, thousands of Muslims were killed—a story tragically repeated in 2003 when Hindu pilgrims returning from Ayodhya were attacked by Muslims in Gujerats, causing widespread communal conflict in the region.

PA L

Rampur ge s

Conflict over Kashmir 1949 – 1971 Pakistani attacks Indian attacks Religious unrest and rivalry

The Taj Mahal, Agra, India (completed 1653). One of the world’s best-known monuments, it is the most enduring emblem of Mughal rule in India. It was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal. Shah Jahan, who was deposed by his son Aurungzeb, is also buried there.

101


Russian Expansion in Transcaucasia and Central Asia The Russian expansion into Transoxiana and

of Moscow threw off the Tatar yoke. By the

the Caucasus region, which would culminate

1550s Moscow had absorbed the autonomous

in the incorporation of more than fifty mil-

Muslim states of Kazan and Astrakhan, giv-

lion Muslim peoples into the Soviet Union,

ing it control of the Volga and the northern

began in the fifteenth century when the rulers

shores of the Caspian Sea and opening the way for the conquest of the Kazakh steppes. The Kazakhs had pulled out of the confederation of Turkish-Mongol tribes that had created the Timurid and subsequent empires, remaining qazaq (freely roaming) lords of the steppes. The Russians built a string of forts between the Ural and the Irtysh rivers. This enabled them to bring the whole region under Russian control, a process marked by the abolition of the Kazakh khanates in the 1820s. However, Kazakh resistance, inspired by Islam, would last until the 1860s. In its earlier phases Russian rule over its Muslim populations was extremely harsh. The Tatar nobility were subjected to forced conversion and expelled from important cities. Their lands were given over to the Russian nobility and monasteries, who planted them with Orthodox serfs and monks. The policy was relaxed under Catherine the Great, who regarded Islam as a more civilizing influence than Christianity. Muslims were guaranteed religious freedom, mosques were built with state sponsorship, and institutions created with broad authority over the Muslim population. The situation, however, was not to last. In the Crimea, which Russia had acquired from the Ottomans in 1783, the Russians took over Tatar lands and confiscated waqfs (religious endowments) for the ben-

Imam Shamil of Daghestan (c. 1797–1871), on horseback, from a Russian engraving of c. 1850.

efit of European colonists. Further east the

Shamil waged a heroic campaign (1834–59) against the Russians under the spiritual authority of

mainly pastoral peoples of Inner Asia fell

his father-in-law, a shaikh of the Naqshbandiyya Sufi order. Though eventually defeated and sent

prey to the colonizing ambitions of Russian

into exile, his memory remained alive in Daghestan and Chechnya, where it has inspired

generals and the desire of the tsars to secure

successive anti-Russian and anti-Soviet revolts up to the present day.

trading advantages with Iran, India, and

102

RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA

China, forestalling potential British rivalry.

and its replacement by Latin and later Cyrillic

Tashkent was occupied in 1865, Samarkand in

scripts ensured that future Soviet generations

1868, and Bukhara was forced to open its

would have much less access than in the past

frontiers to Russian traders. In the north

to the canonical texts of Islam.

Caucasus the Russians overcame resistance

The potential for political solidarity among

inspired by the Naqshbandi and Qadiri

Soviet Muslims was attacked by a deliberate

orders, overthrowing the Islamic state estab-

policy of divide and rule. Central Asian states

lished by Imam Shamil in 1859. By 1900 the

of today owe their territorial existence to

tsarist conquest of Transcaucasia and Central

Stalin. He responded to the threat of pan-

Asia was virtually complete.

Turkish and pan-Islamic nationalism by parcel-

Far from leading to the dissolution of the

ing out the territories of Russian Turkestan

tsarist empire in Asia the Bolshevik revolution

into the five republics of

of 1917–18 led to its consolidation. In their

Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and

struggle against their own conservative reli-

Tajikistan. The prosperous Fergana Valley,

gious establishments, intellectual advocates of

which lies at the core of the region and had

Islamic reform, known as jadidists, joined the

always been a single economic unit, was divid-

Communist Party. They hoped to modify

ed between Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kyrgyz. Stalin’s

Russian policies to meet the needs of the

policies demanded that subtle differences in

Muslim populations and to promote versions

language, history, and culture between these

of Muslim nationalism in alliance with Soviet

mainly Turkic peoples be emphasized in order

Russia. The Muslim nationalists were outma-

to satisfy the Leninist criteria on nationality,

neuvered by Stalin and the party centralizers.

which required a common language, a unified

Their leading advocate Mir Said Sultan Galiev

territory, a shared economic life, and a com-

(b. 1880) was arrested in 1928 and disap-

mon culture. To the new territorial configura-

peared soon afterward. However, a sense of

tions were added the straitjackets of collec-

shared values between Islam and communism

tivization and monoculture. Under Khrus-

(social justice, the priority of public over pri-

chev’s Virgin Lands scheme vast tracts of

vate interest, of community over the individ-

Kazakhstan were given over to cereal produc-

ual) encouraged them to work for their inter-

tion, and when the mainly pastoral Kazakhs

ests within the party by adopting a strategy of

resisted, Slavs and other peoples were imported

taqiyya (dissimulation). But official Islam suf-

to do the work. In Uzbekistan more than 60

fered serious assault during the 1930s when

percent of gross domestic production was

Stalin launched his “second revolution” from

turned over to cotton. This served the interests

above. Mosques were placed in the hands of

of the ruling party elites, some of whose mem-

the Union of Atheists, to be turned into muse-

bers became involved in gargantuan frauds

ums or places of entertainment, while two of

based on the systematic falsification of pro-

the five “pillars” of the Islamic faith, the pil-

duction figures. It also left a devastating envi-

grimage to Mecca and the collection of zakat

ronmental legacy by starving noncotton crops

(the religious dues used to maintain mosques

of irrigation and drying up the rivers and lakes,

and provide funds for the needy) were effec-

including the Aral Sea.

tively forbidden. The ban on Arabic script

Uzbekistan,

Distrusting the loyalty of Muslims during 103


the Second World War because some of them

40°

50°

collaborated with the Germans, Stalin deported the whole population of ChechnyaIngushiite and the entire Tatar population of

R

the Crimea to Central Asia.

U

Although there were undoubted benefits

S resulting from industrialization and the

S

introduction of almost universal literacy, the

I

retreat of Soviet power following the jihad Tsaritsyn

in Afghanistan inevitably saw an upsurge of non-communist ideologies, including local nationalisms, pan-Turkism, and militant

KHANATE OF CRIMEA

forms of Islam. The resurgence of Islamic repression may partly be

BLACK SEA PROVINCE

1829

Krasnovodsk 1869

a

1813

K

TU RK (O EY TT OM EM AN PI RE )

S e

persistence of Sufi networks and allegiances

SHIRVAN KHANATE OF TALISH

R

ing control of communist institutions. In

1824

U

groups persisted or even flourished by tak-

Russian vassal from 1731

T

based on the asabiyya of extended kinship

i a n s p

N

TA

guises. Additionally old family networks

press local independence movements, the

Fort Shevchenko 1846

a

ES

GH

enabled meetings to take place under other

tal wars in 1994–96 and 1999–2002 to sup-

Mozdok 1810 1858 D IA 1784 Poti 1803 1817 1806 1829 1804 Vladikavkaz 1804 Kutais Petrovsk Batumi 1859 KHANATE 1884 1829 Tiflis 1878 OF GEORGIA Kars Derbent 1806 Aleksandropol 1830 founded KHANATE 1877 KHANATE 1804 OF KUBA OF ERIVAN 1806 Kuba Gandzha Erivan founded 1806 KHANATE OF K. OF KARABAGH 1827 1806 Shemakha NAKHICHEVAN 1828 Shusha 1805 KHANATE Baku Nakhichevan OF AR

DA

cution as the tradition of “silent” rituals

Chechnya where Russia has fought two bru-

Pyatigorsk AB

C

particular, was able to survive official perse-

Guryev

K

retained their roots. Naqshbandi Sufism, in

1864 ABKHAZIA

AT

B l a c k S e a

Astrakhan

G RE

accounted for by the mystical Sufi traditions. Originating in Central Asia, they had

from 1761 nominally dependent from 1825 complete Russian control Stavropol

S IAN

century of

1783 to Russia

SS CA CIR

activity after 1989 after more than half a

Tabriz Turkmanchai

Chikishilyar Resht

after seven decades of Soviet rule provides a better explanation for anti-Russian activity than

the

foreign-funded

Islamist

or

Tehran

“Wahhabi” militants targeted by spokesmen

P

Baghdad

in the Kremlin.

E

R

S

I

1907–21 N

In Central Asia, despite the retreat of Russia, general disillusionment with Soviet rule, and the collapse of the local economies,

Isfahan

the old communist nomenklaturas have managed to cling to power under new, so-called

Yezd 0

500 km

democratic labels that barely conceal the reality of bureaucractic authoritarian rule.

104

0

500 miles

A

RUSSIAN EXPANSION IN TRANSCAUCASIA AND CENTRAL ASIA

60°

70°

80°

90°

1707–18

50°

E R

17

1730

1763

A K M O L I N S K

4

82

–1 31

Semipalatinsk

I

P

A

N

M

E

Turgai

T U R G A I Irgiz 1845

U R A L S K

S

Ulutau 1846

K

A

Z

A

K

H

E

M

N S K T I A L

A I P

URYANKHAI TERRITORY

1864

1912–21 under Russian Prot.

S Lake Balkhash

Aralskije (Raim) 1847

1853

Syr

Dar

Kazalinsk 1859

K A R

K

1873

Djilek 1861

Chimkent

K y z y l

O 1881

K I R G H I S

Verny 1854

Przhevalk (Karakol) 40°

1871

Naryn 1868

Tashkent 1865

Kokand

C

H

I

N

A

1876

Ka ra N

Tokmak

W a l l

K u m

Well Orta-Kuju

E

1854

Turkestan

1873 KHANATE OF KHIVA Russian Prot. from 1873 Khiva

M

Kuldja 1871–81

1864 K o k a n d

Well Irkibai

A L P A K S

Kopal 1847

all

Perovsk (Ak-Mechet) 1853

Aral Sea

A

1854

ya W

Bukhara

Ku m

Samarkand 1868–70

T A D J I K S

KHANATE OF BUKHARA

Ashkhabad Russian Prot. from 1868

Pam ir s

1895

Expansion of Russia in Asia 1598–1914

Merv 1884

Meshed

1885

Russian Empire 1598 Acquisitions by 1796

Penjdeh

K a s h m i r

Kushka

Acquisitions by 1801 Acquisitions by 1825 Acquisitions by 1855

Herat Acquisitions by 1881

A F G H A N I S T A N

Acquisitions by 1894

P u n j a b

Acquisitions by 1914 30°

I

N

D

I

A

Russian sphere of influence

105


Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia c. 1500–1800 As in other regions peripheral to the Islamic heartlands, Islam came to Southeast Asia by trade rather than conquest. In some cases Muslim merchants, who carried the prestige of Islamic high culture, married into local ruling families, providing them with wealth, diplomatic skills, and knowledge of the wider world. Adoption of Islam made it easier for chiefs in the coastal regions to resist the authority of the Hindu rulers who held sway in central Java. Sufi teachers, some of them also merchants, SIAM

Hue

PH

Andam an Sea

who arrived from Arabia and India, were able to present Islamic teachings in forms that people raised in Hindu traditions could understand. As trade expanded the adoption of Islam made it easier for smaller communities to become part of larger societies, favoring the further expansion of trade. The development of Islam in this largely peaceful, organic fashion was disrupted, but not reversed, by the appearance of the Portuguese, who established themselves as a

IL

Bangkok

Vijaya

IP

South China Sea

PI

CHAMPA

S

ait Str

NE

Min do ro

Gulf of Siam

Saigon

Palawan Rattani

Kedah a it S tr

of

M

BATAK

a cc ala

Brunei

Pahang

Malacca

Fansur

Celebes Sea

a ri Ka

t

ma

r

trait ta S

a

U BA KA

G AN IN M

Palembang

ait Sunda Str Banlam

Tanjungoura

it

Tidore Ternate p

Da

m

Moluccas

Celebes Banjermasin Martapura

Serang Ambon

Ja va S e a

Bandanera

Macassar

Batavia Demak Tuban Cheribon

J a v a

t

Stra

m

Borneo

ie r

u

ass ar Str ai

S

Johore Singapore

Batang Bay

INDI AN OCEA N

Brunei

Ma k

Singke

Mindinao

Trengganu

Malay Peninsula

Matar

Banda Sea Gresik

Pajang

Majapant

Stra it Lo mb ok

Samudra ACEH

Sulu Sea

Kelantan

Panarukan

am

Flores Sea

Bali

Sumbawa

Flores

ok

Pasai

b

L

om

Sum

ba

Timor

Arafura Sea

Timor Sea

AUSTRALIA

106

EXPANSION OF ISLAM IN SOUTHEAST ASIA c. 1500–1800

leading maritime power from the sixteenth century. Having taken Goa in 1509, the Portuguese conquered Malacca on the Malay Peninsula in 1511. Paradoxically, this aided the spread of Islam by sending Muslim teachers and missionaries to the courts of rulers in Acheh and Java, which became centers of resistance to the Portuguese. The appearance of the Dutch (who founded Batavia, later Jakarta, in 1619) in search of pepper, cloves, nutmeg, and tin complicated the picture, but did not reverse the spread, or appeal, of Islam in the region. Indeed conflict with the Dutch 15°

Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia 1500 – 1800 Area of Islamic conversion by 1500 Area of Islamic conversion by 1800

10°

Islamic trade routes Modern borders

5°

OCEAN PA C I F I C

0°

rck Bisma Sea 5°

N EW GU IN EA

Papua 10°

Cape York

Coral Sea 15°

and Portuguese along with the expansion of trade had the reverse effect, bringing contact with the Ottoman Empire and an influx of scholars and Sufis from Mughal India, especially in Acheh. Differences between the coastal regions and the interiors, the legacies of Hindu and Buddhist kingships, the varying impacts of Portuguese, Dutch, and British rule, and the different degrees of resistance they engendered produced contrasting Islamic styles throughout the Malay Peninsula and Indonesian archipelago. A common element is the rainfall and rich tropical soil that makes much of the land highly productive—this fed colonial appetites for cash crops such as coffee and, later, rubber. In Southeast Asia Islam encountered societies of settled cultivators and relatively ancient polities whose deep territorial roots contrast strikingly with the flows of pastoral peoples that dominate Islamic history in Central or Western Asia. In some instances the tides of the faith coming from India and Arabia left a residue of ritual and practice that combined with the older traditions. In Java, for instance, villagers will describe themselves as Muslim, but their actual culture combines Islamic with Hindu and animist elements. Elsewhere, as in Minangkabau, after a period of economic upheaval in the eighteenth century, reformist currents preaching closer adherence to the Sharia became dominant, generating social conflicts that resulted in Dutch intercession and conquest (1839–45). Generally, the Islamic legacy in Indonesia has crystallized into two broad tendencies—the rural abangan style, which allows a tolerance for non-Sharia customs including matrilineal forms of inheritance, and the stricter santri tradition of the cities. Though modern Islamists in both Malaysia and Indonesia generally oppose pluralism and cultural mixing, the fact remains that both nations have undergone industrial revolutions that have placed them well ahead of Iran, Pakistan, and the Arab-Muslim countries in terms of economic development. 107


British, French, Dutch, and Russian Empires

108

The enormous increase in the power of the

the capacity of non-European powers to offer

European countries that began to take over the

resistance. From the perspective of previous eras

Muslim world from about 1800 can be traced

(for example, that of the Crusader Kingdoms

back to the scientific revolution of the seven-

and the gradual loss of al-Andalus to the

teenth century and the industrial revolution to

Christians) the process was extraordinarily

which it gave birth. Before the mid-1600s

rapid. By 1920 European power encompassed

Western and Muslim civilizations were on rela-

virtually the whole of the planet, except for

tively equal terms, militarily and economically.

regions considered too unpopulated, poor, or

By 1800, however, the balance had shifted deci-

remote to be worthy of imperial designs.

sively and permanently toward what would

Muslim leaders, both spiritual and secular,

come to be thought of as “the West.”

were at the forefront of resistance to European

Napoleon’s ill-fated expedition to Egypt was

world conquest. In Java Prince Dipanegara, a

not halted by the neo-Mamluks, whom he

member of one of the ruling families that suc-

defeated at the Battle of the Pyramids, but by

cumbed to Dutch influence and pressures from

the British admiral, Nelson, who destroyed the

European cultivators, launched a revolt embrac-

French fleet at Aboukir Bay. Henceforth it

ing displaced peasants and religious leaders that

would be competition—military and economic

lasted from 1825 to 1830. In Bengal, where the

—between European nations, rather than con-

British East India Company had been trading

flicts between the Islamic world and the West,

since the early 1600s, the defeat of a local ruler,

that would determine the historical agenda for

Nawab Siraj al-Dawla, who tried to curb the

the Muslim peoples.

power of the company at the Battle of Plassey

Numerous explanations have been advanced

(1757), opened the way to the British conquest.

to account for the cumulative rise in European

After further defeat at Buksar in 1764 Muslim

power. These range from the spirit of capitalism

resistance shifted to the large, formerly Hindu

engendered by the Protestant reformers and the

kingdom of Mysore, where Haidar Ali, a

sudden access to wealth brought back from the

Punjabi soldier, created with French assistance a

Americas, to the radical methodology of ques-

disciplined force along European lines. His son

tioning everything advocated by the French

and successor Tipu Sultan (1750–99) secured a

philosopher René Descartes, one of the progeni-

notable victory over a British army at the Battle

tors of the scientific revolution. Whatever the

of Conjeveram, near Madras, before eventually

causes, the effects were far reaching and irre-

being killed at Seringapatam in 1799, a battle

versible. European capital was systematically

that effectively ended resistance to British rule in

reinvested to finance technical innovation in

southern India. Afterward resistance shifted to

industrial methods of production, such as cot-

the Northwest Frontier or to within the ranks of

ton spinning, which could destroy traditional

the British-led Indian army. In the late 1820s

methods by competition. European military

Sayyid Ahmed Barelwi (1786–1831), a mission-

power, benefiting from constant technical

ary preacher in the reformist Naqshbandi tradi-

improvements, was deployed to protect and

tion who had spent three years in Mecca, tried

extend markets for manufactured products,

to rally the Yusufzai Pushtuns in the Northwest

leading to the collapse of local economies and

Frontier province as part of a broader campaign

BRITISH, FRENCH, DUTCH, AND RUSSIAN EMPIRES

of reform in Indian Islam. His aim of creating

order, which had accepted Ottoman suzerainty,

an Islamic state on liberated territory outside

became the source of organized resistance after

British control was frustrated by the Sikhs, who

the Italian invasion in 1911.

defeated him at Balakot in 1831. The Northwest

The British and French encountered similar

Frontier, however, continued to be the focus of

movements of resistance throughout Muslim

resistance to British rule long after Barelwi’s

Africa. Abd al-Qadir, a shaikh of the Qadiriyya

death. Between 1847 and 1908 there were no

order, led the resistance to French rule after the

less than sixty rebellions against the British.

conquest of Algiers in 1830. He established an

Many of them had millennarian overtones and

Islamic state in the western Sahara. This lasted

nearly all were legitimized as jihads against

until 1847, when the French finally overwhelmed

infidel rule.

it and sent him into exile. In 1881 Muhammad

Iceland 15°

0°

15°

30°

45°

60°

75°

R U S S I A N

SWEDEN

60°

90°

105° 120° E M P I R E

150°

165°

Korea

JAPAN

Okhotsk

60°

St Petersburg GREAT BRITAIN NETH.

Moscow

THE POLAND EMPIRE

50°

Mongolia

Paris FRANCE OT

PORTUGAL Madrid 40° SPAIN Minorca CO

Madeira

ALGIERS

OC

M A N C H U

Constantinople

TO

MA

N

EM

PI

RE

Nagasaki

PERSIA

Cairo

30°

A

bi

h

a

r

a

a

a

Formosa

MOGUL EMPIRE

ra

Tropic of Cancer

S

Spanish possessions

Delhi

EGYPT

Calcutta Diu BURMA Daman Bombay Goa Masulipatam SIAM Mangalore

Portuguese possessions

Macao AM

N

AN

20°

Gorée St Louis Albreda Fort James

Philippine Is.

As s El inie m Ac ina cr a

Atjeh

Dutch possessions

ZANZIBA

Singapore Borneo

ra

S. Salvador

at

m

Su

Fernando Póo

Loanda

British possessions French possessions

Quilon Colombo

0°

Eurasian Empires c. 1700

Tibet

AFGHANISTAN

Canary Is. M

E M P I R E

( C H I N A )

TUNIS

OR

10°

135°

Danish possessions Celebes

Makassar

Comoro Is.

Batavia

Russian possessions

Java

Many of these movements against European

Ahmad, a shaikh of the Sammaniya branch of

imperialism were led by men trained in the dis-

the Khalwatiya, proclaimed himself Mahdi in the

ciplines and hierarchies of the Sufi tariqas. In

Upper Nile region, and launched a jihad against

the Caucasus the Imam Shamil, a leader in the

the Egyptian government and its foreign backers,

Naqshbandi tradition, waged a campaign

who were penetrating the region under European

against Russian penetration lasting from 1834

commanders. The defeat of the Mahdi’s succes-

to 1839. Although the Islamic state he founded

sor at Omdurman in 1898 was hailed by Winston

was eventually incorporated into the tsarist

Churchill, who witnessed the battle, as “the most

empire, Shamil’s memory remained vibrant

signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science

among the peoples of Daghestan and Chechnya,

over barbarians.” The “arms of science” on this

who mounted successive revolts against the

occasion were the British machine guns. Familiar

Russians in 1863, 1877, 1917–19, during the

weapons in small-scale punitive expeditions in

Second World War, and against the post-

much of Africa in the 1890s, here they were used

communist administrations of Boris Yeltsin and

for the first time against an army of more than

Vladimir Putin. In Cyrenaica, the Sanusiya

fifty thousand men. 109


Nineteenth-Century Reform Movements The tajdid (reform) movements, which have dominated Islamic thought and practice since the eighteenth century, have internal and external dimensions. Internally the example of Muhammad’s attacks on the pagan idolaters of Mecca in the name of the “original” monotheistic religion taught by God to Adam, Ibrahim, and Ismail, followed by the hijra to Medina, the building of a new society, and his purging of Mecca’s infidelities after his triumphant reconquest, is in itself a paradigm of religious reform. Throughout Islamic history the Prophetic scenario has been adopted by men of renowned learning and piety who have attacked or replaced corrupt rulers in the name of restoring the true Islam of Muhammad and his generation. Many such movements occurred in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Some of these movements were religious responses to local practices, such as the custom of praying at the tombs of Sufi saints, condemned by the Arabian Wahhabis. Others, such as the reform movements in the Senegambian region of West Africa, involved local resistance to non-Muslim political elites; many others, such as the jihad movements on India’s Northwest Frontier or the Mahdiya in the Nilotic Sudan, were responses to European penetration. Most of the militant movements of resistance and reform, however, occurred among tribal peoples in peripheral regions. Even when led by men of learning, such as the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad or Uthman Dan Fodio, they could only succeed if backed by military-tribal power. Once it became clear that military solutions were not going to work because of the overwhelming power of the West, Muslim thinkers began to interpret the reformist scenario intellectually. Where the tribally based movements distinguished between correct religious practice and unacceptable innovations, intellectual reformers sought to regenerate Islam by distinguishing between usul (fundamentals) of Islam, which 110

were timeless and adaptable, and furu (the details of revelation), which applied to particular circumstances. All of the reformers recognized that if Islam was to survive and prosper under modern circumstances, Muslims must embrace modern learning and modern education. In India Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (1817–98) founded a college at Aligarh aimed at creating a modern generation of Muslim officials, lawyers, and journalists— men who in the course of time would become leaders of the Pakistan movement. A more conservative group of Indian ulama founded the academy at Deoband in 1867, which combined the study of revealed knowledge (Koran, hadith, and law) with rational subjects like logic, philosophy, and science. By taking advantage of the railway system to distribute printed materials in Urdu, the Deobandis were able to reach all parts of Muslim India. This made Deoband the center of a new kind of Muslim awareness that spread to other countries, with many students coming from Afghanistan, Central Asia, Yemen, and Arabia. A graduate of Deoband, Maulana Muhammad Ilyas, founded the reformist Tablighi Jamaat (preaching association) in 1927. Originally aimed at converting the Mewatis, a peasant community near Delhi, to stricter Islamic observance it combined adherence to the Sharia with Sufi meditations on the spirit of Muhammad as practiced by the Chisti order, to which Ilyas himself belonged. The Tablighi Jamaat, which formally eschews involvement with politics, is one of the fastest growing Islamic movements worldwide, with branches in more than ninety countries. In Egypt the most influential reformer was Muhammad Abduh (1849–1905). Originally a disciple of the anti-British pan-Islamic activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–1970), Abduh accompanied Afghani to exile in Paris after the British occupation where they coedited a short-lived but influential Arabic pan-Islamist journal Al-urwa alwuthqa “The Strongest Link.” In 1885 Abduh

NINETEENTH-CENTURY REFORM MOVEMENTS

A locomotive drags its crowded carriages up the narrow-gauge Darjeeling Railway, c. 1900. The Deobandi reformist movement took advantage of the railway network to disseminate Islamic literature throughout the country, adding to the sense of Muslims as a distinct community in India.

broke with his mentor’s hostility to imperialism and, returning to Egypt via Syria, decided like Ahmad Khan to work with the grain of British power, seeing in it a necessary force for modernization. After rising in the legal service to become chief mufti or law officer of Egypt, Abduh sought to modernize the Sharia and to introduce subjects such as modern history and geography into the curriculum of al-Azhar in Cairo, the foremost academy of Sunni Islam. He paid particular attention to the principle of maslaha (public interest) to enable the law to be changed in accordance with modern requirements, stating, “If a ruling has become the cause of harm which it did not cause before, then we must change it according to the prevailing conditions.” Abduh believed that, properly understood, revelation must be in harmony with reason, because Islam was “natural religion” designed by God to fit the human condition. Like Ahmed Khan he sought to distinguish between the essentials and nonessentials of revelation, preserving the fundamentals while discarding those aspects that were historically contingent or timespecific. He tirelessly opposed what he saw as the hidebound conservatism of the traditional ulama and, again like Ahmad Khan, emphasized the

need for new applications of the principle of ijtihad (individual judgement) to meet modern conditions. Abduh’s views were disseminated through his legal rulings, writings, and lectures and after his death through the periodical al-Manar (“The Lighthouse”), published by his Syrian disciple Rashid Rida, a member of the reformist Naqshbandi order, which ran from 1897 to 1935. As a mujaddid (reformer or renovator) of modern Islam Abduh’s influence can hardly be underestimated. In Southeast Asia the Java-based missionary Muhammadiyah movement founded in 1912 by Ahmad Dahlan, which now has millions of male and female adherents, owes much to Abduh’s ideas. In the Arab world Dahlan is regarded, with Afghani, as the founder of the Salafiyya movement, inspired by the example of the “pious forebears,” classically thought of as the first three generations of Muslims who received the message of Islam in its original context. Modern Salafists who can claim a part of Abduh’s intellectual legacy range from militant activists who seek to establish modern Islamic states, if necessary by violent means, to secular nationalists who interpret Abduh’s ideas as requiring a complete separation between political and religious realms. 111


Modernization of Turkey The modernization of Turkey extends back at least two centuries, when the Ottoman Sultan Selim III (1789–1807) attempted to introduce a series of educational and military reforms. His efforts threatened the interests of the ulama and Janissaries and he was deposed. But after a string of defeats in the Caucasus and Greece his successor Mahmud II (r. 1807–39) made new efforts at reform by introducing new Westernoriented schools, destroying the Janissary corps and dissolving the Bektashi Sufi order linked to it. The autonomy of the ulama was weakened by the state takeover of waqfs (religious endowments), Sharia courts, and schools. A symbolic separation of religion and state was effected by a decree abolishing the wearing of turbans. For everyone except the official ulama turbans, often the mark of allegiance to one of the Sufi tariqas, were replaced by the fez, the red-felt cylindrical hat imported from the Maghrib. Mahmud’s ambition to create a centralized, absolutist state (along the lines of prerevolution France or Prussia) was carried on by his succesBritish troops at Gallipoli, together with other Western Allies, were deployed on the peninsula from 25 April 1915 until 9 January 1916. Their objective was to threaten Constantinople and to open a supply route to Russia across the Black Sea. The Turkish forces were commanded by Lieutenent Colonel Mustafa Kemal, whose drive and energy thwarted the Allied plan. His success would lead him to the office of National President.

112

sors in a series of programs known as the Tanzimat-i Hairiye (Auspicious Reorderings) that lasted from 1839 to 1876. Modern postal systems, telegraph, steamship navigation, and railroads were introduced alongside radical legal reforms with Western-style courts and law codes. A new civil code, the Mejelle, followed the Sharia law in content, but differed from tradition by being administered by state courts. In 1855 the jizya (poll tax)—a formal mark of religious inferiority—was replaced by a tax on exemption from military service. The new centralized government that was coming into being was founded on a social base of new professionally trained bureaucrats. The small urban middle class enjoyed a rising economic status that enabled it to challenge the religionbased power-structure of the religious communities. The Tanzimat reforms altered the previous basis of Ottoman society by abolishing the autonomy of Islamic educational and judicial institutions, bringing them under state control. The reforms stimulated the emergence of

MODERNIZATION OF TURKEY

The Balkans 1 1914–18 German attacks

Russian retreat

Austro-Hungarian attacks

Allied attack

Austro-Hungarian retreat

Allied retreat

Serbian counterattack

Turkish counterattack

Serbian retreat

German front line

Bulgarian attacks

Austro-Hungarian front line

Romanian attacks

Bulgarian front line

Romanian retreat

Romanian front line

1

Austrian invasion of Serbia repulsed 29 July – 15 December 1914

5

Serbian retreat November 1915

2

Germans advance up the Morava valley October 1915

6

Romanian forces invade Transylvania 27 August 1916

3

Allied attempt to take Gallipoli peninsula fails Feb.–Dec. 1915

7

German counteroffensive forces Romanians to retreat Sept.–Dec. 1916

4

Bulgarian attack breaks through Serbian formations October 1915

8

Bulgarian advance forces back Russian-Romanian defense Oct. 1916

M

Jassy

R U S S I A N

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v

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E M P I R E

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T r a n s y l v a n i a

A U S T R I A – H U N G A R Y Temesvar

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2

1

Belgrade

s

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Bucharest Constanta

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7

ka

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Pristina

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Sofia

4

Kosovo Scutari

Adrianople

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Drini

Maric a

Philippopolis

Uskub

st

os

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Lake Prespa

G

Al

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Thasos Samothrace

The following offensive to assist Serbia is driven back by Bulgarian 2nd Army

m

Gallipoli 3

Gorkceada Limnos

Corfu

Aegean Sea

22°

Constantinople Sea of Marmara

N

E

c e

A

of Otranto

R

a

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rait

Axios

St Vjo sa

r

uma

donia C E AlliedSalonika landing 5 October 1915: E

ce Ma

A L B A N I A

Str

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T O O T

Serbian Army rescued by Allies Durazzo and transported to Salonika Adriatic Lake Sea Ohrid

on

Lake Scutari

S e a Burgas

B U L G A R I A

E

M

P

40°

I R E

26°

22°

Sofia

Pristina

Lake Scutari

BULGARIA

SERBIA Uskub

ma S tru

Scutari

2

ALBANIA

Allied front lines, 15 September 1918

2

Allied front lines, 29 September 1918

The Balkans 2 o Axi

Lake Monastir Ohrid Lake Prespa

September–November 1918

1

a

on

Vjo s

40°

1

GREECE

k li a A

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Salonika

British advance and front line French advance and front line Serbian advance and front line Italian advance and front line Greek front line

113


the “Young Turks,” a movement among the intelligentsia who wished to move in a European direction. In 1908 the vanguard of this movement, the Committee for Union and Progress (CUP), which had infiltrated the army, came to power in a military coup. The sultan was forced to restore the constitution he had suspended in 1876 and there was a front of parliamentary government. The real power remained with the army and the CUP, which embarked on a radical program of secularization, reducing the powers of the shaikh al-Islam (the chief religious funcMustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1881–1938, founder of the Turkish secular state.

tionary), and imposing government control over Sharia courts and Muslim colleges. Though nationalist in outlook the Young Turks aimed to keep control of the eastern part of the Empire. 114

With help from Germany, whose military advisers were driving reforms in the army, the Berlin–Baghdad railroad was constructed. The first decade of the twentieth century also saw the construction of the famous Hejaz railway from Damascus to Medina (the link to Mecca was never completed). While facilitating the passage of pilgrims to the holy places of Islam, the railway was also designed to speed the passage of troops into the Peninsula to control tribal revolts in Syria and Arabia. The Ottomans continued to lose territory during the second decade of the twentieth century with the loss of Libya, Albania, and most of their European possessions in the Balkan wars. The coup de grâce came with the First World War (1914–18). Having joined the Central Powers (Austria and Germany) against Britain, France, and Russia, the Empire lost its remaining Arab provinces to the three-pronged attack launched by Britain in Iraq and Palestine, and to the Arab tribes led by the Sharif of Mecca’s son Faisal with the help of the British adventurer T. E. Lawrence. Despite the loss of its Arab provinces Turkey itself retained its independence as a Muslim country after the First World War, thanks to the efforts of Mustafa Kemal (later to be called Atatürk, “Father of the Turks”). A Young Turk general, he had saved Istanbul by defending the Gallipoli Peninsula from invasion by the British imperial forces in 1915. After forming a provisional nationalist government Atatürk mobilized the Turkish people against the partition of the Anatolian heartland, and losses to Frenchcontrolled Syria and to Greece, as well as to Kurds and Armenians (whose proposed state in the northeast was effectively partitioned between Turkey and the newly emergent Soviet Republic). Having defeated the Greeks (who had been awarded the mainly Greek area around Smyrna (Izmir) under the humiliating terms of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres) Kemal won international recognition for complete and undivided Turkish sovereignty in Anatolia, Adrianople (Edirne), and eastern Thrace

MODERNIZATION OF TURKEY

(European Turkey) at the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923. Atatürk resolved its problems with Greece by the brutal but effective means of an exchange of populations. Having established his authority as the victor or ghazi-warrior over Turkey’s enemies, Atatürk embarked on a radical program of modernization. In 1923 the sultanate was separated from the caliphate, and the former abolished. The following year the caliphate was abolished, along with the Sharia courts. Islamic law was replaced by adapting the Swiss

civil code to Turkish needs. The Latin alphabet was introduced for the Turkish language (which had previously been written in Arabic script), with a view to separating Turkey from the Islamic past and making literacy more accessible. The Sufi orders were banned and driven underground. The fez, which had ironically acquired the status of an “Islamic” item of headgear, was abolished, to be replaced by the peaked cloth cap worn by European workers at that time.

Adrianopole 35° Sinope Black Sea 40° 30° Istanbul Uskudar Zongdulak Trebizond Gallipoli Skelessi 40° Mudania Nicoea Bursa Eskisehir Ankara Sakarya

Izmir

Antalya

Mediterranean Sea

Syria

French mandate, 1920 Sharud Mashad

Mosul Kirkuk

Eup Homs

Tehran

Habbaniyya

Turkey after the Treaty ofPSèvres, 1920 S I A E R

Baghdad Kut-elAmara

Karbala

Italian possession Ottoman Empire, 1914

Kermanshah

I r a q

Damascus

Palestine Tel Aviv Amman Gaza Jerusalem

Alexandria

30°

Aleppo

ri s Tig

to Britain 1878 leased Beirut 1914 annexed Lebanon 1923 ceded by Turkey

from 1912 to Italy

Under British protection, 1914 Rasht

es

Cyprus

Latakia Terr. of Alawites Tripoli

British mandate, 1920

Gaziantep Urfa

Hatay

1920–22 to Greece

British possession, 1914

Sea Tabriz

at hr

35°

The New Turkey 1926 Baku

Malatya

1920–22 to France

60°

55°

U S S R

Kars

A r m e nia

Kayseri Konya

50°

Caspian

Erzurum

Sivas

TURKE Y

Usak Alasehir

45°

Isfahan Temporary Italian occupation (to 1921)

Area ceded by USSR, 1921

Cairo

Transjordan

Kerman Turkish campaign, 1920–23 Shiraz Major battle

Basra Al Jawf Kuwait KUWAIT

Tabuk

E G Y PT

Pe

neutral zones

r

le Ni

Turkey after the Treaty of Lausanne, 1923 Bandar-Abbas

s i

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1916 independent 1925–26 to Nedj

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kingdom from 1926

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ABYSSINIA

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Ara bian Sea 0 0

200 km 200 miles

115


The Muslim World under Colonial Domination c. 1920

116

destruction of the Islamic state created by the Mahdi Muhammad Ahmad in 1898, Britain took control of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, whose realm now extended deep into Equatorial Africa. Having taken Tanganyika from Germany, Britain controlled most of the Swahili coast except for the portion that formed part of Italian Somaliland. From Aden Britain contested the Bab al-Mandeb—the strategic entrance to the Red Sea—with Italy, which ruled in Eritrea, while retaining its grip on the Arabian littoral from Aden to Basra, having locked the shaikhdoms south of Arabia and the Gulf into exclusive treaties that guaranteed British control of defense and foreign policy. In the Indian subcontinent, the British had locked some 560 princely rulers—some of them FRANCE

AUS.

SWITZ.

HUN.

ITALY Belgrade

YUG.

Madrid

PORTUGAL

Rome

SPAIN

Gibraltar Malta

SP. MOROCCO

TUNISIA O

C

CO

O

R

Madeira M

Canary Is.

L I B YA

ALGERIA

SP. SAHARA RIO DE ORO

S

a

h

a

r

a

FRENCH WEST AFRICA IC A

St-Louis

ate

RO ON

and

Lagos Br. M

CH E EN

Accra Fernando Póo

FR

LIBERIA

NIGERIA

ME

SIERRA-LEONE

GOLD COAST

CA

Freetown

QUATO RIA L AFR

GAMBIA PORT. GUINEA

TOGO

The defeat of the Ottoman Empire in the First World War brought the vast majority of Muslim societies under direct or indirect colonial rule. By 1920 the only independent Muslim states were Turkey (revitalized under Kemal Atatürk), Persia, where the Qajar dynasty would shortly be replaced by the Pahlavis (1923), Afghanistan under the modernizing regime of King Amanullah (1919–29), northern Yemen, where the Zaidi Imam Yahya won control after the Ottoman defeat, Central Arabia (Najd), and the Hejaz, the Muslim holy land containing the cities of Mecca and Medina, still under control of the Hashemite family. The remainder of Dar alIslam was either under direct colonial rule or under some form of internationally recognized European “protection.” Two new principles were being established that would bring these former colonies or semi-colonies into the international system: the fixing of boundaries (usually for the convenience of European states) and in the case of shaikhdoms bound by treaty to Britain, the “freezing” of dynasties to ensure continuity of government (though not necessarily through the European system of primogeniture). Legitimacy of succession would prevent the disruptive disputes that often followed the death of a traditional ruler and bind his heirs into the existing treaty arrangements. By 1920 France controlled the whole of northwestern Africa except for the coastal strips of Spanish Sahara and Spanish Morocco. Italy was extending its rule far beyond the coastal provinces of Tripoli and Cyrenaica (though this task would not be completed until 1934). Britain, which since 1882 had occupied Egypt, the cultural center of the Muslim world, permitted the former Ottoman province a nominal independence under a constitutional monarchy, but retained overall strategic control. This led to the paradox of a formally neutral country becoming host to thousands of British and Empire troops during the Second World War. Following Kitchener’s

Luanda

MUSLIM WORLD UNDER COLONIAL DOMINATION c. 1920

Muslims—into a mosaic of different treaties and agreements, placing them and their Muslim subjects under the umbrella of British rule. In Southeast Asia Britain controlled the Malay states, while the Netherlands had extended its sway beyond its original colonies in Java and Sumatra. In Muslim Central Asia and the Caucasus region, the communist revolution and subsequent civil war had consolidated the power of Moscow within a new regional order. In the core region of the Mashriq, Palestine had been opened to Jewish settlement under the terms of the mandate granted to Britain by the League of Nations. Under the terms of the secret Sykes-Picot agreement reached with France in 1916 Britain also acquired mandates—a euphemism for colonies—in Transjordan and Iraq, while France took control of Lebanon and Syria. Faisal ibn Hussein, son of the sharif of Mecca

who had liberated Damascus from Ottoman Turkey with British help, had intended to make Syria an independent Arab state in accordance with a somewhat ambiguous undertaking his father had received from Sir Henry McMahon, the British High Commissioner in Egypt in 1915. In the aftermath of the war, however, it became clear that for the Muslim world imperial interests would supersede the national right of selfdetermination famously proclaimed by President Woodrow Wilson as the basis for the postwar settlement in Europe. Protest at the double standard that allowed the recognition of national rights for the subjects of Christian empires in Europe (including Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Jews, and Irish, as well as former Ottoman subjects in the Balkans) while denying them to Muslims animated the anticolonial resentment that would surface throughout former Ottoman territories.

ROM.

European Imperialism in the Muslim World Independent Muslim state, 1920 Territory under colonial rule 1920 British French Italian Portuguese Spanish Dutch United States Russia Dependent princely state Area of British influence Area of Russian influence, 1907–21 Muslim concentration: Muslims live in scattered communities throughout China

MONGOLIA

R U S S I A N

1921–24 People’s Rep.

Tashkent

Istanbul

Peking (Beijing)

SIN KIAN G

TURKEY

KOREA

Athens date

Medina Mecca

Riyadh

OMAN

Under Br. Prot.

SOMALILAND

A ND

IT YEMEN HADHRAMAUT RE ADEN A Addis DJIBOUTI Socotra BR. Ababa

Diu Daman Bombay

INDIA

Mahé Laccadive Is.

Belgium Mandate

I AL IT

AN

Madras Pondicherry Karikal

Ryu Kyu Is.

BURMA

Luzón Manila

FRENCH INDOCHINA Saigon

Andaman Is.

Philippine Islands Mindanao

Nicobar Is. N. BORNEO BR. BRUNEI MALAYA

S

Maldive Is.

SARAWAK

Halmahera

Singapore

Borneo

Sumatra

Nairobi

DU

Seychelles

CONGO

Chagos Is. TANGANYIKA Zanzibar

Taiwan Canton Hong Kong Kwangchowwan Macao

SIAM

Ceylon

O

BELGIAN

UGANDA KENYA

BHUTAN

Yanaon

Goa

MA

ABYSSINIA

PA L

Chandernagore Calcutta

HEJAZ AND NAJD

LI L

ANGLOEGYPTIAN S U DA N

NE

BAHRAIN

ER

Khartoum

Delhi

Shanghai

SE

British influence

KUWAIT

EGYPT

Nanking

TIBET

E

PI

PERSIA

i IRAQ Brit JORDAN

Cairo

R

AFGHANISTAN

NE

an sh M

Weihaiwei

JA

French Mandate

C H I N A

Soviet influence Tehran

SYRIA

EM

GREECE

PA

BULG.

E M P I R E

Amirantes

Djakarta

New Guinea

Celebes

TC

H E AST INDIES

Java

Br. Mandate

Cocos Is.

Christmas Is.

Timor

117


Balkans, Cyprus, and Crete 1500–2000 The Saljuq and subsequent Ottoman conquests

however, the fact that Christians remained the

in the Balkans left a residue of Muslims in

overwhelming majority in the Balkans would

Europe who arrived as settlers or adopted Islam

make them, initially, more susceptible than the

by conversion. Unlike the conquest of Anatolia,

Empire’s Muslim subjects to the forces of

where the Byzantine ecclesiastical institutions

nationalism and revolution that swept through

were suppressed as imperial rivals, the Orthodox

Western Europe in the nineteenth century. A cen-

Church in the Balkans was given effective juris-

sus conducted between 1520 and 1530 showed

diction of the Christian communities. This fac-

that 19 percent of the Balkan population was

tor may have limited conversions in the Christian

Muslim, 81 percent was Christian, and there was

Stari Most bridge, Mostar,

a small Jewish minority. The largest concentra-

Bosnia-Herzegovina. Before its

tion of Muslims was in Bosnia (about 45 per-

destruction by Bosnian-Croatian

cent). Most of the Muslims lived in cities. For

artillery fire in 1993, the bridge

example, Sofia (now capital of Bulgaria) had a

was one of the finest surviving

Muslim majority of 66.4 percent.

examples of Ottoman

With the turning of the tide of conquest in

engineering and design.

Catholic Hungary, the rise of Orthodox nation-

Completed in 1566 by

alisms in Greece, Serbia, Romania, and

Khairuddin, a pupil of the great

Bulgaria, and the dismemberment of the

Ottoman architect Sinan, it

Ottoman Empire in Europe, Muslims lost their

spanned 30 meters with an arch

Balkans as compared with Anatolia.

political protection. Many of those who failed

rising to 27 meters above the Neretva River. The rebuilding of

The permanent Islamic presence in Europe

to retreat with the Ottoman armies were mas-

the bridge has become a symbol

was first established by Turkish migrants to

sacred or forcibly converted to Christianity.

for the restoration of Bosnia’s

northern Greece, Bulgaria, and Albania in the

Large numbers migrated after the Russo–

fractured community

fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with the lead-

Turkish war of 1878, the Balkan wars of

relationships.

ing role played by the tekkes (hospices) founded

1912–14, and after the First World War, when

by Sufi holy men, which often became the nuclei

there was a formal exchange of populations

of village communities. In rural areas conver-

between Muslim Turks living in Greece (includ-

sions were facilitated by Sufi orders such the

ing Crete and the Dodecanese islands) and

Mevlevis and Bektashis. They found ways of

Greeks on mainland Anatolia. Cyprus, which

conveying Islamic ideas to peasants with

like Crete had been taken by the Ottomans

Christian or “heretical” beliefs, such as those of

from the Venetians (1571), became part of the

the Bogomils, an initiatory gnostic sect whose

British Empire after the Congress of Berlin in

influence spread throughout Catholic southern

1878, preventing its Orthodox majority from

Europe in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

opting for union with Greece (as Crete did in

Conversion was greatest in Albania, Bosnia-

1913) and thus excluding it from the exchange

Herzegovina, and Bulgaria, especially among

of populations in 1920. The island has been

the Pomaks of the Rhodopes, whose mountain-

divided since 1972, when Turkey intervened

ous lands extend into the modern states of

militarily to prevent a nationalist military gov-

Greece and Macedonia, as well as Crete. Thanks

ernment from uniting the island with Greece.

to official Ottoman support for Orthodoxy, 118

Albania is still largely Muslim (70 percent) by

BALKANS, CYPRUS, AND CRETE 1500 – 2000

culture. After a prolonged antireligious cam-

communist governments (including the elimina-

paign by the communist government, which

tion of Muslim first and family names).

declared the country to be the world’s first offi-

In Bosnia Muslims constitute about 45 percent

cially atheist state, Islamic beliefs and practices

of the population. The civil war (1991–95)

are being revived. Substantial Muslim minorities

between the Serbs and the Muslim-Croat coalition

remain in Bulgaria (13 percent), although the

led to a series of atrocities including massacres and

Bulgarian Turks (who number around 600,000)

attempts at “ethnic cleansing,” which prompted

have migrated to Turkey in considerable num-

intervention by NATO air forces and the signing of

bers following a sustained campaign of

the 1995 Dayton Accords dividing Bosnia into sep-

Bulgarianization by communist and post-

arate Muslim-Croatian and Serbian states.

Dn iest r

R U S S I A N E M P I R E until 1917

S ir

S e a o f A z o v

et

Aust. Prtot. 1878 Annexed by Austria 1908–09

Bug

ut

K I N G D O M O F H U N G A R Y

MOLDAVIA

BE

SS

AR

AB

IA

1878 to Russia ul

C r i m e a

Izmail

Galati

I

O tt

A

a sz

30°

Pr

Ti

20°

B O S N I A

created 1858

Mitrovica ava Mor

Dr

in a

D an

P R . O F S E R B I A Nish

1878

Maritsa

Adrianople

AN ALB

Durazzo

IA

M

O E D A C

Constantinople Dedeagach

O

r da

in

Va r

a Strum

Üsküb (Skopje) Dr

Scutari

S e a

Yamboli Burgas EAST RUMELIA

Sofia

1878 to Serbia

B l a c k

Varna

Prizren

Cattaro Gusinje

DOBRUJA

e ub

1908 Plevna B U L G A R I A

1878 PR. OF SANJAK OF MONTENEGRO NOVIPAZAR

Bucharest

W A L L A C H I A Craiova

Belgrade

1878

N

A

R O M

N

T

I A

Thasos

Salonika

T

O

EPIRUS

(Shkadra)

M Mitilini (Lesbos)

1881 to Greece

Corfu

E

M

P

R

I

E

Chios Samos

D o

d

n

e

I

S e a

N

Smyrna

Euboea

KINGDOM OF Athens GREECE Corinth

a n i I o

I o n i a n

S e a

LIVADIA

various minor border adjustments in favour of the Ottoman Empire 1897

A

A e g e a n

THESSALY

Angora (Ankara)

Mudania

Gallipoli

Lemnos

Larisa

40°

Sea of Marmara

s

l a Navarino n d s

1863 to Greece

Cyclades

c an

e s Rhodes e

1878 to Britain

Cyprus

Cerigo

N

Crete 1824–40 to Egypt 1908 to Greece

M e d i t e r r a n e a n 0 0

S e a

The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1878–1912

200 km 200 miles

1878

date of independence

119


Dn iest r

20°

30°

Bug

R U S S I A N

Ti

ut Pr

until 1917

et Sir

a sz

K I N G D O M

MOLDAVIA

BE

M

ul

KIN

G

Varna

BULGARIA

Sofia

Yamboli

Burgas

1913 to Bulgaria

Maritsa

PR. OF ALBANIA

C

A

M

1913

E

ar rd

in

1913 to Serbia

Durazzo

S e a

KINGDOM OF

D

O

Adrianople

1913 to Bulgaria

Djakova Kumanovo Üsküb (Skopje) Va

Dr

Scutari (Shkadra)

B l a c k

1913 to Romania

e

Plevna

1913 to Montenegro

Cattaro Gusinje

ub

date of independence

O

R

Bucharest

D an

K I N G D O M O F S E R B I A Nish K. OF MONTENEGRO

O

1913

IA

Izmail

Galati

Craiova

ava Mor

Dr

in a

M DO

F

AB

DO BRU JA

B O S N I A

Belgrade

AR

A

H U N G A R Y

Mitrovica

SS

NI A

O F

Ot t

The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1912–13 S e a o f A zterritory o vin 1913 Ottoman

E M P I R E

1915 to Bulgaria

THRACE

1913 to Bulgaria

St

A rum a NI

Constantinople

40°

Sea of Marmara

Dedeagach

Mudania Gallipoli

Thasos Salonika

O

1913 to Greece

T

T

O

M

A

N

Lemnos Janina EP

Corfu

IR

Larisa

A e g e a n

THESSALY

US

Mitilini (Lesbos)

KINGDOM

E

S e a LIVADIA

a n i I o

OF GREECE

I

R

Samos Corinth Athens

PELOPONNESE o

Tripolis

d

e

I

s

l a Navarino n d s

c

an

Cyclades

es

1912 e Italian occupied

Annexed in 1914 by Britain

Rhodes

Cyprus

Cerigo (Kythira)

N

Crete

M 0 0

120

E

Chios

n

S e a

P

D

I o n i a n

M

Smyrna

Euboea

e

d

200 km 200 miles

i

t

e

r

r

a

n

e

a

n

S

e

a

BALKANS, CYPRUS, AND CRETE 1500 – 2000

Dn iest r

20°

U .

SS

Ti

Ot t

ul

A

Mitrovica Bucharest

O

S

L

A

V

BOSNIA

D an

SERBIA

ub

Plevna

Varna

BULGARIA Yamboli

Sofia MONTENEGRO

Maritsa

(1923 Edirne) 1920–22 to Greece

Kumanovo Üsküb (Skopje) Va ar rd

in

Durazzo

ALBANIA C

E

O

St

A NI

Constantinople

(1923 Istanbul)

THRACE Dedeagach

ru ma

40°

Sea of Marmara

Ankara Mudania

Gallipoli

Thasos Salonika

M

A

D

Burgas

Adrianople

Djakova Dr

Scutari (Shkadra)

S e a

e

IA Nish

Cattaro Gusinje

B l a c k

Craiova

ava Mor

Dr

G

IA

DO BRU JA

DIN

Belgrade

AB

Galati

JVO

U

The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1920–23 S e a o f demilitarized zone A z o v 1920–22

Izmail Ploesti

VO

NIA

AR

1918–20 to Romania

R O M A N I A

in a

R

MOLDAVIA BE

Y

S .

et Sir

a sz

TRANSYLVANIA

VO

S .

ut Pr

H U N G A R Y

SLA

Bug

30°

T

Lemnos Janina EP

Corfu

IR

Larisa THESSALY

US

U

R

K

E

Y

A e g e a n 1920–22 to Greece

Mitilini

GREECE

S e a

Smyrna

Euboea Chios Samos

I o n i a n

D

a n i I o

Corinth Athens PELOPONNESE o

Tripolis

d

n

e

I

S e a

s

l a Navarino n d s

c

an

Cyclades

e Italian s e

Rhodes

Cyprus

Kythira N

Crete

M 0 0

e

d

i

t

e

r

r

a

n

e

a

n

S

e

a

200 km 200 miles

121


Muslim Minorities in China

This Chinese minaret symbolizes the adaptability of Muslim architecture to local vernacular forms. Unlike the traditional cathedral or church, there is no religiously prescribed architectural form for the mosque other than the mihrab (a decorated niche) indicating the direction of prayer.

The Muslim communities of China are

122

of the former Soviet Union.

descended from Arab, Persian Central Asian,

Though they developed a distinctive way of

and Mongol traders who married Chinese

living as a Muslim minority outside the bor-

women and mostly lived in small communities

ders of Dar al-Islam the Hui were far from

clustered around a central mosque. Their

being isolated from the spiritual currents flow-

descendents, along with those of other incom-

ing from the Islamic heartlands. Sufism made

ers who arrived from Mongolia and Central

substantial inroads from the seventeenth cen-

Asia over the course of centuries, are known as

tury, with shaikhs from the Naqshbandiyya,

the Hui. The Hui number roughly half of

Qadariyya, and Kubrawiyya orders establish-

China’s twenty million Muslims. Unlike other

ing networks of tariqas and brotherhoods

groups, which tend to be concentrated in areas

throughout mainland China. During periods

bordering on the Central Asian republics, they

of turbulence from the seventeenth to nine-

are spread throughout the country, though

teenth centuries the orders helped organize a

there is a particular concentration in the

series of Muslim-led rebellions in Yunnan,

Ningxia Hui Autonomous region. The Hui are

Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang. Much of this

recognized by the state as a national minority—

unrest was the result of intra-Muslim violence

the third largest in China—and the only minor-

caused by the impact on local Hui communi-

ity to be defined by religious affiliation. The

ties of reformist ideas imported from Arabia.

other recognized Muslim minorities include the

For example, in 1781 a Naqshbandi shaikh,

Uighurs of the Xinjiang region, and the

Ma Mingxin (b. 1719), who had studied in

Kazakhs, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tatars, and Tajiks

Arabia and Yemen for sixteen years, was exe-

whose homelands are located in the territories

cuted after leading a movement, known as the

MUSLIM MINORITIES IN CHINA

New Teaching or New Sect, which attacked the

the more traditionalist Hanafis known as

cult of saint-worship. In the 1860s and 70s

Gedimu (from the Arabic qadim, meaning

another Naqshbandi shaikh, Ma Hualong,

old). Though all Muslim groups were perse-

launched a major rebellion, which cut off the

cuted

Qing (Manchu) Empire from the northwest,

Revolution (1966–76), with at least one major

opening the way for rebellion of the Uighurs in

massacre of Hui in the wake of an uprising in

Xinjiang. In more recent times a Wahhabi-

Yunnan, state patronage of the Yihewanis per-

inspired reformist movement at the turn of the

sisted in the more relaxed climate that followed

twentieth century known as the Yihewani

the accession of Deng Xiaoping.

(from the Arabic ikhwan, meaning brother-

Mao

Zedong’s

Cultural

People’s Republic of China, the small

idolatrous. Such practices included the venera-

Muslim community on the island

tion of Sufi saints or the wearing of Chinese

has also built relations with

mourning dress. Under communist rule the

other groups on the Le

mainland.

0°

Chinese attacks

° 130

na

I

P

Ye

R. A

ia

E

I rty

mur

R.

Ner 1912 to Russia

R

ussia by R M a 5 occupied Japan ence y 0 b – d influ 1900 occupie panese 1905 1905 Ja after

I

sh

ur nch

k chins

Kashgar

rya

Kansu

Kash A FGH

ANIST

Punja

C

AN

N

I

H

Shen

S

b

n zechwa

s 30° Lhasa

PA

BH UTAN

Tropic of Ca

ncer

ia gJ

K w e ic

L

Oudh

British India

n ha .C

As

s

n Yunna

Bengal

Burma

Anh

g kian

Che

-t’ien

1860 ng ’i T’ai-p n io rebell ak tb u o re

t Eas na i Ch ea S

ngsi

Fuk

Chin

N

capit

kin

Nan

ng Kwa si

low Yel ea S

wei

how

Kwan

E S

ng

u p’ing ngs Kia g T’ai- al

Kia

an

a

an

E

ntu

an

peh

re

Jap

tung

ien

an Taiw osa) m r o (F 1895 an

to Jap

French IndoC h in a

Bay of Bengal 20°

Hun

am

R. G ang es

Sha

Hon Hu

T i b e t

NE

si

A

R

u Ind

mir

ng

Da

Shansi

Aksu

Hui-Pu

Pe

o to

N

d

king

A

40°

10

P

K ok a n

1871–81 to Russia

Chihli

R. S

Urumchi

ary yr D a

K

19

)

jing (Bei

A

ia ol g on ) M a r er a h n In h ( C

1

R. H uan gH o

n g sia D z u864 to Rus

Sea of n a Jap

n

kde

Mu

J

O L I A M O N G n d e nt e p e d n i 2 191

ia ar

E

Kh

Urga

M

orc

hin

50°

05 19 an ap to J

a ussi

P

ey nis

18

oR 60 t

N

A

I

S

M

E

French attacks

E

R

100°

R.

S

Sino-French War, 1883–85

0°

110°

U

British attacks, 1840–41 (the Opium War) Anglo-French attacks, 1858–60

14

120° 60°

R

Muslim rebellion, 1863–73

Se a kh of ot sk

Yihewani received more state patronage than 5

90°

Area of rebellion

After the incorporation of Hong Kong into the

hood) was active in opposing practices deemed

80°

China under the Manchu Dynasty 1840–1912

O

40°

during

SIAM

123


The Levant 1500–2002 Unlike Egypt, which the Ottomans and their

formally subjects of the Ottoman sultans until the

clients ruled as a single substate or province, the

twentieth century, when France and Britain divid-

Levant, comprising Syria, Mount Lebanon, and

ed the region into client states with precarious

Palestine, remained a patchwork of communities

national identities. The Levant remained subject

bound by a variety of tribal, ethnic, and religious

to occidental cultural influences long after the

affiliations under local leaders. The latter were

Crusades, with the Maronite Church based in the

R K E Y 36°

32°

Antalya 1882–1916

Mersin of lf ru Gu n d e e k Is

n

Gö

Antlya Jewish settlements 1886–1914

ksu

Kilis Iskenderun (Alexandretta)

Anti-Zionist societies established (also in Cairo and Constantinople (Istanbul))

Aleppo (Hales)

Zionists purchase 2400 acres of land 1910–11 Haifa

36°

Iolib

Anti-Zionist newspapers published 1908–14 protesting Jewish land purchase from Arabs

VILAYET OF ALEPPO

Latakia

S Y R I A A

Line west of which should be excluded from future Arab State (McMahon, 25 October 1915)

Hama

Famagusta

ssi

CYPRUS s)

Larnaca

ro (O nte

Nicosia

Areas declared by Sharif of Mecca to be part of a purely Arab kingdom (5 November 1915)

Homs

Limassol 0

s

Official attempts to prevent Zionist Gulf ofimmigrants landing

Urfa

Gaziantep

Ceyhan

Adana

hrate Eup

The Last Years of Turkish Rule

50 km

Tripoli

50 miles

0

N

T

U B E

I R

Beirut

Rayak

Zahle

Saida O F

Damascus

S e a Acre Haifa Nazareth

V I L A Y E T

Metulla


VILAYET OF DAMASCUS

Safed

Al-Suwaida

Petah Tikva Tel Aviv Jaffa

Rehovot Lake Burullus Gaza

Ben Shemen Jerico

32° Amman

Gar-al-Azraq

Jerusalem Bethlehem Hebron MUTASARRIFLIK OF JERUSALEM Beersheba

2500 1500

Kaf

a

Suez Canal

124

G

500

d i

Si

El Arîsh

E

1000

W

Damietta Lake Harzala

Nablus

Jordan

Hadera Netanya

200

rh

an

0m

El Qantara

Y

P

100

T

Bayir El Quseima

THE LEVANT 1500 – 2002

northern Lebanese highlands adopting Latin rites

Druzes was relatively even, with Ottoman gover-

and acknowledging Papal supremacy. The south-

nors balancing the interests of both groups. How-

ern highlands overlooking the plains of Galilee

ever, the decline in Ottoman power from the eigh-

were the homeland of the Druze people, a schis-

teenth century saw increasing tension and sectar-

matic Shiite sect regarded as heretical by other

ian rivalry between Maronites and Druzes, abet-

Muslims. Under the Maan family (1544–1697)

ted by competition between France and Britain.

and the Shihabs (1697–1840), who replaced them,

This led to a succession of massacres and bitter

the division of power between the Maronites and

sectarian wars between 1838 and 1860.

Izmit

Biga

35°

Bursa K iz

Afyon

R U S S I A N K il k

Erzincan

Karaman

Antalya

yan

Qazvin Eup

Kirkuk

at es

ris Tig

Homs

Kashan

Borujerd Habbaniyah

Khorramabad

Baghdad

I R A Q Karbala

Al Hillah

Esfahan

Dezful Shushtar

An Najaf

Beersheba Ahvaz Abu Dhabi

Cairo

El Faiyum

Basra Abadan

Sakakah

Al Jawf Beni Suef

Bandar-e Sharpur 30°

K U WA I T

Pe

Kuwait

JEBEL SHAMMAR

rs

Bahariya Oasis

Qom

Kermanshah

Amman Jerusalem

Tanta Zagazig

(under British protection)

35°

Hamadan

Damascus

Port Said Gaza

Tehran

P E R S I A

Beirut

Tel-Aviv

El Giza

Rasht el O uz an

z

SYRIA

PA L E S T I N E

E G Y P T

Qe

Mosul

Aleppo

Haifa

Alexandria Damanhur

Tabriz

Mardin

Hama Tripoli

Sea

Bitlis Hakkari

Urfa

Gaziantep

Diyarbakir

hr

Mediter ranean Sea

40°

Khvov

Adiyaman

Maras

Latakia

C Y P R U S Limmasol (British)

a

Caspian

Alexandretta Antakya

Nicosia

Erzurum

Malatya

Adana

ur

ARMENIA

Kayseri

Konya

Rhodes

Baku

Yerevan

Aksaray

Men dares

E M P I R E

Gumusane

it

Siyas

TURKEY

50°

K

Akhisar Manisa Usak Izmir Alasehir Aydin Nazilli

Amaysa Tokat

Ankara

Eskisehir Sivrihisar

45°Tbilisi

40°

k ma i l Ir

Sa

Gallipoli

ia

Tabuk

El Minya

n

Tayma'

Asyut

JA Z

Al Qatif Dhahran

Buraydah Unayzah

e d e a

Russian rule

Al Hufuf 25°

Medina Yanbu‘al Bahr

(under British protection)

Riyadh Wadi S a

Arab State, to be under French protection

h ba

Tropic of Cancer

area to be under British, French and Russian protection Wadi Halfa British rule, including Haifa enclave Arab State to be under British protection

BAHRAIN (under British protection)

QATAR N E J D

S

French rule

Al Wajh

R

Sykes–Picot Plan May 1916

lf

Ha'il

HE

ile N

Gena

Gu

Oasis of Farafra

N

S U D A N (under British protection)

Jedda

0

150 km

Mecca 0

150 miles

125


30°

The Ottoman defeat in 1918 saw the division

imposed direct rule on Syria and Lebanon while

of the Levant between French and British

Britain opened up Palestine for European Jewish

spheres of influence, with the victorious allies

settlement and established client monarchies in

creating four colonial dependencies—Iraq,

Transjordan and Iraq. While creating a modern

Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine—out of the for-

bureaucracy in Syria along with an infrastructure

mer Ottoman provinces. After ousting Faisal,

of roads and communications networks, the

son of the ruler of Mecca and leader of the Arab

French undermined national integration by

revolt against the Turks who had set up a provi-

organizing administrative districts that reinforced

sional government in Damascus, the French

ethnic and religious divisions. In particular they

35° Sa

Konya

Adana

Antakya 35°

Iskenderun Aleppo Eup

TERR. OF ALAWITES

SYRIA

under Ottoman rule)

es

Tripoli

Hama

at

Limmasol

Mediter ranean

IRAQ ( M E S O P O TA M I A )

Homs

LEBANON

Ti g

Beirut

Sea

ri

Damascus

Haifa Tel-Aviv Port Said

Damanhur

E

Y

P

Khorramabad Isfahan

Al Hillah Dezful Shushtar

PERSIA

Beersheba

(IRAN)

Ahvaz

TRANSJ O R DA N

Cairo

al-Giza

G

Kashan Baghdad

An Najaf

Gaza

Tanta Zagazig 30°

Palestine in 1922

Karbala

Amman Jerusalem

Areas under British rule or control in 1914 Qom

s

Habbaniyah

PA L E S T I N E Alexandria

Rasht Lahijan French (areas formally z e Mandate, 1921, Ou underl Ottoman rule) za Babol Arab areasnhelped by Britain in their Qazvin revolt against Ottoman rule, then becoming independent Tehran Semnan British Mandate, 1921, (areas formally Damavan

Kirkuk

hr

CYPRUS

League of Nations Mandate 1921

Hakkari

Mosul

Latakia Nicosia

Mardin

Urfa

Gaziantep

50°

Qe

HATAY

45° Diyarbakir

Adiyaman

Maras

Karaman

Antalya

40°

TURKEY

yan

Basra

T

al-Faiyum

Al Jawf

Bandar-e Sharpur

Abadan

Sakakah

Beni Suef

K U WA I T

Shiraz

Pe

Kuwait

NEUTRAL ZONE

Firuzabad

rs

Tabuk

al-Minya

ia

n

Tayma

Asyut

Hail

G

Re

ile N

ul

d

Gena

al-Wajh

f

al-Qatif BAHRAIN Dhahran

Burayda Unayza 25°

Se a

al-Hufuf

Aswan

Q ATA R

Medina Riyadh

Yanbual Bahr

H E D J A Z

A N D

Wadi S a

N E J D

h ba Tropic of Cancer

TRUCIAL S TAT E S

Wadi Halfa N

ANGLO - EGYPTIAN SUDAN 20°

126

Jedda

Mecca At Taif

0 0

150 km 150 miles

THE LEVANT 1500–2002

Saida Mediterranean Metulla Sea

S Y R I A

Q

Es Suweida

sectarian divisions leading to widespread civil

N

war (1975–82) and the fragmentation of Lebanon

Kaf

EG

Wadi A raba

Beersheba

into zones controlled by rival Christian, Shiite, Bayir

Sunni, and Druze militias. The chaos was com-

T R A N S J O R D A N

Shubaih

YP

N E J D

T Taba

Hejaz 80 km

0

expelling the Palestinians and installing a Invasion of Lebanon June 1982 – September 1983

mer objective was achieved with the expulsion of

Israeli attacks

the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO)

Israeli withdrawal

from its Lebanese bases, the principal outcome of

Israeli front line 6 June 1982

the invasion was the establishment of a de-facto

Israeli front line 3 September 1983

Syrian hegemony and the emergence of the Shiite

Syrian forces

Hezbollah, backed by Syria and Iran—a more

Maronite forces

effective enemy to Israel than the Palestinians.

Druze forces

80 miles

Pledges and Border Changes 1920 – 1923

pounded by the 1982 Israeli invasion aimed at Maronite regime allied to Israel. While the for-

0

Haqal

28°

against national development. When Palestinians Israel in the 1970s the Israeli reprisals reopened

Nablus Jerico Amman Jerusalem Bethlehem Hebron

Aqaba

ensured a modicum of social peace but militated used Lebanese territory to launch attacks against

Jordan

Netanya Tel Aviv32° Jaffa Gaza

IRA

Haifa Nazareth

basis for rule after independence. The system

Damascus

Tebuk

The Palestine Mandate, granted to Britain Separated from Palestine by Britain in 1921, and given to the Emir Abdullah. Dhaba Ceded by Britain to the French Mandate of Syria, 1923

36°

The Israeli occupation of South Lebanon proved

Lebanese forces

costly and ineffectual, provoking the government favored the military recruitment of the Alawi

UN forces

into making a unilateral withdrawal in 2002.

(Shiite) sectarians from the highlands above Latakia. After independence the Alawis were able

Beirut Baabda Aley

Zahle

Rayak

O

sance) Party, establishing a sectarian dictatorship that combined socialist ideologies imported from

Jebel Barouk

A

Mediterranean Sea

N

Damour

Eastern Europe with the time-honored Arab system of asabiyya (group solidarity).

N

to take control of the nationalist Baath (Renais-

B

The French enlarged Lebanon by adding the districts of Tripoli, Sidon, the Biqaa Valley, and

A wa l i Jezzine

Damascus Rachaya

E

33°30'

substantially increasing the proportion of Mus-

Zah ara ni

L

South Lebanon to the smaller Ottoman province,

Sidon

lims from the Sunni and Shiite communities. Hammadiye

constitution by which power was divided between

n

o i t y

G o l a n

r

e l i I s r a

H e i g h t s

Jordan

u S e c Bint Jubail

of power along sectarian lines was reaffirmed in the 1943 National Pact, which established the

A

N

I

S

R

A

E

Z o n e

regardless of demographic changes. The division

e

Kiryat Shmona

dent and commander-in-chief of the army,

I

r B u f f e

U N Force (after 1978)

R

N

ing supreme power through the offices of presi-

L it a ni

Tyre

U

the main religious groups, with Maronites retain-

Y

U N Force (after 1978)

Marjayoun

Z

Building on Ottoman precedents they instituted a

S

Mt Hermon

0 0

25 km 25 miles

L

127


Prominent Travelers

Ibn Battuta spent more than a

The pilgrimage to Mecca gave rise to a rich

Asia as the chief Ismaili dai (missionary) for

genre of travel writing. Pilgrims kept jour-

the Fatimid Imam-caliph al-Mustansir

nals of their travels or dictated their

(r. 1036–94). Attacked for his preaching by a

accounts to scribes, providing fascinating

Sunni crowd in the city of Balkh, (probably

details about everything from food to

at the instigation of Saljuq officials) he took

architecture.

refuge in Badakhshan in the western Pamirs,

year in the Maldive Islands,

One of the most interesting accounts is

where he spent the rest of his life under the

accepted the post of qadi

the Safarnama (travelogue) of the Persian

protection of an Ismaili prince. The Ismailis

(judge). He regarded the people

philosopher-poet Nasir Khusraw (1004–c.

of

as “upright and pious” but

1072), who journeyed to Cairo by way of

Afghanistan and the autonomous region of

disapproved of the way women

Nishapur, Rayy, Lake Van, Aleppo, and

Gorno-Badakhshan in the former Soviet

were bare from the waist

Jerusalem. From Cairo he made two pilgrim-

Republic of Tajikistan) revere him as their

upwards.

ages to Mecca before returning to Central

founding saint. In local legend, he not only

where, with some reluctance, he

the

Pamirs

(located

in

eastern

converted the people to the Ismaili faith, but named all their villages, canonizing the topography of places far removed from each other (in the same way that Ireland’s patron saint is associated with regions as far apart as Mayo, Tipperary, Antrim, and Armagh). While his poems reflect the loneliness of exile, the rationalist temper of his philosophical writings made him acceptable to the communists who took over the region in 1920 and he retains his status as a national hero in Tajikistan. The Cairo Nasir described in his book is a model for wise and just administration. The artisans are decently paid, leading to an improved quality of their products. The soldiers are paid regularly, making them less likely to molest the peasants. The judges get good salaries, ensuring fairness and sparing citizens from corruption and injustice. If a merchant is caught cheating a customer, according to Nasir, “he is mounted on a camel with a bell in his hand and paraded about the city, ringing the bell and crying out: ‘I have committed a misdemeanor and am suffering reproach. Whoever tells a lie is rewarded with public disgrace.’” 128

PROMINENT TRAVELERS

The Arabic version of the pilgrimage-

of information about the Crusades, the state

travelogue is known as a rihla. The genre

of navigation in the Mediterranean, and the

was devised by the Andalusian Ibn Jubair

political and social conditions of the times.

(1145– 1217), who wrote a famous account

It served as a model for many other narra-

of the two-year journey he made from

tives, most importantly the rihla of the

Granada, starting in February 1183, to

greatest of all Muslim travelers, the Moroc-

Mecca. Here he spent nine months before

can Ibn Battuta (1304–c.1370), whose jour-

returning from the Muslim Holy Land by

neys took him from his native Tangier to

way of Iraq and Acre, where he boarded a

China and Subsaharan Africa. Ibn Battuta

Genoese ship bound for Sicily. After surviv-

made at least six pilgrimages to Mecca in

ing a dramatic shipwreck in the Straits of

the course of his travels and the earlier parts

Messina, he reembarked at Trapani, arriving

of his narrative conforms to the rihla genre.

safely at Granada in April 1185. Ibn Jubair’s

However, as his journeys became more

narrative provides an abundance of informa-

extended his book grew more comprehen-

tion about the countries and cities through

sive, evolving into an unrivaled description

which he passed, and is an invaluable source

of the known world. As with Marco Polo’s

M

BY

30°

40°

N

it

er

AR

ra

P

T

Ca

Ti

nn

Jer

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ul

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al-

ab

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m

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40°

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12,000 6,000 3,000 1,500 600 0 ft

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Tr i Be poli ir Ty ut r Ha Acre e ifa D

Se a

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INDI

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30°

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NasirJ Khusraw’s Journeys c. 1040 Tropic

of Can

cer

129


10°

equally famous travelogue, Ibn Battuta did

however, cannot detract from Ibn Battuta’s

not write his book himself but dictated it to

reputation as one of the greatest travelers of

a collaborator—in his case the Granadan

all time. The wealth of information he

scholar Ibn Juzay (1321–c.1356). He wrote

passed down to posterity about the world of

down Ibn Battuta’s narrative at the behest

his era is unparalleled. Like all great travel-

of

Inan

ers, his observations tell us as much about

(r. 1349–58). By the time the book was writ-

his own social world as the countries in

ten the rihla genre had already become well

which he traveled. He had a sharp eye for

established among educated people and

detail. His curiosity takes his readers behind

questions arise (as with most other trave-

life’s obvious appearances, with every sen-

logues) as to the reliability of some of Ibn

tence underpinned by a wealth of question-

Battuta’s descriptions. A modern scholar

ing: “The Chinese infidels eat the flesh of

the

ruler

of

Fez,

Abu

suggests that Ibn Juzay may have “systemat-

swine and dogs, and sell it in their markets.

ically exaggerated in the direction of fanta-

They are wealthy folk and well-to-do, but

sy tendencies which in the original work

they make no display either in their food or

were certainly more moderate” and re-

in their clothes. You will see one of their

arranged some of Ibn Battuta’s itineraries

principal merchants, a man so rich that his

for stylistic reasons. Scholarly quibbles,

wealth cannot be counted, wearing a coarse

0°

10°

20°

HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE

FRANCE

30°

40°

HUNGARY

TUG

AL

B l a c k

B Y Z A N T I N E

ARAGON

40°

Rome

POR

CASTILE

50°

S e a

E M P I R E

Granada Granada

Trapani

Syria

St. of Messina

Sic ily Hammadids

Damascus

Zirids

Iraq

Acre S e a

T

E


Alexandria

30°

I FAT

MI

D

C

I AL

PH

A

A r a b i a

Medina

R e

Tropic of C

d

ancer

S

Mecca

e a

N

20°

Travels of Ibn Jubair 1183–85

0 0

130

100 km 100 miles

PROMINENT TRAVELERS

cotton tunic.” The contrast with Muslim

Construction of an astrolabe.

societies, where textiles were highly valued

This eleventh-century map was

and the fabrics worn in public an important

designed to establish the

indicator of wealth and social status, is

direction of Mecca—of great

implicit. In the empire of Mali Ibn Battuta

importance to Muslims at prayer.

admires the Africans for their devoutness, and especially their zeal for learning the Koran by heart, “They put their children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free until they have it by heart.” He disapproves, however, of their diet and their women’s lack of attire: “Women go into the sultan’s presence not properly covered, and his daughters also go about naked…. Another reprehensible practice among many of them is the eating of carrion, dogs, and asses.”

15°

Travels of Ibn Battuta 0°

1325 – 1354

15°

30°

45°

60°

75°

90°

105°

120°

135°

150°

Journey 1325–27 60°

Journey 1327–41 Disputed journeys Moscow

Journey 1341–54

A Bulgar

Disputed journeys Kiev

S

I

A

KHANATE OF THE GOLDEN HORDE

Lake Baikal

New Sarai Karakorum Lake Balkhash Astrakhan

err

Tangier Fez

1

32

Marrakesh

Acre 5–

27

h

a

r

a

Baghdad Jerusalem

a

A

R

I

C

i

Khanbaliq

C H I N A TIBET Hangzhou

Hormuz Gu

Multan

Delhi Gan

lf

ges

Guangzhou

East China Sea Quanzhou

30°

Tropic of Cancer

Pagan

Ara bian Peninsula Bay of Bengal

Ara bian Sea

A

Aden

i

South China Sea

Angkor

15°

Calicut Is.

r ge

Jenne

N

MALI

F

b

Mecca

Nil e

Timbuktu

o

Balkh

ia n

a

G

Samarkand

ya

45°

II-KHANATE

Cairo MAMLUKS

–5 4

ar

Tabriz

Antioch Sea

Se Red

S

52

ean

s Pe r

13

an

uD

Medit

sea

Anatolia Granada

CHAGATAI KHANATE

Am

an spi Ca

Constantinople

Rome

Black sea

EMPIRE OF THE GREAT KHAN

Aral Sea

Mogadishu

Ceylon

13 27 –3 0

1341

Maldive s

Niani

Equator

Malindi Momcasa

1346

Venice

0

Indu s

133

EUROPE

0°

Sumatra

I N D I A N

O C E A N

Zanzibar Java

Kilwa

131


Britain in Egypt and Sudan in the 19th Century

General Charles George “Chinese” Gordon (1833–85) was killed by the forces of the Mahdi on the steps of the governor’s house in Khartoum after a siege lasting five months. Seen by the British public as a Christian martyr, his death was avenged by Kitchener’s reconquest of Sudan in 1898. This drawing by the Victorian illustrator Lowes Dickenson is entitled “Gordon’s Last Watch.”

British control of Egypt began with the modernizing regime of Muhammad Ali—who was formally the Ottoman governor of Egypt but really an independent ruler—and his descendant Ismail Pasha (r. 1863–79), a passionate Europhile. His ambitious plans for economic development—including railroads and telegraph and the construction of the Suez Canal (opened 1869)—led to national bankruptcy and the imposition of a foreign-managed financial administration. A group of native Egyptian army officers, supported by ulama, landowners, journalists, and the pan-Islamist activist Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (1839–97) were opposed to the debt-management regime and took control of the war ministry, forming a parliamentary government under the “rebel” minister Urabi Pasha. William Gladstone, the British prime minister, bombarded Alexandria and landed troops who defeated Urabi at the Battle of Tel al-Kebir. Under the British resident Sir Evelyn Baring (later Lord Cromer), who held the financial reins of government, the

Ottoman Africa

A lg e r ia Tunis

c. 1880

Mediterranean Sea

French possessions

Cyrenaica

30°

Tripoli

Ottoman possessions N ile

Egypt

African states

R.

Fezzan

Tropic of Cancer

R

1866 vice-royalty of the Ottoman Empire

e d 20°

S

E gypt ian Sudan

e a Massawa 1862–83 to Egypt

Lake Chad WADAN

K ordofan

BORNU

EMPIRE

ma

SOMALI

I B O

om

Yoruba

E quatoria

Benin ire R. Za

132

nd

Ada

H arar

wa

ila

. rR

Ben ue

ETHIOPIA

1874 to Egypt 10°

R.

Nige

al

SOKOTO

Darf ur

NANDI

KAMBA

S

Egyptian economy was managed efficiently— but in the imperial interest. Agricultural productivity improved, barrages were built to control the floodwaters of the Nile, and the railroad system was extended. Increasing quantities of raw cotton were grown for export but the British limited industrialization for fear of encouraging competition. Egyptian penetration into Sudan began in the 1820s, when Muhammad Ali overthrew the Funj sultanate as part of his bid to create an Egyptian empire in Africa. In 1830 Khartoum on the White Nile was founded as a new fortified capital. Using European officers to command local levies and Egyptian troops, Muhammad Ali’s successors expanded their territory to the Upper Nile and equatorial provinces. Acting on the principles of administrative reform that were being applied in Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, the Egyptians imposed state trading monopolies—with slave raids becoming state business—while standardizing legal practice under the official Ottoman Hanafi code. This undercut the authority of local ulama (who were Malikis) as well as weakening local Sufi cults. Paradoxically this helped the spread of reformist tariqas including the Sammaniyya and Khatmiyya inspired by pilgrims returning from the Hijaz, where the reformist spirit had been strong since the eighteenth century. When the Egyptian state monopolies were abolished in the 1850s Europeans began entering Sudan to take over the trade in gum arabic, ostrich feathers, and ivory, damaging local business. Under pressure from Britain the government signed a convention abolishing the slave trade (1877). The ensuing resentments flared up in the great rebellion launched by Muhammad Ahmad. A shaikh of the Sammaniyya, he enjoyed a

BRITAIN IN EYGPT AND SUDAN IN THE 19th CENTURY

I

10°

T

20°

A

L

30°

50°

40°

Black Sea

40°

Constantinople Y

Caspian Sea A

n

a

t

o

l

i

a

E

G R E E C E


R

S e a

Tripoli

I Bengazi

P

T r i p o l i

T

T

O

N

A

M

Cairo

A

Tel-el-Kebir 1882

Lib y a n Jagbub Des er t headquarters of Sanusi Order

r a

b

Ni le

i a

R

R.

F e z z a n

30°

Suez Canal 1869

E

Cyrenaica

O

M

Alexandria

e d

Muzuk Aswan

Tropic of Cancer

E G Y P T S

from 1882 under British occupation

e a

Mecca 20°

Suakin 1883

Dongola

1887–90 Italian occupation 1818–66 to Egypt

MAHDIST STATE Da r f u r

WADAI

Nuba Mts

1896

il e

A

GOJJAM

AM AW

1

Harar

I

SOMALI

A

AD

t

JIMMA

S

Lake Turkana

O

SIDAMA GHIMIRA

Co n g o F r ee S ta te from 1885

N

BU

Occupied by Britain, 1882

Congo

yp o Eg 84 t

OROMO

1871 to Egypt

Northern boundary of Free Trade Zone Berlin Act, 1885

To France by 1890

a r H a r

M

ile eN hit

DINKA

– 1874

HARAR

Equator ia

W

ZANDE

from 1862 to France

Zaila

SHOA

WALLEKA

YEMEN

Djibouti

Lake Tana

Addis Ababa

Mahdist state, 1881–98

To Italy by 1889 French

Magdala

ETHIOPIA

NUER

Main area of activity of Sanusi Order, Islamic reformist movement, after 1856

ea

1868

Fashoda

To Egypt, 1871–74

Ethiopia at its maximum extent under Menelik of Shoa (Menelik II), c. 1907

Gondar QWARA

SHILLUK

Ottoman Vice-Royalty of Egypt under Muhammed Ali, 1840

rit r

Adowa Senna AMHARA

1883

Mahdist capital

DARFUR

Ottoman Empire, 1840

Khartoum

al-Obeid

1874 to Egypt

1840–98

Massawa Dahlak E Is.

TIGRÉ

1895

B lue N

Northeast Africa

1898

L

Omdurman

0 0

100 km 100 miles

British East Africa

NDA GA

Equator

Lake Victoria

German East Africa

0°

INDIAN OCEAN

from 1885

To Belgium

133


great reputation for piety. Declaring himself to be the Mahdi (the Muslim messiah, widely expected to appear at the end of the thirteenth hijri century in November 1882), he roused the Baqqara cattle-herding tribes against the “infidel” Turko-Egyptian government. Having annihilated a force of 8,000 levies under Hicks Pasha at Sheikhan, the Mahdi went on to take Omdurman and Khartoum. General Gordon (who had disobeyed his instructions to evacuate the garrison) was killed here on the steps of the Governor’s mansion. This left the Victorian public in Britain with a thirst for revenge. The Mahdi died (probably of typhus) six months after his triumphal entry into Khartoum. Under his successor, the Khalifa Abdullahi al-Taishi, the movement continued to expand southward into the Nuba Mountains and Bahr al-Ghazal regions. This brought many non-Muslim animists including the Nuer, Dinka, and others into their orbit, planting the seeds of future conflict. Having challenged and humiliated British power in a strategically sensitive region where France also had imperial designs, the Mahdist state was doomed. In 1898 the Khalifa’s army of 50,000 was massacred by an AngloEgyptian force commanded by General Herbert Horatio Kitchener. The Khalifa’s spears and elderly rifles were no match for the new Gatling guns Kitchener had brought up the Nile in his flotilla of armored steamers. The defeat of the Mahdi led to more than a half-century of British rule under the AngloEgyptian Condominium. The Mahdi’s former followers—known as the Ansar, after Muhammad’s original “helpers” in Medina—adopted the “peaceful” jihad, extending their influence in urban areas. In 1944 their leader Sayyid Abd al-Rahman, a son of the Mahdi, formed the Umma Party, which remained well-disposed to the British while working for independence. The Khatmiyya formed the National Union Party, which favored a union with Egypt to counter the influence of the Ansar. Though 134

the union was overwhelmingly rejected after the 1952 Egyptian revolution the bitter rivalry between the two religiously based parties persisted, opening the way for military rule under General Ibrahim Abbud (r. 1954–64) and later, under Jafar Numairi (r. 1969–85). Initially Numairi tried to heal the divisions between the Muslim north and predominantly nonMuslim (Christian and animist) south by granting limited autonomy to the Bahr alGhazal, Equatorial, and Upper Nile provinces. In 1983, however, Numairi radically switched directions, launching a campaign of total Islamization. He was supported by Hasan alTurabi, leader of the National Islamic Front (the Sudanese version of the Muslim Brotherhood). Though overthrown in 1985 after becoming increasingly erratic and unstable, the program of Islamization continued under General Umar al-Bashir, who seized power with Turabi’s support in 1989. Turabi’s insistence on Arabizing and Islamizing the nonMuslim population, which was subjected to Islamic punishments, provoked increasing resistance among Southerners. Many joined or supported the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement led by Colonel Garang. The struggle between north and south, Africa’s longestrunning civil war, has been described by a leading historian as a “civil war of genocidal proportions… with tactics that include starving the civilian populations and forcing them to migrate.” [Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies, 2nd edition Cambridge, 2002, p. 768.] Peoples adhering to African religions, such as the Nuer and Dinka, have been subjected to forcible conversion. Bashir used the NIFs program, which included purges and executions of non-Islamists in the top ranks of the army and civil service, to smash the power of the traditional political parties, dominated by the Sufi (mystical) brotherhoods. Ten years into the dictatorship, Turabi had served his purpose. In December 1999 the General ousted him in a “palace coup.”

BRITAIN IN EYGPT AND SUDAN IN THE 19th CENTURY

20°

10° PORTUGAL

0°

20°

10°

50°

40°

30°

SPAIN Algiers Tangier

Madeira

Canary Is.

O CC RO O M

Tunis

Oran

Fez

Tunis 1881 protectorate

Algeria

Alexandria

Tripoli

Ifni

Cyrenaica

Ottom. Prov.

to Sp.

Canary Is.

Mediterranean Sea

Tripoli

conquered 1871–90

1 88 i o 4S d p an e i sh O pro r o tect ora te

e d

R.

Mourzouk

R

ile N

Ottom. Prov.

1882 British occupation

Tropic of Cancer

Aswan

R

h

a

r

e a

a

a

1885 to Mahdi SOKOTO

BORNU

El Fasher

Sokoto Kuka Segu WAGADUGU CALIPHATE GURMA Nige Kano DAGOMBA

I

EQUATORIA

Douala

ZANDE

1884 to Ger.

Fernando Póo

Kribi

Principé

Rio Muni Libreville

Congo Free State

RO YO N DA B

São Tomé

BU

Lomé

Congo

Gabon Brazzaville Leopoldville Cabinda

n g o l a

KAZEMBE

10°

Comoro Is.

ca

Lake Nyasa

mb R. Za ezi LOZI Tete

TAWANA

po Limpo R.

UA

NA

1884 German protectorate

N

Portuguese possessions

Lüderitz 1883 to Germany

Spanish possessions

BE

CH

eR Orang . German possessions African state 0 0

500 km 500 miles

Cape Town

se

t u gue

Ottoman possessions

MATABELE EMPIRE

Cape Colony

SOUTH AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Ea

st

Beira

or

German South -west Africa Walvis Bay

French possessions

Mombasa Pemba Is. Zanzibar Is. Aldabra Is.

LUNDA

British possessions

Boundary of Free Trade Zone (Berlin Act), 1885

Witu 1885–90 to Germany

German East Africa

R.

A

Macâmedes

Africa after the Berlin Conference 1885

0°

Victoria

LUBA

Ambriz Loanda

Benguela

Equator

AN UGLake

Lake Tanganyika

1886–91 to Portugal

SO UTH ATLAN TI C O CEAN

10°

R.

Gold Coast

Obok Br. Somaliland

1875–85 to Egypt c.1881–1907 conquest under Menelik II

ADAMAWA

Uban gi

Ivory Coast

to Italy

Harar

BENIN

LIBERIA

Assab

1884–85 Br. protectorate

RABEH’S EMPIRE

Yola

R.

Ben ue

ETHIOPIA

1881–98

M

Porto Novo Lagos

Ashanti

MAHDI’S DOMINION

IR

Bussa

1885 to Italy

Gondar

El Obeid

WADAI G

. rR

Freetown Sierra Leone Monrovia

MAMPRUSSI

Sennar

Lake Chad BA

Massawa

Khartoum 1885 to Mahdi

ri

YATENGA

DARFUR

KANEM

A RE IT ER

Kayes

Samory’s Operations

20°

Berber Marewe 1884 to Mahdi

Timbuktu

Port. Guinea

S

Wadi Halfa

S

Gambia

A r a b i a

Vice-royalty of Egypt

Fezzan

Senegambia St. Louis Dakar

30°

Cairo

P

A

f

Mozambique

Tananarive

Madagascar

20°

1885 French protectorate Tropic of Capricorn

Johannesburg e g n a ZULULAND te Or e Sta e Fr B. Natal Durban

INDIAN OCEAN

30°

135


France in North and West Africa

Uban gi

DAHOM

EY

r

The French conquest of northwest Africa began in earnest in 1830 when the government of the restored Bourbon monarch, Charles X, supported by Marseille merchants with long-standing interests in the wool trade, invaded Algeria. While the French occupied Algiers and other coastal 10° 20° 10° 0° towns, the SPAIN PORTUGAL replacement Algiers 1830 to France Ceuta Tunis to Spain of Ottoman Algeria TUNIS Tangier Oran 1830–48 to Fr. Madeira Nominally Subject M e dite rrane an to Spain 1418 to Spain power in the Se a until 1881 Fez Tripoli Mazagan interior by O Cyrenaica Canary Is. CC te Tripoli O a 1496 to Spain 1521–1835 R tan Europeans O l autonomous M Su provoked a Fezzan movement of resistance by S a h a r a D e s e r t Abd alArguin Qadir, son Pador of the head Timbuktu SENEGAL to France KAARTA Wara St. Louis of the FUTA TORO BORNU MASINA WADAI KHASSO SEGU 1816 to Br. SO Qadiriyya, Lake Chad FUTA JALLON Nige K O PORT. GUINEA T in alliance O Bissau I BADAN EMPIRE with the SulFreetown ADAMAWA Sierra Leone ILORIN 1787–1807 to Britain tan of Ben ue ASHANTI LI Accra BE Monrovia Whydah BENIN RI A founded 1821 M o r o c c o . GOLD COAST Fernando Póo 1821 to Britain N Bight 1483 to Portugal Fo l l ow i n g of 1778 to Sp. 1827–34 to Br. Principé Benin the defeat of São Tomé 1483 to Portugal 0 500 km Congo the MorocAnnobón 1483 to Portugal 0 500 miles Basin 1778 to Spain can army by General Africa c. 1830 Thomas-Robert Bugeaud at the Battle of Isly in British possessions 1844, the way was opened for French colonization. Bugeaud destroyed orchards, crops, and French possessions whole villages, killing large numbers of people Ottoman and Egyptian possessions and leaving many thousands to starve. Vast areas Portuguese possessions of land were confiscated, with Arab and Berber Spanish possessions clans displaced to make way for French and other African states European colonists. There were insurrections against the French throughout the nineteenth Major legal slave route, with date where known century culminating in a massive uprising crushed in 1871. Colonization of the productive lands of the Algerian littoral continued well into the twentieth century. By 1940 European settlers 136

held some 2.7 million hectares, between 35 and 40 percent of the arable land, with wine (forbidden to Muslims) the dominant export. The cultural destruction was massive. Traditional Islamic colleges were abolished or had their revenues seized, and though they were supposed to be replaced by French schools, only a small minority of Algerian Muslims benefited. Unlike the British, who preferred to rule their empire through pliant surrogates, France had a policy of assimilation, and though its application was limited, it brought into being a small Francophone elite that identified with French civilization. In the 1920s and 30s a nationalist movement combining Islamic reformers grouped around Abd al-Hamid bin Badis (Ben Badis) and Arab nationalists inspired by Messali Hajj gained ground, planting the seeds for the full-grown war of independence that erupted in the late 1950s, with support from the Soviet bloc, Egypt, and other Arab countries. In 1958 a counter-movement by French colonists opposed to independence toppled the government of the Fourth Republic and brought General de Gaulle to power in France. Contrary to the colonists’ expectations, however, de Gaulle conceded Algerian independence. After protracted negotiations at Evian, France recognized Algerian sovereignty in 1962. However, the economic, social, and political ties between France and Algeria remained close, with the FLN—the nationalist party that negotiated independence—replacing the French administration as a quasicolonial Francophone minority ruling over a majority of Arabic and Berber speakers. In December 1991 the army intervened to prevent the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) from coming to power in national elections. More than 100,000 Algerians lost their lives in the ensuing civil war, which partly represented a struggle between a Francophone elite committed to Western values and the Islamists who claimed to possess a superior cultural legitimacy. French colonial ambitions in Algeria spilled

FRANCE IN NORTH AND WEST AFRICA

by nationalist revolt was repeated less starkly in other parts of the French empire in Africa, where France had economic ambitions but little interest in colonization. Its primary economic interest was to stimulate the production of cash crops such as peanuts, timber, and palm oil. The French collected taxes in cash and used forced labor on banana, cocoa, and Algiers coffee plantations. Spanish Tunis Morocco Tangier Oran Tunisia Fez Casablanca Mediterranean Sea They built railways to Tripoli Algeria Morocco Benghazi Alexandria Agadir transport goods from Ifni Cairo Spanish the interior to the Sahara L i b y a E g y p t Atlantic, destroying Murzuq Rio de S Oro a h a r a the time-honored camel traffic F r e n c h W e s t A f r i c a St. Louis Timbuktu across the Sahara. Sen egal A ng l oNiger Dakar Eg y pt i a n French Sudan Gambia L. Chad S uda n African trade was a t C h a d l Vo Port. Guinea Sokoto p er Fort Lamy Up French Guinea undermined, with Ni ger i a Gold Sierra Coast Levantine Arabs, Leone Ivory Lagos LIBERIA Coast Accra Lomé Ubangi Shari K am e r un Greeks, and South Douala Asians taking over the Rio Muni retail trade in French French Equatorial B e l g i a n 0 500 km Africa C o n g o colonies. African edu0 500 miles cation was neglected, with only 3 percent of Northwest Africa Africans in the French to 1914 empire enabled to go British possessions to school. Nevertheless French possessions a small Francophone Spanish possessions elite was fostered, Portuguese possessions which would come to power after independBelgian possessions ence. In 1958 de Gaulle German possessions offered to France’s Italian possessions African colonies the Independent state choice between immediate independence or self-government within the French economic community. Only Guinea opted for immediate independence (a costly decision that seriously impaired its economic development). France’s remaining dependencies in West Africa acquired complete independence in the course of the 1960s. 0°

10°

20°

30°

F re

d

nch

E qu

a t o ria

l A fric a

10°

Dahomey

N

Togolan

over into neighboring Tunisia, an autonomous Ottoman province that France took over progressively after 1881. By 1945 there were some 144,000 European settlers occupying about onefifth of the cultivable land. These settlers, however, never formed such a powerful domestic lobby as their counterparts in Algeria. After being defeated in Indo-China after the Second World War France conceded Tunisian independence in 1956. The same pattern of French economic penetration followed by administrative control and colonization occurred in Morocco, with the important difference that the country retained its status as a Muslim polity under the Sharifian dynasty (claiming descent from the Prophet) that came to power in the seventeenth century. Like the Iranian rulers of his day, the Moroccan Sultan was short of revenues from which to pay his armies. This was especially so after the production of one of his most valuable commodities, sugar, passed into European hands with the development of plantations in the Canaries and the Americas. In order to maintain his hegemony over insubordinate tribes, the sultan mortgaged his customs revenues and borrowed heavily from French banks. When this provoked a revolt among the ulama the French intervened directly, imposing a protectorate (alongside a smaller one granted to Spain) in 1912. Moroccan land was opened up to purchase by Europeans, who by 1953 controlled about 1 million hectares, or 10 percent of the crop land, and 25 percent of orchards and vineyards (though Europeans formed barely 1 percent of the population). Unlike in Algeria and Tunisia, however, the dynasty was able to place itself at the head of the movement for independence. In 1953 the French made Sultan Muhammad V into a hero by sending him into exile when he refused to agree to a system of dual sovereignty. After massive protests and violence the French allowed the sultan to return, conceding independence in 1956. The dynasty remains in power under Sultan Muhammad’s grandson, Muhammad VI. The pattern of colonial conquest followed

137


Growth of the Hajj and Other Places of Pilgrimage The hajj is one of the five “pillars” or reli-

foreign residents). About 50 percent of the

gious duties that every Muslim is obliged to

overseas pilgrims are from the Arab world, 35

Durub al–Hadjdj (Pilgrim roads)

perform at least once in his or her lifetime.

percent from Asia, 10 percent from subsaha-

Diversions

Today the duty is made comparatively easy

ran Africa, and 5 percent from Europe and

by affordable air transportation. The hajj ter-

the Western Hemisphere.

Pilgrim Routes of Arabia

Towns, villages Mikat

Be rut

minal at Jedda airport—a vast tented struc-

The origins of the rites of the hajj are

ture spread over several acres—accommo-

obscure. Shortly before his death in 632 Muhammad took the preexisting cults of

Damascus 30 days to Medina

Mecca and its vicinity and reformed them.

Baghdad Karbala Gaza

Kufa/Nadjaf 27 days to Mecca Manarat al-Kurun

35 days to Mecca al-Kahira

include the tawaf (circumambulation) around

Wakisa

Maan

Suez

Spread over several days the reformed versions An Najaf Samawa

30°

the sanctuary in Mecca; the say or ritual run-

Tabuk

n ia

Hafar al-Talabiyya Ha'il

u

Safa

Mada in Salih al-Sukya

lf

Kus

a day spent on the plain of Arafat; the G

Tayma

Al Wajh

ning between the hillocks of Safa and Marwa;

rs

Madyan Aynuna

Pe

Zubala al-Tur

the Kaba, the square temple at the center of

Basra Salman

Akaba

Faydal

traffic—through Muzdalifa; the stoning of

Burayda Nukra

25°

the jamarat (pillars) representing the devil at

ar -K

Edfu

Zilfi

al

Khaybar

t ya

Medina Yanbu‘

Riyadh al-Yamama

Abyar Ali

R

al-Kusuriyya

'Afif

Madan

Sufayna Rabigh

Mina. In reforming the pagan hajj Muham-

n ay

Komombo

Wadi S a

h ba

e

rainmaking, and other rituals surrounding the

Usfan

Black Stone. A mysterious “heavenly rock” or

Shurma

d

Jedda

Dhat Irk Kurn al-Manazil Turaba At Taif Yalamlam Barara Raghdan Tabala Bisha

a meteorite, it is set in the southeastern corner

Mecca

S

Port Soudan

Sawakin

e

Kunfida

Ibl

a

At

Allah as revealed to the patriarch Abraham

Hamdha Dahban Wakasha

bara

Djizan

Sada

T

0

200 miles

of the hajj, the sacrifice of an animal com-

Mushaynika Tarim Kawuda

Mabar

200 km

mythical ancestor of the Arabs. The final act al-Abr

15°

0

(Ibrahim) and his son Ishmael (Ismail), the

Zahran

Khor Baraka

N

of the Kaba toward the exclusive worship of

Sadwan

Mahayl

From Central Africa

ak

az

ze

mad may have redirected a series of solar,

al-Djuhfa

Aydhab

20°

onrush—now a massive jam of people and

Sana

Dhamar Zabid Taizz

43 days to Mecca Rada'a al-Sawadiyya Aryab

al-Shihr

From

la

Sala

Aden

memorating the sheep that Allah accepted in place of Abraham’s son, is celebrated throughout the Muslim world at the Id alAdha, when Muslims kill their own animals or consume ritually slaughtered animals at

138

dates more passengers at one time than any

home. The umra (minor pilgrimage) is limited

other airport terminal in the world. The hajj

to the sanctuary surrounding the Kaba and

physically connects Muslims from all parts of

can be performed separately at any time of

the world with each other. It attracts about

the year or in conjunction with the hajj.

one million pilgrims from abroad each year,

In premodern times the journey could be

and about the same number of pilgrims from

extremely arduous, especially from distant

within Saudi Arabia (including Saudis and

peripheries. It could take many years of a

GROWTH OF THE HAJJ AND OTHER PLACES OF PILGRIMAGE

person’s life—even a whole lifetime—to com-

Wadi Fatma and Medina

plete the “fifth pillar” of Islam. Vast moving

Road to Wadi Fatma

500 paces

40

Plan of Mecca

in the field. In fact, their primary duty was to protect the pilgrims from the attacks of the

38

paved

36

road

35

San dy

Road from Jedda

marauding Bedouin or (from the late eighteenth century) the tribes belonging to the Wahhabi-Saudi movement regarded all non-

16 14

Wahhabis as infidels. Ibn Jubair, who made

13

the pilgrimage in 1184, described the tent of the commander of the Iraqi caravan on the

11 22

Plain of Arafat as resembling a “walled city”

10

or “powerful fortress” with “four lofty

34

A

7

vestibules and narrow passageways. In the

6 37 Burial ground of esh-Shebeka

navigation under colonial auspices, com-

6

3

19 18 17

20

21

9

Jabal Hindi

nineteenth century the arrival of steamship

15

9 23 22

1

gates,” through which one entered a series of

4

5

27 8 24 26 25 27 24 32 31 30 28 29 29 Sandy Plain el-Haram (the Mosque)

5

bined with the emergence of special hajj sav-

The Great Castle

ings clubs, placed the pilgrimage within reach

Jebel Omar A

i et-

Tara

fen

N

Wad

gal, Malaya, and the Dutch East Indies who

12 16

39

could never have hoped to fulfill the religious

33

Summer garden of the sherifs

40

Tomb of Khadijah burial ground of el-Maala

Iraq. The caravan commanders were generals

townsfolk from outlying regions such as Ben-

Water reservoir 41

Amir al-Hajj set out from Syria, Egypt, and

of thousands of ordinary peasants and

Road to Arafat, Taifand Nejd

40

Road to Tanim

Pla in

caravan cities under the command of the

0

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Vegetable and fruit gardens

30 31

duty in preindustrial times. A disastrous side effect of the consequent

1893, when almost 33,000 pilgrims out of a

increase in attendance was a series of devas-

total of 200,000 perished at Jedda, Mecca,

tating cholera outbreaks. In 1865 an epidem-

and Medina. The epidemics continued until

ic originating in Java and Singapore killed an

1912, by which time the strict quarantine reg-

estimated 15,000 out of 90,000 pilgrims

ulations had finally taken hold. Compared

before the hajj—which occurred in May—

with the horrors of the late nineteenth and

35

was over. By the following month the disease

early twentieth century, recent disasters to

36

had spread to Alexandria, where 60,000

have afflicted the hajj, such as the deaths of

Egyptians died. By November the disease

more than four hundred mainly Indonesian

had spread as far as New York. Quarantine

pilgrims in the fire that broke out at Arafat

37 38 39 40 41

restrictions introduced by the Ottoman and

in 2000, seem almost minor.

colonial governments shielded Egypt and

Many, if not most, pilgrims supplement

Europe from infection, but cholera contin-

the hajj with a visit to the Prophet’s mosque

ued to rage in the east and in the Hejaz,

at Medina, where Muhammad’s family,

where there were eight epidemics between

wives, and prominent Companions are

1865 and 1892. The worst of all occurred in

buried. In 1925 the puritanical Saudi-

32

33 34

A

The Quarter of Jirwal. The Quarter of el-Bab. The Quarter of esh-Shebeka. The Quarter of Suq es-saghir. The Quarter of el-Mesfala. The Quarter of Bab el-Umra. The Quarter of Shamiyya. The Quarter of Sueqa. The Quarter of Qarara. Huts. The Quarter of Rakuba. The Quarter of en-Naqa. The Quarter of al-Selemaniyya. The Quarter of Shib Amir. The Haddadin (Blacksmiths’ street). The street el-maala. The Gazza quarter. Palace of the Grand Sherif Aun arRafiq (1882–1905) built by his father Muhammed ibn Aun. Palace of the Grand Sherif Abdallah, elder brother of Aun arRafiq. The Quarter of Shib el-Maulid. The Quarter of Suq el-lel. The Quarter of el-Muddaa. El-Merwa. El-masa. Stone Street (Zuqaq el-Hajar). Maulid Sittana Fatma. The Quarter of el-Qushashiyya. Es-Safa. The Quarter of el-Jiad (in this quarter are the Eqyptian Tekkiyye Foundation building, and the new Government building). Main Guard house. House of Wali (Governor) of the Hejaz. The Police office etc. Madrasah, now used as office of the Committee for the Aqueduct of Zubaydah and bureau of the Reyyis (Chief of the muaddhins). Birket Majin (pronounced Majid) great cistern in connection with the aquaduct. Court of Justice and dwelling house of the Qadhi. Tomb of Abu Talib (uncle of Muhammad). Water place in connection with aquaduct. Tomb of Seyyid Aqil. Tomb of the Saint Shikh Mahmud. Jebel Queqian. The Quarter of Maabda. Reservoir of water from the aquaduct. Several such reservoirs are now in all the main streets. Bedouin huts.

139


Wahhabi movement leveled all the structures

tion of Wahhabism, which was manifested in

marking these graves. Ziyara (the custom of

the Saudi–Wahhabi attacks on the shrines of

visiting graves or praying at them) was

the Shiite imams, Ali and Hussein at Najaf,

severely restricted. According to Wahhabi

and Karbala in Iraq, in 1801. However,

tenets, not shared by other Sunni communi-

ziyaras to the tombs of the imams and their

ties, ziyaras amount to saint veneration or

descendents are an important aspect of pop-

shirk (idolatry). The restrictions are an

ular Shiism. Some of these ziyaras are per-

aspect of the virulently anti-Shiite orienta-

formed at all times of the year, others at spe-

140°

120°

130°

100°

110°

70°

80°

90°

50°

60°

30°

40°

20°

0°

10°

GREENLAND

Alaska 60°

UNITED KINGDOM IRELAND

C 50°

A

N

A

D

A

London

Vancouver

FRANCE

Seattle

U N I T E D PORTUGAL

Boston New York

Chicago 40°

San Francisco

S T A T E S

Norfolk

Azores

SPAIN

Los Angeles

O

CC

San Diego

RO

O

30°

New Orleans

A T L A N T I C MEXICO Gulf of

Tropic of Cancer

Caribbean Sea

Cape Verde Islands

SENEGAL GAMBIA GUINEA BISSAU GUINEA

10°

VENEZUELA Br.

0°

PERU

10°

B

R

A

Z

BOLIVIA 20° Tropic of Capricorn

PARAGUAY

30°

ARGENTINA CHILE 40°

The Growth of the Hajj Pilgrims traveling to Mecca

BURKINA FASO IVORY COAST

LIBERIA GHANA

ECUADOR

Falkland Islands Cape Horn

I

L

L

G

Galapagos Islands

SIERRA LEONE

Guiana

COLOMBIA

MA

TO

Panama

140

MAURITANIA

O C E A N Br. Honduras

PACIFIC OCEAN

AL G

WESTERN SAHARA

CUBA

Mexico 20°

50°

M

Canary Islands

GROWTH OF THE HAJJ AND OTHER PLACES OF PILGRIMAGE

cial times in the Muslim calendar. For exam-

annual festival of Ashura (the day of his

ple, the ziyara of the Imam Rida in Mashhad

martyrdom) when thousands of Shiite pil-

is recommended in the month of Dhu al-

grims from all over the world congregate at

Qada. Ziyaras are popular with women,

the mosque surrounding his tomb. Other

especially to the shrines of female saints

Muslim saints have shrines whose sanctity is

such as Sayyida Zainab (daughter of the

associated with national or regional identi-

Imam Ali) in Cairo and Sayyida Ruqayya

ties. Two of the most prominent are the

(daughter of Imam Hussein) in Damascus.

shrines of Moulay Idris (founder of the

The shrine of Hussein at Karbala is visited

Idrisid dynasty) at Fez in Morocco and

on Thursday evenings, but especially at the

Amadu Bamba (c. 1850–1927) in Senegal.

30°

20°

40°

60°

50°

80°

70°

90°

100°

110°

120°

140°

130°

150°

160°

170°

180°

170°

SWE DE

NO RW AY

N

10°

EST. LATVIA LITH.

Berlin

POLAND

R

Moscow

U

S

S

I

A

N

F

E

D

E

R

A

T

I

O

N

BELARUS

GERMANY

CZ. SLO. UKRAINE AUST. HUNG. SL. ROMANIA CR. B.H. SER. IT BULG. AL AL. Y

K A Z A K S T A N M ONGOLIA

Suez Canal

IRAQ

KYRGYZSTAN

ST

Peking (Beijing) KOREA

AN

IRAN

TAJIKISTAN

C

AFGH.

H

I

N

Shanghai PAKISTAN

LIBYA

EGYPT

THAI. Aden

SUDAN

CAM. VIETNAM

M

AL

BRUNEI

SO

UG. KENYA

Mariana Islands

Guam

PACIFIC OCEAN

SRI LANKA

Caroline Islands

MALAYSIA

CO NG

O

CONGO

INDONESIA TANZANIA

Solomon Is.

BOTS.

S CA

Fiji Is. Coral Sea

I N D I A N

AGA

BI

NAMIBIA

M

ZIM.

MAD

UE

M.

Q

ZAMBIA

R

ANGOLA

MOZA

O C E A N

A U ST R A L I A

SWAZ.

SOUTH AFRICA

Brisbane

LESOTHO

Perth

Sydney

Cape Town

Auckland N

D

Melbourne

EW

ZE

AL A

Cape of Good Hope N

N

N NI BE GO

CENT. AFRICAN REP.

PHILIPPINES

IA

ETHIOPIA

NIGERIA CAMEROON EQ. GUINEA GABON

Hong Kong

OS

BURMA

CHAD

LA

NIGER

Midway

BANG.

Calcutta

Mecca

LI

A J

NEPAL

I NDI A

SAUDI ARABIA

Tokyo

A

JORDAN

GERIA

A

KI

TURKMENISTAN

SYRIA

Malta

TUNISIA

BE

GEORGIA AZERARM. BAIJAN

TURKEY

GREECE

N

UZ

P

SWITZ.

0 0

2500 km 2500 miles

141


Expanding Cities

N

o ff

ices

s hop ds an

gov ern me nt

outer wall

Baghdad Founded in AD 762 by Abu Jafar al-Mansur, the second Abbasid caliph, the city of Baghdad was originally built on the west bank of the Tigris River. Although its original name was Madinat al-Salam (City of Peace), Baghdad was more popularly known as the Round City from the circular walls surrounding it. The caliph’s palace and the grand mosque stood at the center, with four roads radiSyrian ating outward. Towering Gate above the palace was the Green Dome, standing nearly hou 165 feet high, ses topped by a guard room mounted horseman. As Baghdad Khurasan guard room palace Gate mosque gradually s p r e a d beyond the inner v original walls go wall to the east bank of the Tigris, the two halves were joined by a bridge of Kufa Gate boats. The eastern section was called Rusafa. Baghdad reached the height of its commercial prosperity and cultural power during the eighth and ninth centuries. Under the rule of the caliphs al-Mahdi and Harun al-Rashid, it stood at the nexus of the trade routes between the East and West linking Asia with Europe. Its impressive buildings and magnificent gardens gave it the reputation of the richest and most beautiful city in the world. In the latter half of the ninth century, the Abbasid caliphs’ power was weakened by internal strife leading to civil war. When the Mongols invaded Baghdad in the thirteenth century,

0

500 metres

0

500 yards

142

ds

ern

s es

an

me

hou

nt o

ffices

Basra Gate

hop

s

the caliph was murdered along with thousands of his subjects. Whole quarters were destroyed by looting and fire. The irrigation system on which the city and its gardens depended was wrecked, adding dramatically to the city’s decline. By the time Baghdad became part of the Ottoman Empire in 1534 it had suffered obscurity and neglect for several centuries. Improvements were made on a modest scale at the beginning of the twentieth century with the building of schools and hospitals. The oil boom of the 1970s brought increased wealth to Baghdad and the city began to develop on a much more impressive scale, with the construction of middle-class residential areas. New sewers and water lines were laid and above ground a network of superhighways was constructed, as well as a new airport. Eleven bridges connected the two halves of the city, many of which were subsequently destroyed by US bombing in 2003. Tahrir Square, standing on the river’s left bank at one end of the Jumhuriyyah Bridge, is now the heart of the city from which its main streets radiate. Under the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein a number of massive monuments were constructed, including the notorious “Victory Arch”, a vast confection in bronze actually modeled from maquettes of Saddam Hussein’s forearms. An altogether more impressive example of recent monumental art is the Shahid (Martyrs’) Monument commemorating the dead of the Iran–Iraq War (1980–88). Designed by Ismail Fattah, it consists of a vast oniondome vertically sliced into two sections and glazed with traditional blue ceramic tiles. Apart from these monuments most of the improvements to Baghdad were brought to a halt by the war with Iran in the 1980s, the Gulf War that followed Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, and the UN sanctions imposed afterward. The major exceptions to this story of renewed decline were the presidential palaces, actually vast compounds

EXPANDING CITIES

surrounded by high walls or fences, containing Saddam’s lavishly decorated residential villas for visiting dignitaries set beside artificial lakes. Before the removal of the Iraqi Baathist regime by US military action in March 2003 access to these sites by UN weapons inspectors had been a major source of contention between the regime and the United Nations.

mostly dry

Birkat former al-Ratli al-Maqs

now

Bulaq

al-Husayniya

er,

Bab al-Nasr cemetery Qasb

a

of

riv

Nile River

Jazirat al-Fil

Qayt-Bay Qarafa cemetery

Bab-Zuwayla Bab-al-Luq Birkat al-Nasiri

university. Cairo was founded by Jawhar in 970. Later it was embellished by the mamluk amirs, who built hundreds of mosques, tombs, inns, hospices, hospitals, and other public buildings. Their distinctive decorative style made use of the same Muqattam limestone as the pyramids of Giza (and in some cases, using the pyramids’ outer casings). Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi (Saladin) who took over after the collapse Cairo at the time of of the Fatimids, Sultan al-Nasir built the magnifDensely settled walled city icent citadel to Well-populated sections outside the walls the south where Newer sections being opened to settlement Muhammad Ali, Road the nineteenthWall century reforming autocrat, constructed the great Ottoman-style mosque that still commands the old city. The earliest settlement in this crucial spot on the east bank of the Nile, opposite the

Citadel Birkat al-Quarun

mosque of Imam Tulun

Cairo at the time of Ismail 1869 – 1870

Rawda Fumm al-Kalij

Old city

tomb of Imam Shafi

N

Clo

tB

Added by Ismail

ey

Planned new arteries for old city

500 yds

ah C

0

ally

500 m

Railways

Ism

0

ana

l

mosque of Amr

al-Sikkah al-Jadidah Stre l Aziz Abdu

am

Muh

Nile River

e

bridg

et Stre

al-Nil

Ali

Qasr

d ma

Cairo Cairo, which comes from the Arabic word al-Qahira, meaning the victorious, takes its name from the city founded by a brilliant general Jawhar al-Siqilli. A slave of Sicilian, possibly Slav, origin he conquered Egypt in 969 on behalf of his master, the Fatimid Caliph alMuizz. Like the previous conquerors he staked out a separate garrison city for his troops, north of the city, al-Fustat, founded by the Arabs, who had conquered Egypt in 642. The Fatimid city, with its palaces, schools, and mosques, includes al-Azhar, the world’s oldest

et

Bulaq

Maydans

N

Citadel Muhammad Ali Square

0 0

1000 m 1000 yds

143


0

2 km

0

2 miles N

Growth of Cairo 1800 – 1947 Developed before 1800 Added up to1905 Added up to 1915 Added up to 1925 Giza

Added up to 1935 Added up to 1947

pyramids, was Babylon (now Misr al-Qadima), a fortress built by the invading Persians in 525 BC to guard an important crossing of the Nile. The city’s steady northward migration (which continued into the twentieth century with the construction of the desert suburb of Heliopolis) was influenced by the prevailing northerly breezes, which sent the smells of ordure and burning rubbish southward. Before the nineteenth century the city’s westward expansion was limited by the river’s floodplains. The Mamluk amirs and Ottoman princes built fine palaces with vast palm-shaded gardens while most of the populace lived in labyrinthine streets and alleyways contained within the 144

medieval walls of al-Qahira. The Europeanstyle city of fine boulevards and circuses was laid out in the 1860s in conscious imitation of Baron Haussmann’s redesigned Paris. Improved flood control and the stabilization of the riverbanks and the two large islands of Rawdah and Gezirah allowed the city to expand across the river toward Giza and Imbaba. This makes modern Cairo (with 18–20 million people) one of the world’s largest megalopolises. Tashkent Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Tashkent, with a population of 2.3 million, was the fourth-largest Soviet city after Moscow,

EXPANDING CITIES

H

us

nid d in

As

Amir Tem ur

city recovered some of its previous prosperity under Timur and his successors. Contested by successive rulers, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Persians, Mongol Oirots, and Kalmyks, it nevertheless maintained a degree of autonomy. In the eighteenth century it was divided into four, sometimes mutually hostile, quarters sharing a common bazaar. Conquered by the Russians in 1865, its population had almost tripled (from 56,000 to 156,000) by the time the Transcaspian Railway reached Tashkent in 1898. The Soviet period saw intensive industrialization and the expansion of residential quarters with generous parks and gardens. Mosques, madrasas, and other religious buildings were either destroyed, or converted into factories, warehouses, or printing presses. Since independence the whole city has been reasserting its Islamic character, with large brightly domed mosques being constructed alongside modern shopping malls and arcades stocked with goods from Southeast Asia.

om ov

Tashkent

M

Saghb

Leningrad, and Kiev. Much of it was destroyed by an earthquake in 1966, which wrecked 95,000 homes and left 300,000 people (onethird of its population) homeless. Rebuilt as a model Soviet city, it has broad boulevards, wide public spaces with splashing fountains, and rows of concrete office and apartment buildings in the international modernist style, though it retains traditional Uzbek motifs and arcades, and galleries with open verandas, mosaics, and paneling. The city has spacious parks and a modern underground railway system. After Uzbekistan became independent in 1992 the Russians, who formed about half of the population, were reported to be leaving at the rate of 700 a week. However, Russian is still spoken by at least half of Tashkent’s citizens. Before the reconstruction there were two distinct cities, the old Islamic city and the modern Russian one, separated by a canal. Some of the labyrinthine streets and alleyways of Old Tashkent, with traditional homes built around pleasant vine-shaded courtyards, survived the earthquake. Tashkent is the most recent of several names given to the old city, originally an oasis settlement for M nomads and traders on the M Be ru Chirchik River, a tributary ny of the Syr Darya. When the Arabs defeated a Chinese army at the Battle of Talas in 751 the settlement was known as Chach, Arabized to al-Shash. Arab writers described it as a prosperous place of vineyards, teeming with bazaars and busy craftsmen. Tashkent, meaning “stone-town” in the local M im y M Turkic languages, first M M M appears on coins in the Mongol period. Though sacked by the Mongols, the

Metro station

I

Internet access

M M

M

M

M M

Furkat

I

M

M

M

M

M

M M

M

M

M

hkin Pus

M

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Par ken t

M

kin ush

uk

Yuli Ipak

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M M

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M

M

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M

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M M

a on rgh Fa

M

M

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Sh ot aR

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P

Aven ue

M M

M I

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M M M

M

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uk

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1 km 1 mile

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145


Impact of Oil in the 20th Century The impact of oil and natural gas has been a

tribal oligarchies whose control of the oil

mixed blessing for the Muslim societies of

has enabled them to govern by a combination

western Asia and particularly the Gulf

of patronage and repression.

region (including Iraq), which contains

The most conspicuous example of the dis-

between 60 and 65 percent of the world’s

astrous effects of oil dependency was seen in

proven oil reserves. On the one hand it has

Iraq, where the network of kinship con-

enabled the oil-bearing countries to build

trolled by Saddam Hussein extended itself

impressive modern cities with high-rise

through every branch of society after the

buildings, shining shopping malls, six-lane

nationalization of oil in 1972. The group

highways, state-of-the-art communications

controlled the distribution of land (confiscated from old regime landowners or politi-

An oil refinery plant in Saudi Arabia. Approximately 95

cal opponents) licenses for setting up busi-

percent of the world’s oil has

nesses (including arms imports), foreign

been produced by about 5

exchange, and labor relations. Its coercive

percent of its oilfields, two-thirds

power was reinforced through the ubiquitous

of which are located in western

mukhabarat (intelligence services), which

Asia, Saudi Arabia being the

acquired a fearsome reputation for torture

world’s largest producer.

and extra-judicial killing. Iraq was an extreme example, but the same considerations apply to most of the big oil-producing Arab states where a single ruling family exercises power through a network of patronclient relationships and is freed from the constraints exercised by elected bodies of tax-paying citizens. Oil also frees the rulers from the need to democratize their societies by placing the industries on which they depend in the hands of nonenfranchised foreign workers and administrators. The electorate for the Kuwaiti parliament, for example, is restricted to males from families resident before 1959—meaning that only 80,000

146

systems, and other trappings of modernity. It

out of a potential 600,000 Kuwaiti men (not

has enabled Saudi Arabia, once one of the

to mention the foreigners who constitute

world’s poorest and least developed coun-

between 70 and 85 percent of the workforce)

tries, to provide impressive health-care and

are eligible to vote. Even with such a restrict-

education systems for its population (includ-

ed franchise the ruling family has at times

ing the formerly secluded female half). On

found parliament unacceptably critical, dis-

the other hand, it has added to the region’s

solving it between 1976 and 1981 and 1986

instability by consolidating the power of

and 1992. At the same time full Kuwaiti citi-

IMPACT OF OIL IN THE 20th CENTURY

zens (whose average per capita income in 1998

Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan

amounted to more than $22,000 per annum)

have promising oil reserves, but cannot export

are able to enjoy an extensive cradle-to-grave

their oil without sending it through pipelines

welfare system, with state utilities, health

that pass through neighboring countries. The

care, housing, telecommunications, and edu-

most economical route from Turkmenistan and

cation all heavily subsidized by the state.

Azerbaijan would run though Iran to the Gulf

The political volatility of the Gulf region,

using Iran’s existing network of pipelines. This

demonstrated by three major wars since 1980,

route, however, has been opposed for political

has stimulated the search for oil in other

reasons by the US, which favors a much more

Muslim regions, notably Central Asia and the

expensive project running to Ceyhan on

Caspian. The post-Soviet states of Azerbaijan,

Turkey’s Mediterranean coast.

Volgograd

UKRAINE

Rostov

MOLDOVA

K A Z A K H S TA N

MONGOLIA

Lake Balkhash Caspian Sea Ossetia Chechnya Abkhazia

Novorosisk Black Sea

45°

Aral Sea

Tangiz

UZBE

KI

GEORGIA

Baku

Ankara

TURK

ARMENIA AZERBAIJAN

ME

N

TURKEY

Ceyhan

s

Tarim Basin IS

T

A

TAJIKISTAN

N

Marw

Mediterranean Sea LEBANON

C H I N A Kabul AFGHANISTAN

Baghdad

Lahore

IRAN

IRAQ

ISRAEL

Cairo

Turfan

KYRGYZSTAN

Tehran

SYRIA

Alexandria

Xinjiang A

N

Istanbul

ST

JORDAN

KUWAIT

30°

N

New Delhi

PAKISTAN

The Kharg Island Gulf

Dhahran

EP AL

BHUTAN

BAHRAIN QATAR

EGYPT

Karachi

R

Riyadh e

Ahmadabad

d

I NDI A BURMA

Bombay

M

a

N

e

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

A

S

SAUDI ARABIA

Tropic of Cancer BANGLADESH

Arabian Sea

O

Hyderabad Bay of Bengal

Khartoum

ERITREA

YEM

S U DA N

EN

Gu

Addis Ababa

lf

15°

en Ad of

Bangalore

Oilfields and Pipelines in the Middle East and Inner Asia SRI

N

AL

IA

ETHIOPIA

SO

30° UGANDA

Madras

DJIBOUTI

45°

M

0

LANKA Oil and gas reserves

300 km

0

Principal projects for oil and gas lines

300 miles

60°

75°

90°

147


Water Resources Water and its scarcity have had a determining impact on the core regions of the Islamic world. In ancient Egypt many centuries of human experience in ordering the flow of the Nile’s annual flood through complex systems of basin irrigation lay behind the finely calibrated geometry of the pyramids. In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, the state, with its bureaucratic structures of power and control, was the gift of the river. In Arabia the aridity of the land and the value of water is fundamental to the language of Islam. In the Koran the rare and precious rain that makes the desert bloom overnight is one of the ayas (signs or proofs) of God, a metaphor for the resurrection. “…for among His signs is this: thou seest the earth lying desolate—and lo! When We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells [with life] Verily, He who brings to life can surely give life to the dead … for behold! He has the power to do anything!” (Koran 41:39). The root meaning of Sharia—the divine law—is the way or path to a watering place, the source of life and purity. An eighteenth-century Arabic dictionary likens the Sharia to the “descent of water” that quenches man’s thirst and purifies him through fasting, prayer, pilgrimage, and marriage. Water management was fundamental to the success and failure of Islamic governments in the past. In the Upper Euphrates region the early Abbasid rulers restored and extended the system of underwater channels built by the Sasanians, bringing new lands under cultivation. Neglect of irrigation in subsequent centuries hastened the dynasty’s economic and political decline. Water management was central to the development of modern Egypt. Under the dynasty of Muhammad Ali the first barrages were built to control the Nile floods, bringing new lands under cultivation and releasing the floodplain between Cairo and Gizeh for a new European-style city of circuses with radiating boulevards. Gamal Abd alNasser, the charismatic nationalist leader who overthrew the monarchy in 1952, precipitated the 148

1956 Suez crisis by nationalizing the Suez Canal after the US refused to finance the High Dam at Aswan. Built with Soviet help, the dam at the head of Lake Nasser now controls the river by storing its floodwaters in what is now the world’s largest artificial reservoir. Some experts consider the High Dam to have been a long-term ecological disaster. The dam has stopped the river from bringing the rich nutrients from the tropical regions, increasing the salinity of the soil, and reducing fish stocks in the eastern Mediterranean. Dams built by Turkey on the Euphrates have been no less contentious. The Keban (1975) and Karakaya (1987) dams, each designed to store about 30 million cubic kilometers of water to generate electricity and to regulate the river’s flow, were partly financed with loans from the World Bank. However the World Bank refused to contribute to the larger Ataturk Dam, which has a storage capacity of 46 cubic kilometers, because the downstream riparians, Syria and Iraq, failed to approve the project. The dams and associated irrigation projects have reduced the flow of the Euphrates by almost half, from some 30 million to just below 16 million cubic meters per year. In defense of its action Turkey argues that the average use of the flow by Syria and Iraq has never exceeded 15 cubic kilometers per year—so neither need suffer. Turkey is also developing the Tigris through a series of projects that may lead to reductions in flow, but improvements in reliability. Iraq is the main beneficiary of the Tigris. Any shortfall affecting the Euphrates as a result of Turkish engineering could be made good by developing the Tigris waters. Nowhere is the highly charged issue of water management more apparent than in discussions about sharing the waters of the Jordan River, central to the Arab–Israeli dispute. The peace treaty between Israel and Jordan signed in October 1994 included the provision of a phased 200 million cubic meters of water per year for Jordan, to be allocated partly from current Israeli sources and

WATER RESOURCES

34° 30'

35° 30'

35°

The Struggle for Water 1950 – 1967

L E B A N O N

Groundwater area and direction of flow

Litani Tyre

Water divide East Ghor canal Extension of east Ghor canal Pre-1967 proposal for west Ghor canal

SYRIA

National water carrier Planned Arab division 33°

Proposed routes for Mediterranean Sea – Dead Sea canal

Golan Heights

Acre Nahariya

Lake Tiberias

Haifa

Ein Gev

Y

Nazareth

k mu ar

33° 30'

Mediterranean Sea

Beit Shean

SAMARIAN

Jordan

MOUNTAINS Jenin Northern Tulkarm

J O R D A N

aquifer

Nabulus

L

Netanya

SAMARIAN

Zarqa MOUNTAINS Kalkiliya

Tel Aviv

King Talal Dam

Western

E

Jaffa

aquifer

Eastern 32°

aquifer OCCUPIED

A

TERRITORIES (after 1967)

Ashdod Soreq

R

Jerusalem

S

Bethlehem

JUDAEAN

Sh

Gaza

iq

Hebron

HILLS

Dead 32° 30'

ma

I

Sea

Be s o r

partly from joint development. During the preliminary negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, known as Oslo (1993) and Oslo II (1995), water was included as one of five crucial issues along with territory, Jerusalem, Jewish settlements, and refugees. With the continuing intifada (uprising) and the breakdown of the socalled “road map to peace” sponsored by the US, the UN, the European Union, and Russia, the issue remains unresolved. However the very fact that the sharing of water could have been part of the negotiations illustrates an important truth: the principal water resource for the Israeli, Palestinian, Syrian, and Jordanian economies, both at present and in the future, lies outside the region in the form of “virtual water.” “Virtual water” is a concept used by economists and hydrologists to indicate the quantities of water needed to produce imported foods, such as wheat from water-rich regions like North America. Every ton of wheat or similar food commodity requires approximately one thousand times its volume in water to produce it. Judging by the rate of cereal imports into western Asia and North Africa, the region has been “running out” of water since the 1970s. This has not, however, led to starvation. By importing wheat and other staples from regions where soil water and soil moisture are high the countries of the region have subsisted by means of the “virtual water”’ embedded in the staples they import. According to this analysis, it is cheaper and much more sensible to import food measured in terms of “virtual water” than to produce it locally. For example, Saudi Arabia is using fossil water from nonrenewable aquifers to grow wheat in considerable quantities. It is now the world’s sixth-largest exporter of cereals. But the cost is prohibitive. In 1989 Saudi farmers were being paid $533 per ton to produce wheat available for $120 on the world market. The global trading system in grain can deliver 40,000 million cubic meters of virtual water embedded in grain imports without visible stress. No engineering system could mobilize one-tenth of that amount with the same degree of flexibility.

N

Beersheba

0 0

20 km 20 miles 31°

149


The Arms Trade The main elements of modern armed forces are the types of weapon used, the sources of supply of weaponry, and the organization of people to use these weapons. The armed forces of states with a mostly Islamic population have few characteristics that distinguish them as Islamic. All of these states have organized armed forces staffed by full-time personnel. They are arranged on a system of military structures developed in Europe in the eighteenth century and adapted to modern equipment including aircraft. For example, the term squadron was used historically to

Islamic states have created elite units closely associated with the rulers of the country as seen in Iran’s revolutionary guards (the Pasdaran Inqilab) or Royal Forces in Jordan, but this too is a crosscultural practice. The types of weapons system include armored vehicles, planes, ships, missiles, and in a few cases chemical and nuclear weapons. All of these types of weapon had been developed in a form recognizable today by the industrial powers in the Second World War. All of the Islamic states form part of the

Shaheen I, Pakistan’s surface-to-

B. LUX. GER.

surface missile, can carry any

CZECH.

FRANCE SWITZ.

type of warhead, including a nuclear device, up to 434 miles

IT

(700 kilometers). This picture

A LY

was taken in October 2003, at a

SLO.

AUS.

B.H. YUG. ALB.

PORT. SPAIN

time when peace talks with India over the disputed territory of

O

C

CO

M

O

R

Kashmir were apparently stalled.

ALGERIA L I B YA

WESTERN SAHARA

MAURITANIA MALI

NIGER CHAD

SENEGAL BURKINA

150

GUINEA

GHANA IVORY

NIGERIA N

COAST

O


CA M

ER

NG O

TOGO BENIN

GABON

REP. CO

LIBERIA

O

describe small groups of ships or cavalry and then was applied to aircraft. Uniforms too have a strongly European design. The armed forces of all states are infused with the culture that creates them and those in Islamic states are no exception. Thus Islamic traditions can be found in the styles and heraldry of units. Some states, notably the smaller states in the Gulf, make extensive use of mercenaries. However, this is an age-old crosscultural practice still found elsewhere in, for example, the UK’s units of Nepalese Ghurkhas and the French Foreign Legion. Similarly, some

ANGOLA

THE ARMS TRADE

developing world. None has an advanced industrial base, which means that all their major weapons systems have to be imported. The exceptions to this are twofold. First, rifles, pistols, their ammunition, and other small-scale weapons are produced in abundance. Second, a few states with powerful allies, notably Pakistan, Turkey, and Egypt, have been given some assistance in developing a manufacturing industry for weapons. Pakistan is thought to have obtained technical assistance for its nuclear program from China. In common with the vast majority of states, Islamic nations from Morocco to Indonesia are

nowadays mostly within the orbit of the US. Consequently such states tend to train and organize along US lines. This is continuing to replace earlier British, French, and Russian influence except in the cases of Syria and Libya, where Soviet era weapons and organization are quite noticeable. Iran is perhaps exceptional in developing an independent center of military practice, but this is still in a weak and early stage of development. Some members of the Iranian government have proclaimed nuclear weapons un-Islamic. While similar sentiments are expressed in Christian countries, it is rare to find them inside government.

UKRAINE K A Z A K H S TA N

MOLDOVA

MONGOLIA ROMANIA

UZBEK IST A

BULGARIA AZA. ARM.

TURKMEN.

TURKEY GREECE

KYRGYZ.

N

GEORG.

N. KOREA TAJIK.

LEB.

C H I N A

S. KOREA

SYRIA AFGHAN.

ISRAEL

IRAN

JAPAN TA N

IRAQ

IS

JORDAN

NE

K PA

PA L

BH.

SAUDI

EGYPT

A. E.

TAIWAN

BANGLADESH BURMA

I NDI A

A

N

ARABIA

V

OS

S U DA N

CAMB.

Luzón TNA M

THAI.

N EME

IE

Y

Hainan

A

M

L

O

P HIL IPPINES SRI LANKA

Mindanao

AL

IA

ETHIOPIA

SO

M

M A L AY S I A

Military Spending and Service c. 2000

UGANDA KENYA

7% or more CONGO

More than 2 years

Sumatra

Borneo

Sulawesi

5% – 6.9% 1–2 years

TANZANIA

Jakarta

3% – 4.9%

Java 6 months – 1 year

I N D O N E S I A

Timor

1% – 2.9% Up to 6 months ZAM

B

IA

Less than 1% No data

Voluntary military service

AUSTRALIA

151


Flashpoint Southeast Asia 1950–2000 The late 1940s and 50s saw the emergence of a

flicts between Muslims and Christians broke out on

diverse set of nations in Southeast Asia. At present,

the eastern Indonesian islands of Maluku and

the region is comprised of the Republic of

South Sulawesi. In October 2002, bombs (allegedly

Indonesia, the Federation of Malaysia, and the

planted by members of the international terrorist

Sultanate of Brunei, where Muslims are a majority,

group al-Qaeda) exploded in a nightclub on Bali,

and the Republics of Singapore and the Philippines,

leaving 202 people dead and 300 people injured.

learning the Koran. Historically a center of Muslim resistance to

Myanmar (the Socialist Republic of the Union of

Malaysia gained its independence in 1957 and

Dutch colonial rule, Acheh is the

Burma), the Kingdom of Thailand, the Lao People’s

formed a federation between Malaya, Singapore,

only Indonesian province where

Democratic Republic (Laos), the People’s Republic

Sabah, and Sarawak. Singapore seceded from the

the Sharia has been reintroduced

of Kampuchea (Cambodia), and the Socialist

federation in 1966 and espouses a multiethnic reli-

as the basis of public law.

Republic of Vietnam, where Muslims are minorities.

gious policy of governance. In contrast, Islam is the

Young girls in Acheh, Indonesia,

95°

100°

R)

O S

1948

105°

LA

BUR ( M YA N M A MA

THAIL AN (SIAM D )

Andam an Sea

Hue

1954

NA

CAMBOD

M

Bangkok

IA

ET

1953 Gulf of Siam

VI

Saigon

1954

Rattani

Kedah

Kelantan

a it Str

Pasai

Samudra

of

Trengganu

Ma

ca lac

Singke

Muslim involvement in the formation and develop-

M

Malacca

Fansur

u

A L A Y

a

part, by a series of flashpoints involving Muslims of

1957

1957

m

years has been diverse. It has been punctuated, in

Pahang

Johore Singapore

S

ment of a number of these nations over the past fifty

Kual Lumpu a r

ri Ka

t

ma

a

The formation of the Republic of Indonesia in

Palembang

I

1949–50 saw uprisings (1948 and 1953) of many

Batang Bay

Muslims in western Java, South Sulawesi, and Sunda Strait

Acheh (northern Sumatra), whose leaders disagreed about the decision to limit the role of Islam in the new republic. In recent years, Indonesia has seen a series of local, regional, and international conflicts involving Muslims. Between 1999 and 2000, con152

trait ta S

r

different orientations and aspirations.

INDI AN OCEA N

N

Jakarta (Batavia)

1945–49

FLASHPOINT SOUTHEAST ASIA 1950–2000

state religion of Malaysia. Since before its founding,

establishment of an autonomous homeland for

there were recurrent tensions in Malaysia between its

Philippine Muslims. Successive Philippine govern-

Chinese and Malay populations, which erupted into

ments have attempted to broker settlements with

the race riots that took place in 1969. Insofar as

Muslims in the region. Muslims in Thailand are pri-

Malays are Muslim and constitute a majority, such

marily located in Satun in northwestern Thailand,

intercommunal conflicts have a religious dimension.

and the southern provinces of Pattani, Yola, and

But Malaysia is also witness to intracommunal ten-

Narithiwat, which border Malaysia. Muslim resist-

sions in which Muslims continue to debate the nature

ance to the Thai state in the form of armed strug-

and extent of Islam’s role in the matters of governance.

gles and separatist calls reached their climax in the

In the Philippines, Muslims (often referred to as

1990s. Muslims in Myanmar (Burma) mostly reside

Moros) reside mostly on Mindanao and the Sulu

in Arakan on the Myanmar border with

archipelago. The early 1970s saw Muslims calling

Bangladesh, and since the 1950s have been in con-

for separation from the Philippine state and the

tinual conflict with Myanmar about their status.

110°

115°

120°

130°

125°

135°

140°

145°

Hainan (to China)

New States in Southeast Asia 1950–2000 1949

PH

Post colonial and separatist conflicts

IP

South China Sea

Independence war

IL

Manila

Vijaya

15°

Date of independence

PI

ait Str

NE

Min do ro

10°

rc h

ip ela go

S

1946

Palawan

A Su

1984

I

Sulu Sea

Mindinao

PA C I F I C

Sabah

OCEAN

5°

1963

Brunei

Brunei

S

lu

A

Celebes Sea

Sarawak 1963 it

Stra

Halmahera

Ma k

Borneo

ie r

ass ar Str ai

0°

t

Tanjungoura

Banjermasin Martapura

Ja va S e a

N

Stra it Lo mb ok

Bandanera

S

E

I

A

PA P UA E A IN NEW GU 1984

Flores Sea

Sumbawa

Flores

ok b

m

1963 to Indonesia

Banda Sea

Bali

Lo

5°

Seram Ambon

Macassar

1949

J a v a

rck Bisma Sea

a l u k u Buru

O

m

M

Sulawesi (Celebes)

D

p Da

Sum

ba

10°

Timor

Annexed by Indonesia 1976 Timor Sea

Arafura Sea Cape York

Coral Sea

153


Flashpoint Iraq 1917–2003 Like the majority of Arab states, Iraq became an independent state after the breakup of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War. From its beginnings it faced problems in creating an integrated sense of national identity. Though ruled by Ottoman governers adhering to the Sunni tradition, the majority of the Arab population (about 60 percent) were Shiites with strong religious and cultural ties to neighboring Iran, where Shiism has been the

Mesopotamia 1915–18 British river-borne operations other British operations British retreat Turkish advance Turkish retreat Oil field Oil pipeline Approximate extent of areas inundated during the wet season

B l a c k S e a 40°

45°

50°

R U S S I A Oc c u p i e d b y Ot t o m a n E m p i re a f t e r t h e Tre a t y o f B re s t - L i t o v s k

Gumusane K i l k it

(until November 1917)

Yerevan

O

Russ

Kirovabad Ku

Ozero Sevan

ra

40°

Erzurum ian fro nt lin et oM ch 19 8

A r m e n i a

ar

T

1

Malatya

Van Gölu

Khvov

T

Caspian Sea

Intended link-up with Russian forces

Adiyaman

Tabriz

Lake Urmia

Hakkari

O

Urfa

Mardin

Rasht Q

ez

el

M

Mosul captured 3 Nov. 1918

Eup hr

Lahijan Ou

zan

P E R S I A

s

A

a te

Kirkuk captured 7 May 1918

Sanandaj is T i gr

N

Syria

British break Turkish lines 5 Nov. 1917

Tikrit

I ra q

Baghdad

Karbala The Siege of Kut

va n

ce li

0

3/4 km

N

Shatt-a

flooded in February l-Hai

154

Kuwait

K U WA I T 0

100 km

El Hasa

snipers

0

100 miles

Bandar-e Sharpur

Fao Is. British Protectorate

Mosque

British garrison surrenders 29 April 1916

Abu Dhabi Basra Sh

E

Kut-al-Amarah Woolpress Village

Ahwaz

Hawr al Hammar

ra lA ta at

Townshend

is

I

gr

Shushtar

R

road to fort

flooded in January

Ti

Dezful

Nasiriya captured 24 July 1915 Kurna

Three British relief attempts fail

Fort

Turk i

T urk

1/2 mile

ne

sh a

ish

d

e

0

P

fron t lin

N

al-Hilla

Kut-al-Amara An Najaf captured 28 Sept. 1915 lost 29 April 1916 recaptured February 1917

M

December 1915 – April 1916

Khorramabad 22 Nov. 1915 British attack at Ctesiphon beaten off; British retreat to Kut-al-Amara

Baghdad Ctesiphon

E

A r a b i a

35°

27 Jan. 1918 British mission leaves for Kermanshah and Baku Kermanshah

30°

Pe r s i a n Gulf

state religion since the sixteenth century. About one-quarter of the population (based mainly in the north) was Kurdish. During the last years of Ottoman rule a movement for autonomy fueled by Arab nationalist sentiment had developed among Ottoman army officers and urban notables. When Britain, which had captured Baghdad in 1917 and installed a military government based in Basra, was awarded a mandate for Iraq at the San Remo Conference in 1920, it faced a series of revolts by Ottoman officials, landowners, tribal chiefs, Sunni and Shiite ulama, and army officers. The British response was to establish a constitutional monarchy under Faisal ibn Hussein, son of the Sharif of Mecca whom the French had removed from his throne in Damascus. The British mandate ended in 1932 when Iraq was admitted to the League of Nations, but Britain retained its airbases at Shuaiba and Habbaniyya, and a controlling interest in the IPC (Iraqi Petroleum Company), which started exporting oil in 1934. Though the Iraqi elite was included in the government it remained divided between different factional and tribal interests, while the troubles in Palestine caused by Jewish immigration fueled nationalist sentiments and antiBritish feelings. A pro-Axis coup d’état by a group of nationalist officers known as the Golden Square led to a second British occupation of Baghdad and Basra in 1941. The tensions caused by the 1956 Suez crisis and Iraq’s adherence to the pro-Western Baghdad Pact (including Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan) aimed at containing Soviet power surfaced in the revolution that, with communist support, overthrew the monarchy in 1958. However the new military government was itself replaced in 1963 (and again in 1968) by officers belonging to the secularoriented Baath (Renaissance) Party. Under Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti (vice president to General Hasan al-Bakri and the regime’s

FLASHPOINT IRAQ 1917–2003

Samawah

The Gulf War, Phase 1

I

Euphra

R

A

N

tes

17 January to 23 February 1991

Nasiriyah

0

Allied units

100 km

0

100 miles

Iraqi units Basra

Allied movements

Abadan

Iraqi airbase destroyed

I

R

A

Q

Bridge destroyed U.S. Special Forces dropped behind enemy lines for reconnaissance for Allied forces

K U WA I T

Persian Gulf

lB atin

Rafha

Wa d

ia

Kuwait US Marines

NEUTRAL ZONE

N

Warah

S A U D I A R A B I A Hafar al Batin

Khafji

The Gulf War, Phase 2 24–26 February 1991

Samawah

I

Euph

rates

Allied units

R

A

N

Nasiriyah

Iraqi units Allied movements

Basra

Iraqi airbase destroyed

As Salman Abadan

I

Bridge destroyed Advance lines with timing

R

A

Q

101st Airborne Division set up resupply depot

Iraqi retreat

K U WA I T

Persian Gulf

atin

Rafha

Wa d

ia

lB

Kuwait U.S. Marines

NEUTRAL ZONE

After 48 hours

Warah

S A U D I A R A B I A

N

0

After 12 hours

100 km

0

100 miles

Hafar al Batin

Khafji

The Gulf War, Phase 3 Samawah

27 February 1991

I R

Euph

rates

A

N

Nasiriyah

Allied units Iraqi units Allied movements Iraqi airbase destroyed

Basra

As Salman

Abadan

I

Bridge destroyed

R

A

Q After 100 hours

Advance lines with timing Iraqi retreat

Persian Gulf

K U WA I T

Rafha atin

French forces set up western defense line

ia lB

Kuwait U.S. Marines

Wa d

effective “strong man” long before he formally assumed the presidency in 1979) the al-Bu Nasr clan from Tikrit effectively used the East European-style Baath Party apparatus to build a formidable network of power based on a combination of patronage and coercion. The regime proved remarkably durable. It took steps toward creating a sense of Iraqi national identity based on the Arab-Muslim and pre-Islamic Mesopotamian heritage, with archaeology, folklore, poetry, and the arts enlisted to enhance Iraqi distinctiveness. The Kurds were ruthlessly suppressed, with some 1,000 villages destroyed and thousands of civilians killed by chemical gas. The Shiite for the most part supported the government during the disastrous war with Iran (1980–89), although there was significant opposition from the Dawa movement founded by the murdered Ayatollah Baqr al-Sadr in the 1960s. After coalition forces drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait in 1991, a Shiite rebellion in a number of southern cities including Basra, Najaf, and Karbala was ruthlessly suppressed—despite the presence of US forces in the area. In its drive to stamp out the last vestiges of opposition the government then proceeded to drain the southern marshlands inhabited by the Shiite. The Kurds, however, were protected by Allied air power. Contrary to expectations, the UN sanctions imposed on Iraq after the invasion of Kuwait merely served to strengthen the regime’s purchase over Iraqi society, enriching the networks controlled by Saddam Hussein and his sons through the monopoly they obtained over illegal oil exports and the UN-approved “oil for food” program. The destruction of the regime following the Anglo-American attack on Iraq in March 2003 was completed with the capture of Saddam Hussein in December. It was far from clear, however, if the Americans would succeed in their stated purpose of installing a democractic system of government acceptable to all sections of the Iraqi population.

NEUTRAL ZONE

N

After 80 hours Warah

S A U D I A R A B I A 0 0

100 km 100 miles

Hafar al Batin

Khafji

155


Afghanistan 1840–2002 A mountainous region with deep valleys,

education introduced. Habibullah’s son

deserts, and arid plateaus, Afghanistan has

Amanullah (r. 1919–29) pushed the process of

never been a single political entity although

modernization further by enacting sweeping

parts of it were incorporated into the Pushtun

legislative changes, including the abolition of

Empire founded by Ahmad Shah Durrani (r.

slavery. He began to allow the education of

1747–72). The population is extremely varied,

women and brought about changes in their

with that largest ethnolinguistic grouping, the

status including almost equal rights in mar-

Pushtuns, comprising about 47 percent. This

riage, divorce, and inheritance. He also intro-

group is concentrated in the southern belt of

duced Western dress at court. The reforms

the territory that straddles the border with

provoked a rebellion by the conservative

Pakistan, with Tajiks, the second-largest

ulama and chieftains affiliated to the

group (comprising 35 percent) living mainly

Naqshbandi order and Amanullah was forced

in the north, along with Uzbeks, Turkmen,

into exile in 1929.

and Kirghiz (8 percent), and the Imami Shiite Hazaras (7 percent).

The Pushtun military leader Nadir Shah (r. 1929–33) took over from Amanullah and his

The disintegration of the Durrani Empire

successor Zahir Shah (r. 1933–73) reinstated

into fratricidal strife in the nineteenth century

the Sharia courts. He rewarded the Pushtun

opened the way for Russian and British pene-

tribes on which they depended by granting

tration. Britain’s concern to protect its empire

their leaders government posts and allowing

An Afghan mujahid (warrior)

from Russian encroachments prompted its

rampant

carries a shell to the front line.

two invasions of Afghanistan in 1839–42 and

Pushtuns in the allocation of resources. At

Later these fighters would

1879–80. Needing a strong central government

the same time the program of modernization

receive the Stinger Surface-to-Air

to consolidate Afghanistan as a buffer state

was resumed in a modified form, with the

missiles. This weapon, though

against the Russians Britain installed the

state taking the leading part in economic

light and portable, contained

“Iron Amir,” Abd al-Rahman Khan (r.

development. Under the combined strategic

1880–1901). He consolidated his power over

pressures of the Cold War and the regime’s

the country by waging jihad against the Shiite

Pushtun-oriented nationalism (which gener-

intelligence services (ISI), it had

and forcibly converting the indigenous non-

ated tensions with neighboring Pakistan) an

a devastating impact on the

Muslim “infidels” of Kafiristan. Departing

influential part of the Pushtun elite moved

Soviet occupation, enabling

with precedent he claimed to rule by divine

closer to Moscow. This process resulted in

relatively untrained tribesmen to

right rather than tribal delegation. Non-

the ousting of Zahir Shah by his cousin and

bring down helicopter gunships.

Pushtuns were discriminated against and suf-

former prime minister, Muhammad Daud,

fered oppressive taxation.

with support from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,

discrimination

against

non-

sophisticated target-seeking electronics. Secretly supplied to the mujahidin via the Pakistani

156

Elements of the modern state, however,

and Iran. Daud abolished the monarchy and

were also introduced, with a centralized army

proclaimed himself president of the republic

used to repress rebellious tribes and the gov-

of Afghanistan. The Soviets responded by

ernment organized into separate departments

sponsoring a coup by the communist People’s

of state. During the reign of Abd al-

Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), a

Rahman’s son Habibullah (r. 1901–19) the

move that resulted in direct Soviet interven-

army was professionalized and modern

tion in 1979 to prop up the Parcham (non-

AFGHANISTAN 1840–2002

Pushtun) faction of the PDPA under Barbak

dominated Taliban regime (supported by

Kamal. The ensuing jihad—supported by

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) headed by Bin

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the United

Laden’s close ally Mullah Muhammad Omar.

States—attracted volunteers from many

After taking Kabul in 1994 the Taliban barred

Muslim countries, including the wealthy

women from schools and other workplaces,

Saudi Islamist Osama bin Laden. With the

massacred the Shiite Hazaras, and brought

help of US-supplied Stinger missiles, the

Iran to the brink of military intervention by

The Afghanistan War 1979–86 and Soviet Retreat 1988–89

Samarkand

Soviet Advance 1979

Soviet airfields

Soviet Retreat

Soviet infantry bases

Refugees

Soviet airborne infantry base

Soviet Campaigns 1981–86

Airfields constructed and enlarged after 1980 by USSR

U

S Termez

Kuska

I R A N

Dusnanbe

TA YI KI ST AN S

Mazar-i-Sharif Maimana

Aug. 1981

Kunduz

Faizabad

Heret

Shindand

H

A

Shamali Operation Nov. 1983

N

I

Farah

Bagram

S

T

Shamali eastern offensive, 1985

A

May 1982– May 1984

ft

G

Bahlan

Airli

F

Airlift

A

R

May 1985

Kabul Jalalabad

N

Zhawar Campaign, 1986

Ghazni

Peshawar

Gardez Lashkar Gah

Srinagar Kandahar Kashmir

P A K I S T A N land over 2000m 200 m

INDIA

Quetta Lahore

mujahadin forced the Soviet Union to with-

Amritsar

murdering nine of its diplomats.

draw its troops from Afghanistan in 1989. Far

After the attacks on New York and

from generating a sense of national unity,

Washington in September 2001 by terrorists

however, the struggle against the Soviets

allegedly belonging to Bin Laden’s al-Qaeda

served to intensify interethnic strife, as the

network the Americans removed the Taliban

central institutions of state disintegrated.

regime by a massive bombing campaign. The

The factional fighting that followed the

new Pushtun leader Ahmad Karzai, installed

Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of the

by the United States following an interna-

Marxist regime of General Najiballah in

tional conference in Berlin, is a cousin of

1992 opened the way for the radical Pushtun-

Zahir Shah. 157


Arabia and the Gulf 1839–1950 The modern history of Arabia and the Persian Gulf is a complex pattern of interactions between the local forces on the ground and regional and global powers. The stakes are vastly increased through the presence of oil and the growing dependence of Western economies (including that of Japan) on regular affordable supplies. Until the discovery of oil the region was mostly poor (except for the pearling centers of Kuwait and Bahrain, and trading port of Muscat) and of no great interest to the outside world. Britain, however, needed to protect its Indian Empire from potential rivals or competitors, including Tsarist Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and Iran. In 1839 it captured Aden, which became a vital coaling station (and later oil refueling depot) on the route to India. The development of Aden initiated a process whereby the whole of the South Arabian littoral and its hinterland—including the highlands of Lahej and the feuding city states of the Wadi Hadhramaut—were pacified by the British during the 1930s using Royal Air Force bombers as the ultimate sanction. The South Arabian protectorate (later renamed South Yemen, before being united with Yemen in 1991) included some twenty-three sultanates, emirates, and tribal regimes under overall British control, with the sultans dominating the cities and the hereditary class of sayyids, who claimed descent from the Prophet, holding land and serving as mediators among the clans of the interior. Further east the Omani Albu Said dynasty under its leader Sayyid Said bin Sultan (1807–56), created an extensive Indian Ocean empire that grew wealthy on the slave trade and the export of ivory and spices from the sultan’s domains in Zanzibar. Under a series of treaties between 1838 and 1856 Sayyid Said bowed to British demands to restrict 158

slavery—providing further pretexts for British intervention. On his death in 1856 the British resolved a dispute between his sons Majid, and Thuwaini by decreeing that Zanzibar, inherited by Majid should pay Muscat, inherited by Thwaini, for the loss of revenue resulting from the division of the empire between them. British intervention in the Gulf region north of Muscat was prompted by the suppression of piracy as well as slavery. Under a series of treaties signed between 1835 and 1853 the shaikhs of Arab seafaring tribes who lived by preying on shipping (Arab as well as British) agreed to a truce suspending all piratical activity (while also agreeing to suppress the slave trade). Compliance was supervised by the British Indian Navy. The Trucial System protected pearling and also benefited Arab shipping, which had suffered most from the insecurity caused by piracy, with local merchants sending their goods via better-armed and protected British ships. The Trucial States (now the United Arab Emirates) remained British protectorates until 1971, with Britain supplying officers and controlling foreign policy. Britain expanded its influence to include Kuwait in 1896, where it established an informal protectorate to guard its client, Shaikh Mubarak, from direct occupation by Turkey. As the major power in the region Britain intervened in many local disputes, regulating contested frontiers and trying to guarantee continuity of succession. The most notable cases include the quarrel between Abu Dhabi, Oman, and Saudi Arabia over the Buraimi Oasis. This led to the expulsion of Saudi forces by the British-led Trucial Oman Scouts in 1955, and Iraq’s claim to Kuwait (dating from Ottoman times when the shaikh formally acknowledged Ottoman suzerainty), which Britain resisted by sending troops to guarantee its independence in 1961.

ARABIA AND THE GULF 1839–1950

OT Maras TO Adana M Iskenderun A 35°

40°

Qazvin

SUBAY

Qe

IR

Territory under Italian control

Hamadan

E

I r a q

Qom Ottoman Empire c.1900

Kermanshah Borujerd

Damascus Baghdad

Habbaniya

Haifa PAL E STINE

RUWA A N IZ A

Amman Jerusalem

Karbala

LA

Major tribe Territory under British control

Tehran Sanandaj

ris Tig

es

Beirut

Gaza

Arabia and the Gulf c. 1900

Kirkuk

P

at hr

Syria

Homs

55°

Lahijan

Rasht

ze lO uz an

M

Eup

Tripoli

50°

Mosul

E

Hama

35°

Tabriz

45°

Hakkari

N

Aleppo

Antakya Latakia

Diyarbakir

Kashan

Khorramabad

PER SIA

Isfahan

al-Hilla Dezful

An Najaf

Yaid

’AN IAA RKA T

Ahvaz Abu Dhabi Basra

Kerman

Sakaka

al-Jawf

DAFIR

BANA ATIYA

K U WA I T Under British Protection

e

E

W

i

a

Unayza

a

D

HAR B

Hejaz

al-Qatif

Burayda Dhahran

AWAZIM

S U B AY

AY N A

Medina

al-Hufuf

T A

N

Yanbual Bahr

BANI

(to Oman)

u l f

Q ATA R

t Under British Protection a s C o 1916 t e Abu P i r a Dhabi Prot t. B ri UC n d er I A L O MAN U

Sharjar

H

Wadi S a

ul Jask fo fO ma

n

Khabura Muscat

h ba

A

e

H A R B

Bandar-e Lengeh

TR

R

Riyadh

n

BAH RAIN Under British Protection 1861 G

G

’UTAYBA

JUH

25°

J

as

T

E

H

TA

N

H a lil Bandar-Abbas

s

Y

HUTAYM

BILLI

r

l

A

UJM AN

Hail

3

U

P

H

Tayma

al-Wajh

Sirjan

Firuzabad

ANIZA

Tabuk

Shiraz

1899

Kuwait

SHAMMAR

85

BANA SAKHR

Abadan

.1

30°

M U R R A

Q

d ZAHRAN

H U

Jedda

D

H

Mecca al-Taif

AY

S

A

GHAMID

Y

i l

a

e

h

Asir

K

a

e l b R u

Abha

bara

Kassala 15°

ERITREA (to Italy 1899)

T

ak

N

YAM

Khor Baraka

At

OM A N

British Protectorate 1891

DAWASIR

L

20°

ANGLOEGYPTIAN SUDAN Suakin

SUB

Massawa

Ye m e n

Asmara

H A D H R A M AU T British Protectorate 1888

Sana

Ara bian Sea

al-Hudayda az

ze

Aduwa

ABYSSINIA

Zabid Taizz Mocha

Mukalla

ADEN

British Protectorate 1903 Shuqra

0 0

100 km 100 miles

Aden Captured by Britain 1839

159


Rise of the Saudi State

Abd al-Aziz Ibn Saud (seated lower left) developed the Ihkwan (brethren), recruited from Bedouin tribes. With this committed force, Ibn Saud built the state that became Saudi Arabia in 1932.

160

The establishment of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in the twentieth century replicates many of the features of Muhammad’s original movements and the jihad movements in North Africa as analyzed by the great Arab philosopher of history Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406). The original Saudi state, founded in the eighteenth century, was built on an alliance between a religious reformer of the Hanbali school, Muhammad Ibn Abd al-Wahhab, and Muhammad al-Saud, a chief of the Aniza. After wreaking devastation in Iraq and the Hijaz, the Saud’s sphere was greatly reduced by Egyptian intervention in 1818 and was briefly eliminated in the 1890s when power passed to the proOttoman al-Rashid family. In reviving his ancestral state after raiding the Rashid stronghold at Riyadh in 1902, Muhammad al-Saud’s descendent Abd al-Aziz (known as Ibn Saud) followed the same classical pattern of combining the military power of the tribes with the moral force of a religious revival. All who failed to adhere to the Wahhabite code were subject to persecution. Ibn Saud’s warriors, known simply as Ikhwan (brethren) were organized into agricultural settlements called Hijras. These were inspired by the community founded by the Prophet Muhammad at Medina in 622. Here the former nomads were given

military training and indoctrinated into strict Wahhabite tenets. With the Hijra colonies located at strategic points all over the Nejd plateau, the Ikhwan could be mobilized rapidly, while Ibn Saud was spared the cost of a standing army. Unlike the original Islamic movement, however, the Saudi state’s outward momentum was blocked by the European powers that held sway on Arabia’s perimeters. While Britain collaborated with Saudi expansion into al-Hasa, the Hijaz, and (with Italian connivance) Asir on the borders of Yemen, Ikhwan raids into Transjordan and Iraq were met with devastating fire from the Transjordanian Frontier Force and the British Royal Air Force, since Britain had guaranteed the integrity of the Hashemite kingdoms granted to the sons of the Sharif Hussein of Mecca, former ruler of the Hijaz. After winning recognition from the international powers, Ibn Saud faced an internal rebellion from disaffected Ikhwan who had become resentful of Western influence and technologies. He defeated them at the battle of Sabilla in 1929.

Territorial Growth of the Saudi State 1902–26 Territory under the control of Ibn Saud c. 1912 Additions by 1920 Additions by 1926 Major attacks and campaigns

SUBAY

Major tribe Territory under British control Territory under British influence Territory under French control Territory under Russian influence Territory under Italian control

RISE OF THE SAUDI STATE

yan

Sa

35°

Diyarbakir

50°

z

Kirkuk

at hr

French Mandate 1920

British Mandate 1920 Habbaniya

Haifa

Isfahan

al-Hilla Dezful

An Najaf

’AN IAA RKA T

Yaid Ahvaz

13

19

Abu Dhabi

92

/1 Basra

6

BANA SAKHR

1920

Karbala

LA

Kerman

Abadan

Sakaka

al Jawf

DAFIR

BANA ATIYA 192

Sirjan

Kuwait

U

British Sphere of Influence (1907–21)

Firuzabad

N.Z. (1920)

3

ANIZA

Shiraz

K U WA I T

N.Z.

SHAMMAR

P

H

Tabuk

IRAN

26

RUWA A N IZ A

Amman Jerusalem

Ferdow

Kashan

Khorramabad

19

PAL E STINE

Kermanshah Borujerd Baghdad

Nayshabur

Russian Sphere of Influence (1907–21) Bejastan Qom

Hamadan

I R A Q

Damascus

TRANSJ O R DA N Emirate under Brit. Suzerainty, 1923

Gorgan Babol Sharud Damghan Damavan Semnan

Tehran Sanandaj

ris Tig

SYRIA

es

Hama Homs

Quchan

Lahijan

el O uz an

Ashkhabad

55°

Qazvin Eup

Tripoli L E BA NON Beirut

30°

Rasht

Qe

Mosul

Aleppo

TERR. OF ALAWITES

Gaza

Tabriz

45°

Hakkari

TURKEY

Iskenderun S.A . Antakya Latakia 35°

40°

Maras

Adana

e

W

r

A

UJM AN

a

D

Sabilla 1929

al-Qatif

JUH

’UTAYBA

AWAZIM

S U B AY

AY N

Medina

A T A

N

d

ZAHRAN

H U

Jedda

D

Mecca al-Taif

H

1926

A

S

193 4

a

Khor Baraka

n

Khabura Muscat

hba

M U R R A

OM A N

DAWASIR

i

– 19 19

l

a h

ASIR

K

1920 to Nejd

e l

1932

1919–20 Abha

b R u N

bara

1934 Massawa Asmara

15°

ERITREA T

az

TRUCIA L

OM

ul Jask fo fO ma

AN

YAM

Kassala

ak

Abu Dhabi

20

Y

e

At

Sharjar

02

Wadi S a

AY

GHAMID

L

20°

ANGLOEGYPTIAN SUDAN Suakin

SUB

Q ATA R

BANI Riyadh Captured by Ibn Saud 1902

H

1924

(to Oman)

u l f

al-Hufuf

Q

A

192

6

e

H A R B

G

19

R

Yanbual Bahr

Bandar-e Lengeh

BAH RAIN

Dhahran

13

Burayda Unayza 190 4

n

G

1926 to Nejd

J

HAR B

1913

HEJAZ 25°

E

19

BILLI

N

1902

T al-Wajh

HUTAYM

H a lil Bandar-Abbas

i

TA

1921

Hail

s

Y

Tayma

ze

Aduwa

ABYSSINIA

YEMEN

H A D H R A M AU T

Independent 1919 Sana

Ara bian Sea

al-Hudayda Zabid Taizz Mocha

Mukalla

ADEN

0 0

100 km 100 miles

Shuqra Aden

161


Flashpoint Israel–Palestine The Six-Day War – Israeli Attack

36° N

14–30 May 1967 Latakipia

Pre-war borders Main Israeli attacks Israeli air strikes

CYPRUS

Airborne landing

Tripoli

LEBANON Beirut

Damascus

Me di t er ranean

Metulla

Sea

Nazareth Jordan

Haifa Hadera Netanya

Nablus Tel Aviv-Jaffa Jericho

Jerusalem Lake Burullus

Bethlehem Hebron

Gaza Lake Marzala Port Said Suez Canal

Beersheba

El Arîsh

El Qantara El Quseima

el

Wadi A raba

E G Y P T Ismailia Bitter Lake

Cairo

El Giza

W

Port Taufiq

d Wa

i

Suez

Ma’an

Nekhl

adi Batat

El Thamad

a

i

ez Su

fa Tar Wadi

Eilat Aqaba

f of Aqab

ba

n

Gul

Nil e

Ara

i

of

di Wa

S

lf Gu

El Faiyûm

El Minya

JORDAN

ISRAEL A rish

Tanta

32° Amman

Dahab

SAU D I A R A BIA Maqna

El Tur Nabq

Haraiba

28°

Sharm el Sheikh Jemsa

Red i Qena Wad

Asyût

32°

162

0 0

Sea 50 km 50 miles 36°

The roots of the Arab–Israeli conflict lie in the age-old yearning of Jews to return to Eretz Yisrael, the land promised by God to the Prophet Abraham. Modern Zionism built on this tradition, seeing salvation from persecution in the acquisition of land where a Jewish sovereign state could be created. In 1878, the first Jewish settlement was established at Petah Tikva. During the First World War the British made contradictory commitments to Arabs and Jews. They promised an independent state to the Sharif of Mecca, whose sons Faisal and Abdullah led the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Turks, while allowing the establishment of a national homeland for the Jewish People in Palestine—a project that met with increasing support among Jewish communities in Europe after the Nazi accession to power in Germany. A plan for dividing Palestine into Arab and Jewish states, which followed an uprising by Palestinian Arabs beginning in 1936, was suspended on the outbreak of hostilities in 1939. After the Allied victory in the Second World War revealed the horrors of the Nazi genocide, pressure for mass Jewish immigration became overwhelming. A 1947 UN partition plan providing for Arab and Jewish states “each entwined in an inimical embrace like two fighting serpents,” in the words of one official, was accepted by the Jewish leaders but rejected by the Arabs. On May 14 1948, the British withdrew and on the following day Israel’s independence was recognized by the major powers. The new state survived simultaneous but poorly coordinated attacks by the armies of the surrounding Arab states, leaving it with more territory than had been awarded to it under the UN plan. Transjordan—later Jordan—gained control of a part of Palestine, including East Jerusalem, which contains shrines sacred to Jews, Christians, and Muslims. Attacks by Jewish irregulars, such as the massacre of Palestinian villagers of Deir Yassin in 1948, prompted the flight of thousands of Palestinians, creating

FLASHPOINT ISRAEL–PALESTINE

and Jordan in 1994. The Palestinian problem, however, remains unresolved. Although the Palestine Liberation Organization, under its chairman Yasser Arafat, recognized Israel’s right to exist in 1988 and achieved limited autonomy for Palestinians in Gaza, Jericho, and other parts of the West Bank under the 1993 Oslo accords, the Islamist organizations, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad, reject the peace process. Continuing Jewish settlements, terrorist attacks on civilians (including suicide bombings), and Israeli measures such as the creation of a Berlin-style wall between Israel and the West Bank and the targeted killings of Palestinian leaders, have made the prospects for peace increasingly difficult.

35°

0

Tripoli

50 km

35°

36°

LEBANON

The October War

0

6 October 1973

Granot

The Intifada

33°

50 miles

February – December 1992

Beirut

Zahle

Rayak

Acre

Major incidents

N

Occupied by Israel at outbreak of war

Hamas-Jihad terror bombings

Damascus

SYRIA

Metulla

Arab attacks

c. 1994

Afula Jordan

Haifa Nazareth

Israeli counterattacks 6–24 October

Hadera Netanya Tel Aviv-Jaffa Rehovot Jerusalem

Jericho Bethlehem Hebron

Gaza

Dumyât Port Said

Lake Geneife

32°

Lod

A-Ram

Ashdod Sore

Jerusalem

q

Bethlehem

Nekhl

q

fi

Nl’llin

Bank

Kuntilla

Suez

Ta u Port

Beit Omar

Sudr

Ashkelon S

i

n

Eilat

a i

G ul

Abu Rudeis Dahab

Sheikh Radwan

Jabaliya S h i q refugee camp m a Shati refugee camp

Gaza

Gaz a Strip Nusseirat

S A U D I A R A B I A

Hebron

Dead Sea

Khan Yunis Rafah Bes

Abu Durba

Maqna

o

fa ar Wa d i T

of Aq a ba

ba

Aqaba Haqal

Gu lf

Ara

z S ue f of

di Wa

Nablus Balata refugee camp

Kalkiya Tel Aviv

J O R DA N El Quseima

West

Tulkarm

N

Wadi A raba

Suez Canal

El Qantara

Deir el Ghusan

Netanya

Amman

ISRAEL

E G Y P T Bitter Cairo

M e d i te r ra n e a n S e a

Beersheba

al-Arîsh

Jenin

Hadera

Nablus

Mediterranean Sea 32°

Ismailia

Nazareth

Kibbutz Galed

Furthest Arab advance

al-Mahalla al-Kubra

Sea of Galilee

Haifa

Jordan

the refugee problem which would fuel subsequent wars in 1956, 1967, 1973, and 1982. The third Arab-Israeli war, in June 1967, left Israel in control of Sinai, Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan Heights, with Israel subsequently annexing Arab East Jerusalem and planting Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories. Limited military success achieved by the Egyptians in the fourth Arab-Israeli war in October 1973 emboldened the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to make his historic visit to Jerusalem in 1977. This initiated the process that culminated in the signing of the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty at Camp David in 1979, followed by disengagement agreements with Syria and a treaty between Israel

Beersheba

N

r

Keziot

al-Tur Nabq

30°

I 0

Jemsa

Red Sea

0 31°

S

R

A

E

L

50 km 50 miles

163


Flashpoint Gulf 1950–2003 There were several wars fought in the Gulf in

expulsion from Kuwait in 1990–91, and the

the second half of the twentieth century. The

war which began in 2003 with the US-led inva-

three major wars were the Iran-Iraq war of

sion of Iraq.

1979–89, the Iraqi invasion of and subsequent

In each of these wars the motives of the combatants remain in dispute. There is con-

0

siderable underlying evidence that oil was an

75 km

43° 0

important contributory factor. In the centuries

The Advance to Baghdad

75 miles

prior to the discovery of oil the region was not

March 20–30, 2003

Tikrit

3rd Infantry Division attacks

the focus of major war between local states or

1st Marine Division attacks

the European powers. In contrast, the rich

Task Force Tarawa attacks

sugar-producing islands of the Caribbean

British attacks

lah

were fought over frequently in the eighteenth

iya

D

Road number

27

and early nineteenth centuries. Oil provided the money for states in the region to acquire BAGHDAD

Eu

tes ra ph

I

R

A

N

very large quantities of armaments in the second half of the twentieth century and these made large-scale war more possible. Saddam Hussein’s exact motivation in attacking first

Ti gr is

Karbala

Al-Numaniya

33°

al Hilla 27

Iran and then Kuwait a decade later may never be known. However, in both cases the prospect

Al Kut

of a quick victory resulting in the acquisition

An Najaf al Diwaniya

of oil-producing areas seems to have had a

1

part to play. Some allege that the US actively

X

X

1 RCT

5 RCT X

al-Amara

encouraged the attack on Iran as a means of

7

curbing the recent Iranian revolution. Both

7 RCT

states proved remarkably resilient despite the

As Samawah

strains of war. And against Iranian expecta-

al-Nasiriya

tions, Shiite citizens of Iraq put their Arab or Suq al Shuyukh

Iraqi identity before their allegiance to their

al-Qurna

As Salman

31°

Jaliba

I

R

A

XX

Q

TF Tarawa

N

The Iran–Iraq war resulted in hundreds of

1 Marine

X

Basra

thousands of casualties on both sides and lasted for almost ten years. It was a war that

XX 3

Safwan XX

Umm III Qasr

1 Armored

R Marines

KUWAIT

involved all the characteristics of major industrialized warfare as it developed during the First and Second World Wars, including mass infantry attacks, trench warfare, combined

1000

Kuwait

200

SAUDI ARABIA

100 0m

45°

164

co-religionists in Iran.

47°

Persian Gulf

arms battles involving tanks, aircraft, artillery, missiles, and poison gas. Although the Iranians protested at the illegal use by Iraq of

FLASHPOINT GULF 1950–2003

chemical weapons the international communi-

place and the extent to which the Iraqi regular

ty remained silent on the matter. This issue

army fought against overwhelming odds

continues to influence Iranian attitudes to

remains unclear. Despite the success of the

what it regards as Western double standards

Americans in capturing Saddam Hussein in

on weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

December 2003, the coalition forces continued

The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August

to be subject to sporadic guerrilla attacks.

1991 was probably triggered by Iraq’s poor financial condition and a misreading of the likely international reaction. Not only was the attack on a UN member state (and a member

0

75 km

43° 0

The Advance to Baghdad

75 miles

March 30 – April 12, 2003

Tikrit

of the Arab League), it was also a blatant vio-

Army attacks

lation of international law. If unopposed it

1st Marine Division attacks Task Force Tarawa advances

would have left Iraq in control of a far larger

h ala

27

y

proportion of the world’s oil reserves than it

Di

Road number

had already. From an Iraqi perspective it is possible to argue that borders and states handed down by colonial rulers and without his-

Eu

es at hr

They claimed to be implementing UN resolu-

A

N

Ti gr is

Karbala

Al-Numaniya

33°

al-Hilla

including large army units from Egypt and In 2003, the US and UK attacked Iraq.

R

3

in 1963. In any event the UN-backed coalition, Syria, expelled Iraq from Kuwait early in 1991.

I

XX

However Iraq had formally recognized Kuwait’s sovereignty within its present borders

BAGHDAD

p

torical basis do not deserve to be respected.

27

X

5 RCT X 7 RCT

An Najaf

Al Kut

X 1 RCT

III

al-Diwaniya

XX

15 MEU

101

al-Amara

7

tions that the UN itself had failed to carry out

III

1

and that Iraq presented a regional and indeed global threat from weapons of mass destruc-

24 MEU

As Samawah

tion (including nuclear, biological, and chem-

X

al-Nasiriya

82

ical weaponry). Most of the world regarded

Suq al Shuyukh

the attack as a breach of the UN’s founding

al-Qurna

As Salman

principle of outlawing aggressive war. The US

31°

Jaliba

I

was supported by neither Mexico nor Canada

R

A

Q Basra XX

despite both nations’ economic dependence

1 Armored

N

on the US.

Safwan

No operational weapons were found in the

Umm Qasr

Iraqi armed forces and as of late 2003 no manKUWAIT

ufacturing programs of WMD were found either. The first phase of the war was complet-

1000

ed in a few weeks as US armored forces drove to

200

and occupied Baghdad and Iraq’s other major

0m

cities. The exact nature of the battles that took

Kuwait

100

SAUDI ARABIA 45°

47°

165


Muslims in Western Europe 32

24°

°

68°

16°

8°

0°

8°

40°

32°

24°

16°

Muslim Migration into the European Union Signature of the Treaty of Rome, 1957

N

W

Became part of the EEC after unification of Germany, 1990

D

F I N L A N D

Membership pending

N

Directions and the sources of immigration

W

O

EEC membership approved May 2004

E

R

EEC member added 1995 60°

E

A

Norwegian Sea

N

ICELAND EEC member added 1986

Y

Ar c t i c C i r cl e

EEC member added 1973 64°

RUSSIAN FEDERATION

S

ESTONIA

c

North Sea

Glasgow

i lt

DENMARK

Ba

UNITED

UKRAINE

ine

Frankfurt

L.

48°

CZECH REP.

Paris ATLANTIC OCEAN

Munich

F R A N C E

Lyon

Milan Turin Genoa

Bordeaux

Marseille

TUG

AL

Almeria

M

e

d

i

t

e

r

r a n

Tangier

e

a n TUNISIA MOROCCO

A L G E R I A

MALTA 0 0

S

e

200 km 200 miles

France (Paris) The majority of migration to France from Muslim countries has been from Algeria, prior to the 1960s. Increasingly, other Moroccan and Tunisian Muslims, as well as those from western Africa, have established 166

Germany (Hamburg, Munich, Frankfurt) Muslim migration to Germany is dominated by Turks. During the 1950s, Germany actively encoura aged the migration of workers from Turkey. LIBYA Most of the employment opportunities on offer were unskilled or semiskilled. During the 1970s, there was an increased movement of Turkish workers to Germany that led to the development of particular focused communities. During this Aegean Sea G R E E C E

EY

POR

Naples

Is.

RK

36°

ric lea Ba

Alicante

Andalucia Cádiz

TU

Barcelona Madrid S P A I N

SLOVENIA

Y

40°

Trieste

R O M A N I A

D anube CR BOSNIA O HERZEG. Venice AT IA SERBIA A BULGARIA I dr Monaco T ia ti MONTEA c S e ALBANIA NEGRO L a Rome

ANDORRA

Lisbon

HUNGARY

AUSTRIA

Bern SWITZERLAND

44°

SLOVAKIA

Sea

Indonesia

Rh

India

P O L A N D

H

Cardiff

Pakistan

Berlin GERMANY

ack

Amsterdam Utrecht The Hague Rotterdam N E T London Brussels Calais BEL Lille

Hamburg

Bl

Birmingham

ER

IRELAND

BELORUSSIA DS

52°

LITHUANIA RUSSIA

KINGDOM Bradford Liverpool Manchester

LA N

Dublin

LATVIA

Se a

56°

themselves there. Originally most migrants were male sojourners who sent remittances home, but from the 1980s the gender balance has been settled as families were established. Although there are significant communities of Muslims in Marseilles, Lyons, and Lille, Paris is the primary city of settlement. The main Paris mosque was established in 1926, but the main Muslim areas of the city were populated in the period after the 1950s. Muslims in France still tend to be focused on their countries of origin with many mosques representing this diversity. Sufi groups are particularly active in Paris, especially those from the North African traditions such as the Darqawiyya and Alawiyya. These groups attract some French converts to Islam.

MUSLIMS IN WESTERN EUROPE

period, families joined the original migrants. Most workers were accorded the status of “guest worker,” which emphasized the official notion of the settlement being temporary. During the 1980s, the Muslim communities began to establish social and religious provision by building mosques and forming religious associations, many linked to groups based in Turkey. Likewise, Sufi groups, such as the Naqshbandiyya, have been very active and often through these groups, converts to Islam have played a significant role in the Muslim communities. United Kingdom (London, Glasgow, Manchester, Birmingham, Bradford) Muslim migration to the UK began from the midnineteenth century with settlement of Yemeni seamen in the ports of Cardiff, South Shields, Liverpool, and London, and eventually in Birmingham. However most Muslim migration to the UK has been from southern Asia (Pakistan and Bangladesh), where, during the 1950s and early 1960s, many economic migrants arrived to take up employment by invitation. During the 1960s, the arrival of families led to the establishment of various provisions of religious and cultural services, as happened in most migrant communities in Europe. London, in particular, has attracted diverse communities. This has led to a more liberal cultural and religious perspective than among other Muslim communities in the UK. Significant numbers of Arabs, as well as Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, mix with more recent Muslim refugees and overseas Muslim students. Bradford has a more homogeneous community of Pakistani origin, which has led to a less diverse religious focus. Birmingham, on the other hand, though constituting a community predominantly of Pakistani origin, has a far more diverse Muslim community that includes a significant number of converts of Afro-Caribbean origin. Increasingly, Muslim youth in the UK are rediscovering Islam as a part of their personal identity. Young Muslim women are adopting the use of hijab as a means of asserting their own identity based on self-

exploration rather than accepting the religious assumptions and practices of the previous generation. As in other European contexts, Sufism plays a significant role as a religious movement, especially in attracting converts. The Netherlands (Amsterdam, Rotterdam, The Hague, Utrecht) The Netherlands has a diverse Muslim community made up of Turks and North Africans as well as Moluccans from the former Dutch East Indies. As the communities established themselves, there has been an increase in the number of mosques since the 1980s. Many of these mosques are linked to the countries of origin, especially those of Turkish origin, where imams are provided by Turkey. The Dutch state provides the teaching of home languages in schools, but as in other parts of Europe, religious education is provided by the mosques. Italy (Rome, Milan, Turin) Italy has a diverse Muslim community, predominantly made up of Moroccans and Tunisians with increasing numbers from the former Yugoslavia. During the 1980s and 90s the Moroccan community in particular established mosques and the provision of religious educational needs.

Built around 1750, the mosque in the castle garden of Schwetzingen, Germany, blends

Spain Spain, with its Muslim history, is significant as a European country developing a resurgence of engagement with Islam, especially in the south. The majority of migrant Muslims to Spain have been from North Africa, the majority from Morocco. There are also communities from Subsaharan Africa and the Middle East. There has been an increasing number of mosques established and the provision of religious education. Generally, Spanish attitudes to Islam are quite sympathetic and there is a significant convert movement of Spaniards, in particular in Andalusia. Here the assertion of regional autonomy and conversion to Islam may be experienced as the rediscovery of an identity suppressed for many centuries.

Islamic motifs with European baroque influences.

167


Muslims in North America Muslim populations in the US originate from an early period. There is evidence to suggest that the first Muslims arrived with Spanish explorers in the sixteenth century. But the initial substantial communities resulted from immigration from Syria and Lebanon during the 1860s with further influxes in subsequent decades. The period following the Second World War saw significant numbers arriving in response to the economic and political constraints in their land of origin, including Europe, southwestern Asia, East Africa, India, and Pakistan. The main states where Muslim communi-

Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries Area of Islam Migration

Cedar Rapids

Detroit Buffalo

BALKANS

Dearborn

1 89 0 –

e a r l y 1 9 20 s

pre-W orld

OTTOMAN EMPIRE SYRIA LEBANON JORDAN INDIA

1 90

War II

6

ties settled were Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Massachusetts, Iowa, Louisiana, New York, and Pennsylvania. In Canada, Muslim communities have not been so concentrated in particular locations and are more geographically mobile. The countries of origin have also contrasted with the US with the majority of Muslim migrants to Canada originating from Arab countries, North Africa, Subsaharan Africa, southeastern Europe, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, the Far East, and East Africa. Some originated from countries of the British Commonwealth. In both the 168

US and Canada, conversion has been a factor in the emergence of Muslim communities. African-American converts in the US, in particular, have been very significant. The Nation of Islam (NOI), a separatist movement among African-Americans, has not been considered part of Islam by the majority of Muslims. It remains a significant force, although since since 1976, when Warith Deen Muhammad, the son of the NOI founder Elijah Muhammad, took over part of the movement, an increasing proportion of African-American Muslims have aligned themselves with mainstream Sunni Muslim belief and practice. African-American Muslims make up a significant proportion of the Muslim community in the US. Conversion in prison among black inmates is particularly significant as a response to racism and institutionalized brutality, and draws on the Muslim ancestral origins of many African-Americans. White converts are not as significant in numbers, but are, nonetheless, vocal exponents of the faith, often, as in Europe, associated with Sufi movements. The early establishment of Muslims in North America has led to a period of assimilation in which, with exception of the African-American Muslims, issues of religious identity have been subsumed in cultural integration. With the arrival of overseas Muslim students and more recent migrants who were practicing Muslims, for example from Pakistan, there has been an increase in the assertion of religious identity. There is generally a wide spectrum of religious practice in North American communities. Although many Muslim associations and mosques are ethnically based, there are also Muslim organizations that are trans-ethnic. The Muslim Students’ Association, founded in 1963 by Muslim students at the Univer-

MUSLIMS IN NORTH AMERICA

sity of Illinois-Urbana, has been particularly significant in asserting a Muslim idenHAWAII tity in contradistinction to an ethnic identity. Other umbrella organizations in the US and the Council of Muslim Communities of Canada have made significant contributions in the shift toward a collective Muslim identity. At a local level, most concentrations of Muslims in cities such as Detroit, New York, and Chicago, have provision for halal food, funerary facilities, mosques, and community halls, as well as organized educational provision for religious instruction for children. In terms of relationships with the wider community, Muslims in North America, in the US in particular, have experienced significant challenges over the last twenty-five years. After the Iranian Revolution in 1979, when Americans were held hostage in the Tehran embassy, public opinion concerning Islam and Muslims began to shift in a negative direction. The events of September 11th

YUGOSLAVIA

P a l e s ti n ia ns

after 1948

PAKISTAN ALBANIA SYRIA TUNISIA BANGLADESH IRAQ IRAN KUWAIT ALGERIA EGYPT SAUDI INDIA ARABIA SUDAN

YEMEN MALAYSIA INDONESIA

After World War II area of Islam

2001, other attacks on Americans, and the killing of Israeli civilians (with whom Evangelical Christians as well as Jews tend to empathize strongly) have had a massive impact on Muslim communities in the West generally, but especially in the US. Community and religious leaders have had to counter the negative stereotyping of Islam as a religion of violence, while addressing the politicizing of Islam in their own communities.

migration country sending students

The Black Muslim leader Malcolm X began his life as a petty criminal before his conversion to the separatist Nation of Islam (NOI). His pilgrimage to Mecca in 1964, however, persuaded him that separatism was wrong, and that true Islam included people of all races. Three NOI members were convicted for his murder following his assassination in February 1965.

169


Mosques and Places of Worship in North America The Islamic Society of North

Grants coming from the Egyptian, Saudi Ara-

America’s Headquarters Mosque,

bian, Iranian, and Lebanese governments

near Indianapolis, Indiana.

revealed the shift toward mosques becoming

Designed by architects Gulzar

less ethnically focused in terms of congrega-

Haider and Mukhtar Khalil, and

tions. In the US, the Council of Masjids has

completed in 1981, it displays a

been established to facilitate the provision of

progressive, modern profile for

mosques to serve the Muslim community. A the faith of up to 8 million

report in 2001 showed that mosque atten-

Americans and Canadians. As

dance, based on ethnic analysis, included

well as a prayer hall, the building

170

contains a library and

Following the establishment of communities

southern Asians (33 percent), African-

administrative offices.

in the US, the 1920s saw the first appearance

Americans (30 percent), and Arabs (25 per-

of mosque buildings to serve the religious

cent). Imams still tend to be recruited from

and social needs of Muslims. As in Europe,

overseas from countries including Egypt,

homes initially functioned as mosques,

Turkey, and Pakistan, but increasingly there

followed by the conversion of existing houses

are US-trained imams as more provision for

to serve as mosques. The construction of

imamate training is established. Some imams

mosques built specifically for the purpose

are also funded from overseas but most have

came at a later phase. Most mosques were

their salaries paid for by local communities.

originally established to serve ethnically

A Council of Imams was established in 1972.

defined communities and were not sectarian

Mosques are, in the main, managed by local

as such, the buildings being used for both

consultative councils.

social and religious purposes. Often for larg-

Mosques and other buildings used by Mus-

er events, such as the Id prayers, public and

lims in North America including Ithna Ashari

private halls have been hired to accommodate

Husayniyyes,

worshippers—this has been the case in

Nation of Islam temples serve a range of func-

Toronto, Montreal, and Edmonton in

tions besides being places of worship. They are

Canada. The first African-American mosque,

used for educational purposes, such as week-

of the Nation of Islam, was established in

end schools, children’s classes, lectures, and

Harlem in 1950.

adult education. They provide libraries, book-

Ismaili

Jamat-khanas

and

However, up until the 1960s, there were

stores, and small publishing facilities for Islam-

insufficient mosques to serve the growing

ic materials as well as granting facilities for

Muslim community who instead used private

social events such as weddings and funerals.

prayer rooms and spaces to fulfill religious

Crucially, they present a point of contact for

obligations. There are now over 1,000 formal

non-Muslims to learn about Islam and to meet

mosques in the US.

Muslims—an issue of vital importance in the

One of the largest mosques built in the US

aftermath of the attacks on New York and

is the Detroit Islamic Center, which was

Washington in 2001. As the Muslim communi-

erected between 1962 and 1968. The con-

ties of North America are evolving, mosques

struction was paid for by the local Muslim

and other congregational centers are becoming

community who formed its congregation.

the focal point for community initiatives.

MOSQUES AND PLACES OF WORSHIP IN NORTH AMERICA

Attendance at places of worship should

The Islamic Cultural Center,

not necessarily be equated with the develop-

constructed in 1984 at Tempe,

ment of the Muslim-American community in

Arizona.

its broader aspects. A 1987 study found that only 10–20 percent of Muslim-Americans attended mosques regularly (as compared to about 40 percent church attendance for the Christian population). While some younger Muslims may be reaffirming their Islamic identities by observing religious rituals and practices, the majority of recent immigrants from South and Central Asia may be more concerned with integrating themselves into mainstream American society. Mosques by State 2000 over 200 100–199 50–99 10–49 1–9

WAS

HING

TON

MONTA

NA

NE

MAI

MINNESOTA NORTH DAKOTA

OREG

MI

ON IDAHO

WISCONSIN

H

VT IG

A RK EW YO

N

SOUTH DAKOTA

C

N

WYOMIN

G

RNIA

KANSAS

ARIZO N

NEW MEXICO

MISSOURI

Y KENTUCK

TENNESSEE

OKLAHOMA ARKANSAS

SSI

SSI

PPI

A

A

COLORADO

OHIO

TEXAS

ALASKA

LOUISIANA

A

ALABAM

VI WE RG ST IN IA

CALI FO

ILLINOIS

IAN

UTAH

IND

NEBRASKA

DA

NIA SYLVA NEW Y JERSE D WARE M DELA

PENN

IOWA

MI

NEVA

NH MA CT RI

IA

VIRGIN

OLINA H CAR T R O N SOUTH A IN CAROL IA

GEORG

FLORIDA

HAWAII

171


Islamic Arts A vibrant tradition of the arts flourished in

religious contexts probably out of the same

Islamic lands. In contrast to other artistic tra-

fear of idolatry that other religions had grap-

ditions elsewhere, the most important arts in

pled with in earlier times. In other contexts, particularly private and courtly settings, a lively tradition of pictorial art evolved. The walls of palaces, for example, were often painted with figural scenes; mosques were not. There, nonrepresentational decoration based on geometric, vegetal, and epigraphic ornament reigned supreme. While all figural art produced in the lands of Islam is, by definition, not religious, the converse is not necessarily true. Nonrepresentational art was appropriate and esteemed in any setting, whether secular or religious. Textiles were the mainstay of economic

Chinese porcelain was much

life in medieval Islamic times. Made of wool,

admired in the Islamic world and

flax, silk, and cotton, they ranged from gos-

its influence can clearly be seen in

samer organdies and muslins (named after

this Saljuq jug.

the towns of Urgench in Central Asia and Mosul in Iraq) to the sturdy rugs, felts, and

Far right: Equally, in the portrait

cloths used by nomads for their tents. Cloth

of Selim III, European influences

was not only used to dress individuals but

can be seen in this personal

also served to define and furnish spaces in representation.

this dry land of little wood where people nor-

172

Islam are those considered “decorative,”

mally sat on carpets and leaned against bol-

“minor,” or “portable” in other traditions,

sters. People at all levels of society used tex-

such as textiles, calligraphy and the book

tiles. The majority were plain, but wealthy

arts, ceramics, metalwork, glassware, and the

patrons, ranging from caliphs to merchants,

like. Most of them involved the transforma-

coveted exotic, brightly colored, elaborately

tion of humble materials, such as plant or

decorated cloths. Raw fibers were enlivened

animal fibers, sand, clay, or metal ores, into

with bright dyes made from a variety of

sublime works of art, characterized by lumi-

materials, which were themselves traded

nous colors and intricate designs. Many of

widely. Artisans developed an amazing range

the finest objects are ultimately utilitarian

of techniques, from embroidery and tapestry

pieces, such as bath buckets and serving

to drawloom weaving and ikat dyeing, to

trays, to be used in everyday life.

make their fabrics beautiful.

It is often said that Islam prohibited figur-

The veneration of the word in Islam meant

al representation in its art, but that is not so.

that books and writing were highly valued

Rather, Islam discouraged depictions in all

everywhere. The introduction of paper from

ISLAMIC ARTS

Central Asia in the eighth century led to an

and Muslim craftsmen took the art of fash-

explosion of books, book learning, and book

ioning wares for daily use from copper alloys,

production, with the associated arts of callig-

such as brass and bronze, to new heights.

raphy, illumination, binding, and ultimately,

Many of these trays, basins, bowls, buckets,

illustration. The fanciest manuscripts were

ewers, incense-burners, lamps, candlestands,

copies of the Koran, made first on parchment and later on paper. They often had superb nonfigural illumination but were never illustrated.

Books with pictures, particularly

copies of Persian epic and lyric poetic literature, became popular in the Persianate world from the fourteenth century, when Persianspeaking rulers in Iran, Turkey, and India established ateliers that produced some of the most magnificent books ever made anywhere. Many of the other arts associated with the lands of Islam use fire to transform materials taken from the earth. Muslims inherited ancient traditions of pottery from the Near East but transformed them through the development of new ceramic bodies, colorful glazing techniques, and decorative repertoires. Some of these features, such as overglaze luster painting developed in ninth-century Iraq, the artificial paste (fritware) body developed in twelfthcentury Egypt and Iran, and underglaze painting developed in twelfth-century Iran, erupted in a burst of creative ceramic activity unrivaled until the eighteenth century in Britain. Although the majority of production was unglazed earthenware for storing and transporting water and foodstuffs on a daily basis, fancy dishes, bowls, jugs, bottles, and ewers made in the Islamic lands were avidly collected and imitated from China to Spain. Glassblowing, a technique that had been invented in pre-Islamic

candelabra, and the like were decorated with

Syria, remained a specialty of the Levant. Glass-

inlays of precious metal to enliven their sur-

makers made thousands of gilded and enameled

faces. Metalwares used in religious settings

lamps used to light the many mosques and

differed from those used in domestic settings

schools erected to spread God’s word.

only in their decoration, which tended to be

The Prophet Muhammad is said to have discouraged the use of gold and silver vessels,

epigraphic, geometric, and vegetal, rather than figural. 173


GERM. BEL.

0°

15°

15°

LUX.

Islamic Arts

30°

UKRAINE

CZECH.

Paris

Carpets

FRANCE

Ceramics

AUS.

SWITZ.

MOLD.

HUN. ROMANIA

Textiles Beograd

45°

Metalwares

B.H.

Glass

IT

Book illustration/illumination Lisbon

PORTUGAL

Jade

S PA I N

M

Kairouan

ed

Rabat

Athinai

Tunis

Gafsa

Sfax

it

er

Fez

Marrakesh

M

Istanbul Iznik Bursa

Palermo

TUNISIA

O

ALB.

GREECE Murcia Grenada Malaga

30°

Shumen

BULGARIA

Toledo

Cordoba

AT L A N T I C

LY

RomE

Ivory carving

YUG. A

RO

CC

ra

ne

an

Sea

O

Alexandria Cairo

ALGERIA

OCEAN

L I B YA EGYPT

Tropic of Cancer

WESTERN SAHARA

MAURITANIA NIGER

MALI

CHAD 15°

Dakar

SENEGAL S U DA N BURKINA

LIBERIA

NIGERIA CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

Lagos

N

Accra

O

O

Abidjan

CA M

ER

0°

GABON

174

REP. CON GO

IVORY COAST

GHANA

Conakry

TOGO BENIN

GUINEA

CONGO

ISLAMIC ARTS

45°

75°

60°

90°

K A Z A K H S TA N

Urgench (14C)

Ca

Black Sea

sp ia

GEORGIA

UZB EK IST AN

n

KYRGYZSTAN

AZA.

Sea

Amasya

ARMENIA

Bukhara TURKMENISTA N

TURKEY Kaiseri

Mashad Nishapur (9–13C)

Mosul Raqqa

Aleppo

SYRIA LEB. Damascus

Kashan

JORDAN

C H I N A

Merv (8–12C) Kabul Herat Kashmir

Isfahan

Baghdad

IRAN

IRAQ

ISRAEL

TAJIKSTAN

Tabriz

Diyarbakir

Samarra

Lahore

AFGHANISTAN Yazd

Basra

TA N

Konya

Samarkand

Kirman

IS

Shiraz

Delhi

K PA

Pe

NE

rs ia

Jaipur

Agra

PA L

BH.

n G

SAUDI

ul

Karachi

f

Riyadh

Ahmadabad

Re

U. A. E.

d

ARABIA

Calcutta

Se

INDIA

BANGLADESH

A

N

a

Mecca

M

Bombay

O

Ara bian

Khartoum

Sana

YEM

Sea

Hyderabad

EN Bangalore

Madras

Addis Ababa

SRI LANKA AL

IA

ETHIOPIA

SO

M

INDIAN OCEAN

UGANDA KENYA

175


Major Islamic Architectural Sites

176

The presence of Muslims in any given area is

Rulers often built lavish palaces as symbols

marked by distinctive building types, most

of their wealth and authority. These have not

notably the congregational or Friday mosque.

survived as well as mosques, however, because

While the mosque can take many forms,

their design and construction were more

depending on local materials and

experimental. In addition, successors were

building practices, it is always a

often reluctant to maintain the splendid

structure oriented toward Mecca,

achievements of their rivals. Archaeological

large enough to accommodate the

investigations in the Islamic lands have

Muslim male population. Mosques

focused on deserted or abandoned palaces,

were generally built of brick or

such as Khirbat al-Mafjar, the Umayyad

stone and covered with vaults or

retreat near Jericho, and Samarra, the ninth-

domes. Wood was often unavailable

century Abbasid capital in Iraq. Only a few

or too expensive to use for roofing

Islamic palaces have survived above ground,

in this largely arid region, although

such as the Alhambra in Granada, Topkapi

it was used in heavily forested

Saray in Istanbul, and the Red Fort in Delhi.

regions such as Anatolia and South-

Islamic palaces are normally showy but poor-

east Asia. Elsewhere, fine woods

ly-constructed buildings in which appearance

were reserved for mosque furniture,

and display take precedence over form and

such as minbars (pulpits) and read-

structure. Unlike Versailles or the Hermitage,

ing-stands, which were often inlaid

Islamic palaces are typically additive struc-

with other woods, bone, ivory, and

tures with small pavilions arranged around

mother-of-pearl. Mosques were

internal courts and magnificent gardens.

elaborately decorated in glazed tile

Although the Prophet Muhammad is said to

and carved stucco and strewn with

have frowned on the construction of monu-

pile or flat-woven carpets. These

mental tombs over the graves of the deceased,

displayed vegetal, geometric, and

in many parts of the Islamic lands, building

epigraphic designs. Figural depic-

tombs became a major form of architectural

tions were avoided in religious con-

patronage. Tombs were constructed over the

texts and are found only in secular

graves of particularly pious individuals as well

settings. Virtually all mosques have

as those of rulers who were anxious to preserve

a mihrab or niche in the wall facing

their memory in an uncertain world. Most

Mecca, and many have one or

tombs are domed structures, either squares,

more attached minarets, towers

octagons, or circles, and range from the mod-

from which the call to prayer could

est marabouts of North Africa to the monu-

be given. Since mosques were nor-

mental Taj Mahal. Many have a mihrab to

mally constructed of the best qual-

direct the prayers of worshippers who come to

ity materials available and were

venerate the deceased. Some have adjacent

regularly maintained over the cen-

structures to accommodate the expected visi-

turies, they are usually the best preserved build-

tors and to provide public services ranging

ings in any particular place.

from Koran schools to soup kitchens. In this

MAJOR ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURAL SITES

way, patrons were able to use a charitable foun-

churches, where they were used to wrap the

dation to justify the construction of a tomb.

bones of Christian saints.

Muslims were buried directly in the

Archaeological finds attest to the broad

ground, wrapped only in plain white shrouds.

network of trade routes that crisscrossed

Thus, the burial goods that archaeologists

the Islamic lands, connecting China, India,

depend on for understanding other cultural

and tropical Africa with Europe. Thanks to

traditions do not exist in the Muslim lands.

the domestication of the camel before the

The relative aridity of much of the region,

rise of Islam, most trade went overland,

particularly Egypt and Central Asia, however,

with caravanserais often erected at 15-mile An enclosed courtyard of the Qansuh al-Ghuri Caravanserai in Cairo.

Far left: A relief plaque, part of a palace built by al-Mamum, Toledo’s most powerful taifa ruler.

has helped preserve fragile organic materials

intervals to accommodate travelers, their

that might otherwise have been lost through

beasts, and their wares. Some trade went by

burial. The most important of these are

sea, following the Mediterranean coasts or the

textiles, which played the central role in the

monsoon winds around the Indian Ocean.

medieval Islamic economy.

Many of these

Recent advances in underwater archaeology

fragments appear so unprepossessing that

have allowed the exploration of shipwrecks,

they are rarely displayed in the museums;

such as the eleventh-century one found at Serçe

paradoxically, the best-known textiles from

Limani off the coast of Turkey. This site

the Islamic lands, many inscribed with

yielded a huge quantity of cullet, broken glass

Arabic blessings, were preserved in European

collected for recycling. 177


Architectural and Archaelogical Sites 15°

0°

Palace Mosque or other religious building

Rotterdam

BELORUSSIA

Warsaw

GERMANY B.

Tomb

CZEC

LUX.

HOSL OVAK IA

Paris

FRANCE

Castle/fortifications

AUSTRIA

SWITZ.

UKRAINE MOLD.

HUNGARY ROMANIA

Bridge

45°

45°

POLAND

Berlin

London

Housing

30°

15°

NETH.

U. K .

Beograd

B.H.

PORTUGAL

AT L A N T I C Rabat Meknes Marrakesh

M

O

RO

CC

TURKEY Kaiseri Athens

it

Sfax Jerba

TUNISIA

Ardabil Tabriz Sultaniya 14-17C B Damghan 14C Mosul Tehran Qum IRAQ

Raqqa

Aleppo

M

SYRIA er

ra

ne

Hama

Tripoli

an

Isfahan Baghdad 8-17C Kufa 7C Wasit ISRAEL Jericho Susa 8C (Khirbat al-Mafjar) Gaza 8-9C Amman Cairo Samarra Basra JORDAN 9-10C 8-10C Shiraz Jerusalem

LEB.

Sea

Damascus Bosra

Tripoli Alexandria

O

ARMENIA

Dogubayezit

Malatya Dyiarbekr

Konya

ed

Fez

Erzurum

Bodrum

Tlemcen

OCEAN

AZA.

Amasya

Sea

Algiers

n

Palermo

Tunis Kairouan Sousse

GEORGIA

Istanbul Iznik Bursa

ALB. GREECE

Grenada 13-15C

Black Sea

Edirne

Toledo

Cordoba

30°

Shumen

BULGARIA

ia

Saragosa 11C

S PA I N

YUG.

Plovdiv

LY

Lisbon

Mostar

A

sp

IT Rome

Ca

Shipwreck

Adjabiya 10C

Ukhaidir 8C

ALGERIA L I B YA

EGYPT Queseir Qus to14C

QATAR

Riyadh

Medina

d

Aswan

Tropic of Cancer

Bahrain

SAUDI

Re

WESTERN SAHARA

Se

ARABIA

a

M A U R I TA N I A

Suakin

NIGER

MALI

Agadez

Timbuuktu Gao

CHAD

15°

SENEGAL

Zabid Ta’izz

Djenne

BURKINA Maska

S U DA N

NIGERIA

IA

AL

N

Accra

ETHIOPIA


Lagos

CA M

M

ER

Equator

GABON

SO

REP. CON GO

Abidjan

Addis Ababa

O

LIBERIA

GHANA

IVORY COAST

Mogadishu

UGANDA K E N YA

CONGO

Nairobi

Lamu Gedi

Kinshasa

TANZANIA Luanda

178

Zanzibar Dar es Salaam Kilwa

EN

Shibam

Sanaa

Kano Zaria

O

GUINEA

TOGO BENIN

Bobo-Dioulasso

Larabanga

0°

YEM

Khartoum

Daura

Conakry

Mecca Taif

Jedda

Chinguetti

MAJOR ISLAMIC ARCHITECTURAL SITES

90°

75°

60°

120°

105°

K A Z A K H S TA N MONGOLIA Harbin Aral Sea

Urgench 14C

Turkestan City 14-15C

UZB EK IST Khiva A

Shenyang

KYRGYZSTAN

N

19C

Beijing Bukhara

TURKMENI ST AN

Bastam Mashad Nishapur (9-13C)

Samarqand TAJIKSTAN Termez 10-14C

Merv 8-12C

C

Herat

N

Yangzhou Shanghai

Chengdu

Multan

TA

K

Karachi

S. KOREA

N A

Lahore

Wuhan Chongqing

Delhi

IS PA

Bam 9-13C

I

Kashmir

IRAN Kirman

H

Xian

Kabul

AFGHANISTAN

U. A. E.

Seoul

Balkh

Ghazni Yazd

N. KOREA

Tianjin

Fatehpur Jaipur Sikri 16C Ajmer

N Agra

EP

AL

BH.

Jaunpur Sasaram

Tatta Ahmadabad

Mandu

Pandua

Guangzhou

Taiwan

Calcutta Hong Kong

A

N

I ND I A

BANGLADESH

M

Bombay

O

BURMA LA

Bijapur Ara bian

Sea

Hyderabad

Hainan

O

S

Gulbarga

ET

THAILAND

Madras

CAMBODIA

Manila

NA M

Bangkok Bangalore

Luzón

VI

Rangoon

Ho Chi Minh

P H I LI P P I NES

SRI LANKA

Mindanao

M

A

L

A Y

S

I

A

Malacca

INDIAN OCEAN

Borneo Sumatra Sulawesi

Jakarta

Demak Kudus Java

I N D O N E S I A

Timor

179


World Distribution of Muslims 2000 There are approximately twelve hundred mil-

originated. Next in order of magnitude is Pak-

lion Muslims in the world today, about one-

istan with 134 million, followed by India (121

fifth of humanity. The vast majority reside in

million), Bangladesh (114 million), Egypt (61

the central belt of territories extending east-

million), and Nigeria (61 million). Of the top

ward from the Atlantic seaboard of North

six Muslim countries containing more than

Africa to Indonesia. Due to the historic spread

half the world’s Muslims, only one, namely

of Islam into the tropical regions of South and

Egypt, is Arabic-speaking and became part of the Islamic world close to the time of its origins. In one of them, India, Muslims live as a large, but still vulnerable, minority. Demographically, the “old” Islam that came into being in the course of the Arab conquests has been overtaken by the newer and younger Islam of the mainly tropical peripheries. In terms of the legal and sectarian traditions about 85 percent of the world’s Muslims belong to the Sunni mainstream and, formally if not always in practice, subscribe to one of the four Sunni madhhabs (legal schools). The Hanafi school, the official school of the Ottoman Empire, predominates in former Ottoman domains, including Anatolia and the Balkans, as well as in Transcaucasia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Central Asian republics, and China. The Maliki school predominates in the Maghreb and West Africa; the Shafis are represented in Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, the coastlands of Yemen, and among Muslims populations in Pakistan, India, and Indonesia; the Hanbali in Saudi Arabia. However, different schools have long coexisted in some places, and there is considerable overlapping in countries such as Egypt, where legal modernism has allowed the talfiq (piecing together) of rulings from different schools.

180

Southeast Asia, where intensive cultivation per-

Non-Sunni Muslims constitute about 15 per-

mits high population densities, the nation with

cent of the total population worldwide. The

the largest number of Muslims (182 million) is

Kharijis, who split with the main body of Islam

Indonesia. This is a country far removed from

in 660, are represented through a modified

the southwestern Asian matrix where Islam

version known as Ibadism in Oman, Zanzibar,

WORLD DISTRIBUTION OF MUSLIMS 2000

and Tahert in southern Algeria. Shiite are con-

tions under progressive state control—has

centrated in Iran, southern Iraq, Kuwait, and

eroded the autonomy of the ulama who inter-

Bahrain, with substantial minorities in

preted, diffused, or administered the Sharia in

Afghanistan (3.8 million or 15 percent), India

the past. At the same time their religious

(3 percent or 30 million), Lebanon (34 percent

authority, based on the exclusive access to the

or 1.2 million), Pakistan (20 percent or 28 mil-

scriptures, has been undermined by the rise of

lion), Syria (12 percent or 2 million), Turkey

secondary education and the spread of litera-

(20 percent or 3 million), the United Arab Emi-

cy. Many of the Islamist movements are led

rates (16 percent or about half a million), and

and supported by the beneficiaries of modern

Yemen (40 percent or 7 million) The great

technical education who have come to Islamic

majority of the Shiite—about 85 percent—

teachings directly through primary or second-

prayer, a sound that echoes

belong to the Imami or Ithashari (Twelver) tra-

ary texts (the Koran, hadith, and the writings

across the diverse Muslim world.

dition. Most of the Imami Shiites adhere to

of modern ideologues and scholars) rather

one or other of the senior religious leaders or

than through the mediation of traditional

Grand Ayatullahs known as Marjas (“sources”

scholarship.

of emulation or legal judgement) who act as

At first sight the trend toward what might

the qualified interpreters of Islamic law. Other

be called the laicization or democratization of

Shiite communities include the Zaidis in

religious authority in Islam could lead to more

Yemen and the Ismailis or Seveners belonging

orthodox or standardized versions promoted

to two surviving traditions. These derive from

by such organizations as the Saudi-based

the Fatimid caliphate: the Mustalians (known

Muslim World League. However, despite the

in South Asia and East Africa as Bohras) who

attacks of reformers and the religious imperi-

follow the Dai Mutlaq (chief missionary) of

alism emanating from wealthy but culturally

the Imam-Caliph al-Mustali (d. 1101) and the

conservative oil-producing regions, the mysti-

Nizaris, who follow the guidance of the

cal traditions of Sufism have proved highly

Aga Khan, a nobleman of Persian ancestry

resilient and adaptive. In Subsaharan Africa

descended from Muhammad b Ismail whom

and many regions of Asia (including the for-

they regard as their Living Imam. The Nizaris

mer Soviet territories) versions of Islam medi-

lived in small communities in Syria, Persia,

ated through charismatic leaders trained in dis-

inner Asia, and northwestern India until

ciplines that supplement (but do not necessari-

migrations to Africa and the West, beginning

ly replace) the formal religious duties of prayer,

in the nineteenth century.

fasting, almsgiving, and pilgrimage are contin-

Many active Muslims whether Sunnis or

uing to make headway, building on traditions

Shiites adhere to one of the legal traditions

that have long been communicated orally or

outlined above. In many countries with Mus-

through interpersonal relationships. The vari-

lim majorities, however, elements of Islamic

eties of Islamic faith and practice embedded or

law (especially laws involving personal status,

“frozen” in texts are only a part of its rich

such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance)

symbolic vocabulary and repertory of mean-

have been incorporated into the legal systems

ings. As the older forms of religious authority

of the state. In most Islamic countries the

decay or prove inadequate to address the chal-

modern state—starting with the Ottoman

lenges of modernity, other forms of spiritual

Tanzimat reforms that brought Islamic institu-

authority and social power emerge.

Far left: Calling the faithful to

181


Baf fi n

Vi c t o r i a I s l a n d

Is

GR EENLA ND

l a

nd

Al as ka

AY

ICELAND

RW

Reykjavik

NO

Anchorage

60°

Oslo

C A N A D A UNITED KINGDOM

DEN.

Copenhagen Edmonton Saskatoon Calgary Regina

Vancouver Seattle

S

Kansas City

San Francisco

O F Los Angeles San Diego

GERMANY CZ. REP. LUX.

Winnipeg Paris

Newfoundland St-John’s

Quebec Sault Ste-Marie Montreal

Minneapolis Milwaukee Chicago Salt Lake City

U N I T E D

SWITZ. AUS.

Halifax

Toronto Detroit Boston Pittsbg. New York T A T E S Philadelphia Cincinnati Baltimore Washington

ITALY Rome Madrid PORTUGAL SPAIN Lisbon Tunis

Algiers Rabat Casablanca

Atlanta

Phoenix

S.

FRANCE

A M E R I C A

O

CC

TUNISIA

O

Tripoli

O

R

New Orleans

30°

Berlin

Rotterdam London

B.

Duluth

Portland

45°

IRELAND

NETH.

M

Houston

ALGERIA Monterey

Miami

WESTERN SAHARA

MEXICO CUBA DOMINICAN HAITI REPUBLIC

MAURITANIA

Puebla

SENEGAL

Dakar

THE GAMBIA GUINEA-BISSAU

Managua San José

Caracas

COSTA RICA PANAMA

VENEZUELA

Bogatá

COLOMBIA 0°

GUYANA SURINAM FRENCH GUIANA

GUINEA

BURKINA FASO

Conakry SIERRA-LEONE

LIBERIA

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

Abidjan Accra TOGO

Quito

NIGERIA Lagos CAMEROON EQU. GUINEA

GABON

Belém

EQUADOR

BENIN

15°

NIGER

MALI

BELIZE JAMAICA GUAT. HONDURAS Guatemala EL SALVADOR NIC.

GHANA

Mexico City

REP. CONGO Recife

B R A Z IL

Luanda

PERU Lima

Salvador

15°

Brasilia

La Paz

BOLIVIA PA R

NAMIBIA Rio de Janeiro

AG

Muslim population in the World today

Y UA

Säo Paulo

Over 85%

C H I L E

30° Santiago

URUGUAY Buenos Aires

ARGENTINA

Over 50%

Montevideo

Over 20% Over 5% Over 1%

45°

Less than 1% Predominantly Shia Muslims

120°

182

105°

90°

75°

60°

Punta Arenas 45°

30°

15°

0°

15°

30

WORLD DISTRIBUTION OF MUSLIMS 2000

Novaya Zemlya

FI NLA

SWEDEN

RU S S IA N

FE DE R AT IO N

ND Helsinki St-Petersburg

Stockholm EST.

Moscow

LITH.

Minsk Warsaw

Sakhalin

Kiev

SLOVAKIA

Kharkov

UKRAINE

Volgograd

K A Z A K H S TA N

Rostov

MOLDOVA HUN. ROM. . C. Belgrade B.H. YUG. BULG. ALB. M. Istanbul

UZBE KI S

GEORGIA Ankara ARMENIA AZER.

GREECE

TURKME N

TURKEY

Tehran

SYRIA Alexandria Cairo

N. KOREA

Tianjin

J A PA N

Seoul

Honshu Tokyo

IRAN

IRAQ JORDAN

SAUDI

EGYPT

Chengdu

N

Ahmadabad

ERITREA

S U DA N

IA

DJIBOUTI

SO

UGANDA KENYA CONGO

RWANDA

Kinshasa

LA

Hainan

THAI.

Bangkok

Luzón Manila

CAMB.

PHILIPPINES

Ho Chi Minh

SRI LANKA

AL

ETHIOPIA

Madras

Rangoon

Taiwan Hong Kong

BANGLADESH

Hyderabad

EN

Guangzhou

BURMA

Bombay

Bangalore

Addis Ababa CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

YEM

Dhaka Calcutta

TNA M

Khartoum

M

Shanghai

BHUTAN

IE V OS

O

Yokohama

Wuhan

PA L

I N D IA

A

ARABIA

NE

Delhi

Karachi

U.A.E

Pusan

Lahore

KI PA

QATAR

Riyadh

S. KOREA

C H I N A

Kabul

AFGHAN.

Baghdad

KUWAIT

CHAD

Hokkaido

Shenyang Beijing

TAJIK.

ST AN

LEB. ISRAEL

L I B YA

Harbin

.

Athens

MONGOLIA

KYRGYZ.

N TA

0°

Novosibirsk

Omsk

Samara

POLAND BELORUSSIA

Mindanao

BRUNEI

M

M A L AY S I A

Nairobi

Sumatra

Borneo Sulawesi

BURUNDI

Jakarta

Dar es Salaam TANZANIA

I N D O N E S I A

PA PUA NEW GU I N E A

Java EAST TIMOR

MALAWI

Johannesburg

R

SCA

BI

Q

M

ZIMBABWE A AN SW T BO

DA GA

B

O Z AM

ZAM

UE

IA

ANGOLA

MA

.

Nizhniy Perm Yekaterinburg Novgorod Chelyabinsk

LAT.

AU S T R A L IA

Maputo Brisbane

SWAZILAND

Durban

SOUTH

Perth

LESOTHO

AFRICA Cape Town

Sydney

Adelaide Melbourne

45°

60°

75°

90°

105°

120°

135°

150°

165°

NEW ZEALAND

180°

183


World Terrorism 2003 There are numerous definitions of terrorism but in

The impression was reinforced after the railway

general usage the term refers to illegal armed

attacks in Madrid in March 2004 which killed

activity by “subnational groups” or “non-state

some 200 people and would have killed many

actors,” whether supported covertly by state spon-

more if the trains had been running on time. The

sors or operating wholly as freelance guerrilla

spectacular nature of the New York attacks—

organizations. It is also defined in terms of

shown live on television throughout the world—

method and purpose. The US, for example,

placed other conflicts between governments and

defines terrorism as “the calculated use or threat

armed insurgents in the shade. In the first years of

of violence to inculcate fear, intended to coerce or

the 21st century, however, many of these conflicts

intimidate governments or societies.” While cer-

were occurring outside the Islamic world. They

tain kinds of activity such as assassination, kid-

included bloody campaigns against their respec-

napping, and hijacking are associated with armed

tive governments by Maoists in Nepal, Tamils in

insurgents in most parts of the world, the killing of

Sri Lanka (who perfected the technique of suicide

civilians by the use of explosive devices is far from

bombing), Basques in Spain (initally blamed for

being confined to non-state agents. Although the

the Madrid bombings), separatists in Corsica,

methods of delivery used by governments and

rebels belonging to LURD (Liberians United for

“terrorists” may differ, the results may be equally

Reconciliation and Democracy) in Liberia, and

brutal. Cluster bombs dropped from the air, for

several other conflicts in Central Africa such as in

example, resemble explosives placed in vehicles or

the Congo and Rwanda, not to mention the

on human bodies in the indiscriminate way they

decades-long struggle between the Colombian

target civilians. Movements described as “terror-

government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces

ist” by governments typically contest the label and

of Colombia (FARC). However, the “war on ter-

usually the legitimacy of the party that uses it.

rorism,” declared by President George W. Bush in

Rather than being a description of a type of activ-

the aftermath of 9/11, seemed to target Islamic

hijacked airliners hit the towers

ity, terrorism tends to be used as a term of abuse.

groups particularly, along with the Muslim gov-

at the 80th and 95th floors. Most

Governments everywhere denounce armed oppo-

ernments (notably Syria, Iran, and Iraq), allegedly

of the 3,000 victims, who came

nents who challenge their monopoly over the use

sponsoring them. In the case of al-Qaeda, the mil-

from more than 100 nations,

of violence as “terrorists,” while insurgents and

itant Islamist network presided over by the Saudi

were trapped on the upper floors.

their supporters denounce as “state terrorism”

dissident Osama bin Laden which took responsi-

methods used by governments, such as “targeted

bility for the 9/11 attacks, as well as the attacks on

killings,” detentions without trial, the use of tor-

the US embassies in East Africa in 1998, and was

ture, and the destruction of homes belonging to

held responsible for several subsequent atrocities

suspected insurgents or their families.

after 9/11 (including the bombing of two night-

Far right: The twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York burn before collapsing on September 11th 2001, when two

184

The attacks on New York and Washington on

clubs in Bali, which killed more than 200 people,

September 11th 2001 by Islamists who hijacked

mostly Australian tourists), the US responded with

four civilian airliners and flew two of them into

military action aimed at “regime change” in two

the World Trade Center towers in Manhattan,

countries—Afghanistan and Iraq—which it

causing the death of some three thousand people

accused of supporting al-Qaeda. While there was

has inevitably created a climate in which terrorism

no question that the Taliban regime in

has come to be associated with Islamic militancy.

Afghanistan, removed in the summer of 2002 after

WORLD TERRORISM 2003

a massive US bombing campaign, had hosted bin Laden and his inner circle of al-Qaeda operatives, the case against the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, who fell from power after the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and was captured in December, was much less certain. After the fall of the regime no evidence was produced that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction (the official pretext for the war), or that the regime was implicated in the attacks of 9/11 as claimed by senior members of the US administration. Al-Qaeda is a global network with links to Islamist movements in several Muslim countries and as such has stimulated a global response by the US and its allies. Britain and several other countries, including Australia, Italy, Spain, and Poland, sent military contingents to Iraq. The FBI has assisted local security agencies in numerous countries. US Special Forces and military advisors have been sent to help government forces fight Chechen insurgents in Georgia (to protect the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline), and the Philippines, where Islamic separatists of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have been waging an armed insurgency on the southern island of Mindanao (with support from the al-Qaeda-connected Abu Sayyaf group). The US is heavily involved in supporting Israel against Islamist Palestinian insurgents and has so far failed to pressure Israel into abandoning the illegal Jewish settlements in the occupied territories for fear of antagonizing influential lobbies (Jewish and Christian fundamentalist) in the US. In Uzbekistan the US has

In general, Western countries led by the Unit-

given unqualified backing to the repressive govern-

ed States are deploying their superior military

ment of President Islam Karimov who has found it

resources to support existing states, based on

expedient to designate the political opposition as

boundaries drawn up by the colonial powers in

Islamist “terrorists.” In contrast, in Sudan, where

Africa and Asia, many of which are challenged

a Muslim government had faced a twenty-five year

by armed insurgencies. Since a high proportion

insurgency by non-Muslim southerners, the US

of these challenges come from Muslim groups,

had put its weight behind the rebels of the SPLA

the “war on terrorism” is seen by many in the

(Sudan People’s Liberation Army) in order to pres-

Muslim world as having a distinctively anti-

sure a Muslim government into reaching terms.

Muslim bias. 185


Baf fi n

Vi c t o r i a I s l a n d

Is

GR EENLA ND

l a

nd

AL A SK A

AY

ICELAND

RW

Reykjavik

NO

Anchorage

60°

Oslo

C A N A D A UNITED KINGDOM

DEN.

Copenhagen

IRELAND Calgary Seattle

GERMANY CZ. REP. LUX.

B.

S T A T E S

O F Los Angeles San Diego

A M E R I C A

ITALY

Boston New York Philadelphia Baltimore

Rome Madrid PORTUGAL SPAIN Lisbon

Washington

Algiers Rabat Casablanca

Atlanta

Phoenix

O

CC

Tunis TUNISIA

O

Tripoli

O

R

New Orleans

30°

S.

FRANCE

Halifax

Toronto Detroit Pittsbg.

Cincinnati

Kansas City

San Francisco

SWITZ. AUS.

Montreal

Minneapolis Milwaukee Chicago Salt Lake City

U N I T E D

Paris

Newfoundland St-John’s

Quebec

Duluth

Portland

Berlin

Rotterdam London

Winnipeg

Vancouver

45°

NETH.

M

Houston

ALGERIA Monterey

Miami

WESTERN SAHARA

MEXICO CUBA DOMINICAN HAITI REPUBLIC

MAURITANIA

Puebla

SENEGAL

Dakar

THE GAMBIA GUINEA-BISSAU

Managua San José

Caracas

COSTA RICA PANAMA

VENEZUELA

Bogatá

COLOMBIA 0°

GUYANA SURINAM FRENCH GUIANA

GUINEA

BURKINA FASO

Conakry SIERRA-LEONE

LIBERIA

CÔTE D’IVOIRE

BENIN

15°

NIGER

MALI

BELIZE JAMAICA GUAT. HONDURAS Guatemala EL SALVADOR NIC.

GHANA

Mexico City

Abidjan Accra TOGO

Quito

Lagos CAMEROON EQU. GUINEA

GABON

Belém

EQUADOR

NIGERIA

REP. CONGO Recife

B R A Z IL

Luanda

PERU Lima

Salvador

15°

Brasilia

La Paz

BOLIVIA

NAMIBIA Belo Horizonte

PA R

Rio de Janeiro

AG

Y UA

Säo Paulo

C H I L E

30° Santiago

URUGUAY Buenos Aires

Montevideo

ARGENTINA

World Terrorism 2003 Countries where terrorists or terrorist groups operate

45°

Attack by suicide bomber Countries with Islam majority

120°

186

105°

90°

75°

60°

Punta Arenas

45°

30°

15°

0°

15°

30

WORLD TERRORISM 2003

Novaya Zemlya

FI NLA

SWEDEN

RU S S IA N

FE DE R AT IO N

ND Helsinki St-Petersburg

Stockholm EST.

Moscow

LITH.

Minsk Warsaw

Sakhalin

Kiev

SLOVAKIA

Kharkov

UKRAINE

K A Z A K H S TA N UZBE KI S

GEORGIA Ankara ARMENIA AZER.

GREECE

TURKME N

TURKEY

Tehran

SYRIA Alexandria Cairo

N. KOREA

Tianjin

J A PA N

Seoul

Honshu Tokyo

IRAN

IRAQ JORDAN

SAUDI

EGYPT

Chengdu

N

Ahmadabad

ERITREA

S U DA N

IA

DJIBOUTI

SO

UGANDA KENYA CONGO

RWANDA

Kinshasa

LA

Hainan

THAI.

Bangkok

Luzón Manila

CAMB.

PHILIPPINES

Ho Chi Minh

SRI LANKA

AL

ETHIOPIA

Madras

Rangoon

Taiwan Hong Kong

BANGLADESH

Hyderabad

EN

Guangzhou

BURMA

Bombay

Bangalore

Addis Ababa CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC

YEM

Dhaka Calcutta

TNA M

Khartoum

M

Shanghai

BHUTAN

IE V OS

O

Yokohama

Wuhan

PA L

I N D IA

A

ARABIA

NE

Delhi

Karachi

U.A.E

Pusan

Lahore

KI PA

QATAR

Riyadh

S. KOREA

C H I N A

Kabul

AFGHAN.

Baghdad

KUWAIT

CHAD

Hokkaido

Shenyang Beijing

TAJIK.

ST AN

LEB. ISRAEL

L I B YA

Harbin

.

Athens

MONGOLIA

KYRGYZ.

N TA

0°

Volgograd

Rostov

MOLDOVA HUN. ROM. . C. Belgrade B.H. YUG. BULG. ALB. M. Istanbul

Mindanao

BRUNEI

M

M A L AY S I A

Nairobi

Sumatra

Borneo Sulawesi

BURUNDI

Jakarta

Dar es Salaam TANZANIA

I N D O N E S I A

PA PUA NEW GU I N E A

Java EAST TIMOR

MALAWI

ZIMBABWE A AN SW T BO

Johannesburg

R

SCA

BI

Q

DA GA

B

O Z AM

ZAM

UE

IA

ANGOLA

M

N

Novosibirsk

Omsk

Samara

POLAND BELORUSSIA

MA

.

Nizhniy Perm Yekaterinburg Novgorod Chelyabinsk

LAT.

AU S T R A L IA

Maputo Brisbane

SWAZILAND

Durban

SOUTH

Perth

LESOTHO

AFRICA Cape Town

Sydney

Adelaide Melbourne

45°

60°

75°

90°

105°

120°

135°

150°

165°

NEW ZEALAND

180°

187


Muslim Cinema Motion pictures entered Muslim societies soon

began public screenings of films at a beer hall in

after their emergence in the West and were ini-

Galatasaray Square in Istanbul. In Iran, Ovenes

tially introduced to select audiences. Within a

Oganians, an Armenian-Iranian, began the

few months of debuting in Europe in 1896, the

building of public cinemas in 1905, establishing

films of the Lumière brothers were screened in

the first film school in 1929 and producing the

the Arab world to a predominantly elite audi-

first Iranian feature film in 1930.

ence. In Egypt, for example, screenings were

Most parts of Africa and Asia were exposed to film as part of the colonial experience. Thus, the Arab world provided largely an exotic backdrop for Western films. As such, French audiences were enamored with North Africa, Palestine attracted great interest as the Holy Land, and Egypt was intriguing for its ancient history. While the colonial industry produced 200 films in North Africa, only perhaps six starred Arab actors. The introduction of sound in vernacular languages boosted local film production, with Egyptian cinema, for example, attracting both local investors and audiences by including popular Egyptian musicians and singers such as Umm Kulthum. Egyptian cinema not only became a leading force in other Arab countries but also influenced cinema further afield, such as the film farsi genre of pre-Revolutionary Iran. In most other Arab countries, however, a native film industry failed to develop because of

held at the Tousson stock exchange in Alexan-

financial constraints and colonial pressures.

dria, and in Morocco at the Royal Palace in Fez.

Most of these countries entered the film indus-

In Turkey, private showings were held at the sul-

try after their independence (Lebanon and

tan’s court, the Yildiz Palace in Istanbul. In

Syria in the 1940s, North Africa in the 1950s

1900, the Iranian monarch Muaffar al-Din

and early 1960s).

Shah traveled to France to see the “cinemato-

During the colonial period, films imported

graph” and “the magic lantern.” In the same

to the Arab countries were often used instru-

year Mirza Ibrahim Khan, his photographer,

mentally to promote colonial interests. Even the

filmed The Flower Ceremony in Belgium and

Japanese, during their occupation of Indonesia

produced the first Iranian film.

188

(1942–45), used the burgeoning Indonesian film

The local film industry in these states

industry to bolster their war efforts. At the same

emerged from the efforts of foreigners or minor-

time film assisted in the standardization of

ity individuals. For example, it was a Romanian

Indonesian as a national language. In the Arab

citizen of Polish origin, Sigmund Weinberg, who

world film production took on an increasingly

MUSLIM CINEMA

nationalist and socialist bent after independ-

Turkey suddenly dropped, though it rose again

ence, with states such as Syria, Algeria, and

toward the end of the 1980s.

Tunisia using the film industry to promote their

Most of the states in the region maintain a

national identity on screen. In Iran, Daryush

firm control on the film industry, recognizing its

Mehrjui’s prize winning film The Cow and

importance as an agency for change and vehicle

Massoud Kimiai’s Qeysar, both produced in

for protest. In Turkey, for example, this strict

1969, mark the beginnings of the New Wave,

censorship operates at two levels: that of the

Iranian art cinema, after which Iranian films

screenplay and of the finished film. A similar

gained

acclaim.

process occurs in Indonesia, where censorship is

Around the same time, in 1970, Yilmaz Guney’s

applied both before shooting and during editing.

Umut (Hope), also a prize-winning film,

In Iranian cinema, screening of all final products

Makhmalbaf poses for

became a turning point in Turkish cinema and

requires state approval. With few exceptions, this

photographers after being

marked the New Wave period of Turkish films.

approval is also required at the postscript stage.

awarded the Jury prize for the

In Iran, filmmakers faced an uncertain future

In most Arab countries, film projects must first

film Panj E Asr (Five in the

between 1978 and 1982 as a result of, among

obtain a shooting license before obtaining other

Afternoon), during the closing

other things, financial instability and govern-

licenses from the Ministry of Information or

ceremony of the 56th Cannes

ment’s lack of interest in cinema during the

other such censorship authority in order to

film festival in May 2003. The

transitional period. With a few exceptions, no

ensure their commercial viability.

daughter of acclaimed director

increasing

international

films of any quality were produced during this

Mention should be made of Bollywood, the

time. Prior to the revolution, most of the ulama

Indian cinema industry based in Mumbhai, not

either rejected cinema or ignored it. However,

only because it was heavily imitated in many

after the revolution, the Islamists came to recog-

Muslim countries, especially during the initial

nize its power and decided to bring it under

decades, but also because of the significant

their control. For Khomeini the adoption of

presence of Muslims as scriptwriters, produc-

cinema became an ideological weapon with

ers, musicians, and actors. There is also a genre

which to combat the pro-Western and imperial-

known as the Shahenshah (king of kings),

ist culture of the Pahlavi regime. By 1989 (the

which goes back to Pukar (1939), a film about

year of his death), films like Bayzai’s Bashu, The

the Mughal emperor Jehangir. It is regarded as

Little Stranger, gained Iranian cinema interna-

the first notable “Muslim social film.” While

tional acclaim once more. By providing the

the latter continued to surface in other films

space for an ongoing discourse within society,

such as Mughal-e-Azam, in later productions

Iranian cinema has become an important medi-

the Muslim social presence took on a less regal

um in the discourse of change.

character, dealing mainly with the North Indi-

Far left: Iranian director Samira

Mohsen Makhmalbaf made her first film, The Apple (1998), when she was only 18. The Blackboard (2000), a film about Kurdish refugees on the Iran-Iraq border, also won a Jury prize at

During the 1980s, the Arab states started to

an Muslim middle class. This genre gradually

withdraw from cinema production. The Alger-

declined after the 1970s. Finally, after a notable

ian film industry went bankrupt while the

absence, with less than forty full-length films

Egyptian one faced a major economic crisis.

and shorts, Afghanistan rejoined the world cin-

Television and mass video production com-

ema stage with Osama (2003), a co-production

pounded this decline in filmmaking across the

of Afghanistan, Japan, and Ireland. The first

regions. Films in North Africa, Syria, and espe-

feature from post-Taliban Afghanistan, it was

cially Lebanon were coproduced with the West.

screened at various international film festivals

In 1980 the number of films produced in

including Cannes and London.

Cannes.

189


Internet Use Before the digital age Islamic questions were

ings by living marjas (sources of imitation/

often addressed locally with the ulama, the

emulation) such as Grand Ayatullah Sistani,

acknowledged interpreters of the tradition,

the leading marja in Iraq. Web pages on this

acting as the primary agents of religious

site cover contemporary concerns such as

authority. In the Sunni world the spread of

credit cards, insurance, copyright, autop-

literacy and secondary education was erod-

sies, and organ donation, as well as advice

ing this primacy even before the appearance

about religious duties. Some Sufi orders

of the World Wide Web. The Internet is

maintain websites detailing the spiritual lin-

accelerating this process by facilitating the

eages of their shaikhs and transcripts of spe-

individual exercise of ijtihad (independent

cial prayer and dhikr (rituals of remem-

judgment based on the primary sources of

brance) practices. However, since many Sufi

Koran and hadith). Once the exclusive preserve of qualified scholars, this devel-

B.

GERM. LUX.

CZECH.

Paris

opment is eroding traditional hierarchies

FRANCE SWITZ.

of learning.

AUS.

Muslim websurfers do not have to con-

IT

sult Koranic concordances or weighty Madrid S PA I N

PORT.

books of fiqh (jurisprudence) to arrive at

A LY

Roma

ALB.

Lisbon

judgments but can simply access the

Tunis

Algiers

sources online by scanning the Koran or

Rabat Casablanca

R

collections of hadith (reports of the

O

C

CO

O

Prophet Muhammad’s sayings or actions)

Tripoli

M

ALGERIA

using keywords. Alternatively they can email their questions to the hundreds of

HUN.

Beograd B.H. YUG.

L I B YA WESTERN SAHARA

websites offering social, moral, religious, and in some cases, political guidance.

MAURITANIA

With many of the best funded websites

MALI

CHAD

Dakar

answers often have a conservative charac-

BURKINA

stances. For example, the answers to ques-

LIBERIA

Abidjan

GHANA

Accra TOGO

tions from young women living in North

NIGERIA Lagos CA

ME

BENIN

America about how to deal with abusive


GABON

parents may stress the importance of filial

NG O

IVORY COAST

questioner’s social or economic circum-

REP. CO

GUINEA Conakry

ON

ter and may not always be sensitive to the

NIGER

SENEGAL

RO

based in Saudi Arabia or the Gulf, the

ATLANTIC OCEAN

duty over their rights as citizens. For Shiites in the Twelver or Ithnashari

Kinshasa Luanda

tradition, for whom clerics rather than texts are the primary dispensers of authority, the Web provides access to rul190

ANGOLA

INTERNET USE

practices are closed to outsiders, only the

net spreading rapidly throughout the Mus-

more orthodox orders maintain sites. Politi-

lim world, the long-term effects are ambigu-

cal Islam is widely represented, with most

ous. On the one hand a “universal” Islamic

political parties, including Islamist ones,

discourse is emerging that transcends the

accessible through their websites. Opposi-

local traditions, including even the main-

tion forces are also represented, although in

stream traditions represented by institutions

some cases access to banned groups is

such as Cairo’s al-Azhar. On the other hand,

restricted by governmental controls. Islamic

the emerging discourse cannot avoid accom-

women’s groups are active in cyberspace

modating diversity and dissent, as minori-

countering patriarchal practices such as

ties and splinter-groups are able to challenge

those promulgated by the former Taliban

mainstream opinion in cultures where reli-

regime in Afghanistan in the name of “true”

gious and political pluralism have often been

Islamic teachings. With access to the Inter-

repressed.

Kharkov

UKRAINE

Volgograd K A Z A K H S TA N

MOLD.

MONGOLIA

ROM.

UZBEK IST A

BULG.

Istanbul Ankara

AZA. ARM.

Beijing

TURKMENIS TA

N. KOREA

Tianjin

TAJIK.

Seoul S. KOREA

N

TURKEY

Shenyang

KYRGYZ.

N

GEORG.

Harbin

Athens GREECE

Tehran

SYRIA LEB.

AFGHANISTAN

Baghdad

EGYPT

TA N

Chengdu

Shanghai Wuhan

Chongqing

IS

Al Kuwayt

Pusan

Lahore

IRAN

IRAQ

Alexandria ISRAEL JORDAN Cairo

C H I N A

Kabul

NE

Delhi

K PA

PA L

BH.

SAUDI Karachi

Riyadh

Ahmadabad

A.E.

Dhaka Calcutta

ARABIA Bombay

Bangalore

AL

IA

ETHIOPIA

SO

M

Telephone Lines per 100 people 2001

Madras

Luzón

Bangkok CAMB.

TNA M

S U DA N Addis Ababa

Rangoon

THAILAND

N EME

Manila

PH ILIP P I N ES

Ho Chi Minh

SRI LANKA

PACIFIC OCEAN

Hainan IE

Y

L V

Hyderabad Khartoum

BURMA OS

O

BANGLADESH

Taiwan Hong Kong

A

M

A

N

IN D IA

Guangzhou

Mindanao

70 or more M A L A Y S I A 50 – 69

UGANDA

KENYA 30 – 49

Sumatra

Nairobi CONGO

Borneo

Sulawesi

10 – 29

INDIAN OCEAN TANZANIA Dar es Salaam

1–9 Under 1

ZAM

B

IA

Jakarta

Java

I N D O N E S I A

Timor

No data

191


Democracy, Censorship, Human Rights, and Civil Society Western scholars define democracy as a

situation is broadly similar, given that two of

method for protecting the civil and political

the fundamental human rights embedded in

rights of the individual, providing for freedom

such documents as the Universal Declaration of

of speech, the press, faith, opinion, ownership,

Human Rights and the International Covenant

and assembly, as well as the right to vote, nom-

on Civil and Political Rights—the rights of

inate and seek public office. Muslim traditions

peaceful assembly and freedom or expression—

of democracy exist in the Arabian concept of

are prerequisites for all forms of democratic

shura (counsel based on participatory discus-

government.

sion), harking back to the Bedouin system where the shaikh was primus inter pares. When the Ottoman Empire was divided into

majority countries consistently scored below

separate nation-states after the First World

the world average of 62 percent, with Iraq at 17

War, several attempts were made to introduce

percent at the bottom of the world league table

systems of democratic rule. Most of them were

(a distinction it shared with Myanmar) and

unsuccessful, discredited by rigged elections or

Sudan with 18 percent, a close second. At 65

manipulation by powerful interest groups.

percent Jordan alone remains above the world

Multiparty systems were replaced by single

average, though Tunisia (with 60 percent) and

party systems, by military governments, or by a

Malaysia (61 percent) are close to it. Critics of

combination of both. However, the revolution-

Humana’s system object that his methodology

ary models borrowed from Eastern Europe

is culturally loaded with Western liberal values,

proved no less susceptible to manipulation by

that women in Islamic countries, for example,

vested interests or groups whose asabiyya (col-

do not require the same protection as women in

lective solidarity) was rooted in combinations

Western countries and that female inheritance

of kinship and sectarian allegiance. In the Mus-

and property rights were instituted by the

lim world lying beyond the former Ottoman

Sharia more than a millennium before they

domains, the position is not greatly different.

were introduced in the West. Such cultural rela-

Of the fifty-odd Muslim-majority states

tivism, however, is often opposed by women’s

belonging to the Organization of the Islamic

organizations inside Muslim countries, which

Conference only Turkey can be described as an

campaign to eliminate discriminatory provi-

established democracy—although it has a his-

sions in personal status codes with respect to

tory of political manipulation by the military

legal status, marriage, divorce, child custody,

who regard themselves as guardians of the sec-

and inheritance. Women’s organizations have

ular tradition bequeathed by the founder of

also campaigned against the reduced sentences

modern Turkey, Kemal Atatürk. Other coun-

passed by courts in cases of “honor killings”

tries, including Malaysia, Indonesia, and Jor-

where victims are held to have “provoked”

dan, have been described as transitional or

attacks by male relatives by transgressing tradi-

uncertain democracies, and Pakistan has

tional codes of sexual conduct, and against

enjoyed periods of democratic rule in between

laws that prevent them from passing on their

bouts of military government.

nationalities to their children.

In the context of human rights generally the 192

For example, in the Index of Human Rights compiled by Charles Humana in 1991, Muslim

Freedom of speech as exemplified by a free

DEMOCRACY, CENSORSHIP, HUMAN RIGHTS, AND CIVIL SOCIETY

press is also conspicuously absent in most Mus-

as Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Sudan, and the

lim countries, though restrictions vary from

Islamists who sometimes oppose them, argue

one state to another. Opposition forces, includ-

that safeguards enshrined in the Koran are just

ing Islamists, protest against measures which

as valid as those protected by Western law.

muzzle them politically. Islamists themselves,

They hold that the public and private spheres

however, have demonstrated their opposition to

are both subject to the law and that secularism

unrestricted freedom of speech by attacks on

is alien to their history. The proponents of

writers they regard as critical of Islam, includ-

democracy, however, who include some leading

ing Farag Foda (assassinated in 1992), the

Islamist thinkers as well as the advocates of sec-

Nobel laureate Neguib Mahfouz, Egypt’s fore-

ular liberalism, believe that such arguments are

most novelist, physically attacked and injured

simply being used as strategies for retaining

by the same assassin, and Nasr Abu Zaid, an

power. In the aftermath of “9/11” and the wars

Egyptian scholar who was forced into exile for

in Afghanistan and Iraq, avenues for peaceful

applying historical-critical methods in inter-

political change have been closed off, leaving

preting the Koran.

people to choose between tolerating the status Islamic version of democracy

The “war on terrorism” launched by the US

quo, exile (for those who can manage it), or

dates back to the concept of the

administration in the wake of the September

violence. Critics of the West point out that it

shura (participatory discussion).

11 attacks on New York and Washington,

has tacitly accepted this pattern of repression

However, the Western ideal of

which overthrew the governments in Afghan-

for reasons of expediency, and in the case of the

the popular vote by the adult

istan and Iraq, led to a curtailment of civil

oil-bearing regions of western Asia, to protect

population is not available in

liberties in the United States. There the US

its energy supplies.

many Muslim majority states.

Patriot Act permitted the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects and the administrative detention of jihadis (some of them barely older than children) accused of fighting for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. At the same time the neoconservatives running the administration stated that their aim was to bring to countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan Western standards of democracy, good governance, the rule of law, human rights, and women’s rights. Many people in the Muslim world, however, doubted whether such standards could be instituted as a result of military action. Both in the Arab and the wider Islamic world the incumbent regimes and their Islamist opponents would argue that the indigenous tradition of shura, combined with that of baya (obedience to an established ruler) provided a better model for stability, whereas Western-style pluralism was a recipe for fitna (strife). Both the ruling authorities in countries such 193


Modern Islamic Movements

Far right: In this computer

The terms “Islamism” and “Islamist” have

encouraging Islamic observance and opposing

come to be used for political movements and

Western cultural influences, rather than by

their supporters, which aim for the establish-

attempting to capture the state by direct politi-

ment or restoration of Islamic states based on

cal action. However, during the mounting cri-

the rule of the Islamic Sharia law. The term

sis over Palestine during and after the Second

“Islamists” is an English translation to the Ara-

World War, the Brotherhood became increas-

bic word islamiyyun—a term the movement’s

ingly radicalized. It played a leading part in the

advocates use to distinguish themselves from

disturbances that led to the overthrow of the

muslimun—ordinary Muslim believers.

All

monarchy in 1952 but after the revolution it

Sakkal has produced an image

Islamists believe that Islam is the solution to

came into increasing conflict with the national-

which reflects, through its lively

contemporary problems of Muslim states.

ist government of Jamal Abd al-Nasser. In

composition, the great variety of

Although the numerous Islamist groups that

1954, after an attempt on Nasser’s life, the

Islamic religious ideas. In the 3-

mushroomed and spread throughout the Mus-

Brotherhood was suppressed, its members

dimensional Kufic script the

lim world during the last three decades of the

imprisoned, exiled, or driven underground.

Islamic shahada (creed) reads,

twentieth century differ among themselves on

(Banna himself had been murdered in 1949 by

“There is no god but God and

the details of how Islamic states should be run,

the intelligence services of the old regime.)

Muhammad is the messenger of

nearly all are agreed that the return to God

After its suppression, the Brotherhood became

includes the rejection of the cultures of Western

internationalized, with affiliated movements

materialism and hedonism (exemplified by sex-

springing up in Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Pakistan,

ual permissiveness) and the duty to support fel-

Indonesia, and Malaysia. The Brotherhood

low Muslims in conflict with non-Muslims in

found refuge in Saudi Arabia under the Amir

places such as Palestine or Kashmir, though not

(later King) Faisal ibn Abd al-Aziz, as well as

all Islamists support terrorist actions.

political and financial support, with funds for

graphic illustration, Mamoun

God.”

The ground for the Islamist movements was prepared by the reformist and salafiyya move-

194

the Egyptian underground and salaried posts for exiled intellectuals.

ments in the eighteenth and nineteenth cen-

A radical member of the Brotherhood,

turies, which had sought to purge Islamic belief

Sayyid Qutb, executed in 1966 for an alleged

and ritual from the accretions and innovations

plot to overthrow the Egyptian government,

acquired over the centuries, particularly the

proved to be the movement’s most influential

cults surrounding the Sufi walis (saints), living

theorist, although some of his ideas were

and dead. An Islam pruned of its medieval

influenced by the Indian scholar and journal-

accretions was better able to confront the chal-

ist Abu al-Ala al-Maududi (1906–79). One of

lenge of foreign power than a local cult bound-

Maududi’s doctrines, in particular, would

ed by the intercessionary power of a particular

have a major impact on Islamic political move-

saint or family of saints. The modern Islamist

ment. He believed that the struggle for Islam

movement, however, is usually traced back to

was not for the restoration of an ideal past,

the Muslim Brotherhood, founded in 1928 by

but for a principle vital to the here and now:

Hasan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher.

the vice-regency of man under God’s sover-

The Brotherhood’s original aims were moral as

eignty. The jihad was not just a defensive war

much as political: it sought to reform society by

for the protection of the Islamic territory. It

MODERN ISLAMIC MOVEMENTS

might be waged against governments which

jihad against the Soviet occupation in

prevented the preaching of true (i.e., the

Afghanistan (1979–89) when thousands of vol-

Islamist version of) Islam. Taking his cue from

unteers received training in methods of irregu-

Maududi, Qutb likened contemporary Islamic

lar warfare. Fired by what they see as their

society to the jahiliyya, the “state of igno-

divinely supported victory in Afghanistan, the

rance” prevailing in Arabia against which the

militants aim to “liberate” all lands that were

Prophet himself inveighed and fought.

once Islamic (including Spain) from rule by

In most Sunni countries the Brotherhood

non-Muslims or by unjust “infidel” govern-

and its offshoots can be divided into a main-

ments (by which they mean most existing

stream tendency that will work within the frame of existing governmental systems, where permitted, and is also engaged in social welfare work, and a radical or extremists tendency that seeks to achieve its aims by violence. However the lines dividing the extremists from the mainstream are not always clear. Violence is interactive and in many cases, such as the atrocities perpetrated by Islamist terrorists in India, Israel-Palestine, and Egypt, it may be seen as a response to that inflicted on the Islamists by governments which themselves use violence, including torture and “targeted killings,” to repress or destroy opposition. Where opportunities for political participation have been available, as in Jordan, Yemen, Kuwait, and Malaysia, the level of violence has been notably less than, for example, in Israel-Palestine or Algeria. In Egypt violence by extremist factions of the Islamic Associations, including attacks on tourists, seriously alienated the mass of public opinion, not least because millions of Egyptians are dependent on tourism for their livelihoods. There remains, however, a hard core of Islamist militants who are committed to the “liberation” of Muslim lands from “infidel” rule, regardless of circumstances. This arm of the movement, inspired by the writings of

Muslim states). Since they see Western finan-

Sayyid Qutb and the fiery rhetoric of Abdul-

cial and military support as a primary factor

lah Azam—one time mentor of the Saudi dis-

in the survival of “non-Islamic” regimes, they

sident Osama bin Laden—gained momentum

have not hesitated to take their jihad into the

during the American- and Pakistani-backed

heart of Western power. 195


Chronology c. 570–622 622–632 632–634

Muhammad in Mecca. Muhammad in Medina. Caliphate of Abu Bakr. Muslims triumph in wars of apostasy. Arabia unified. 634–644 Caliphate of Umar. Most of Fertile Crescent, Egypt, and much of Iran conquered. Expansion into North Africa. 644–656 Caliphate of Uthman. Conquests continue northward, eastward, and westward Text of the Koran collected and standardized. 656–661 First fitna or civil war during caliphate of Ali. 660, 668, 712 Arabs fail to capture Constantinople. 661 Murder of Ali. Establishment of Umayyad caliphate by Muawiya in Damascus. 680 Second fitna. Muawiya’s succession by his son Yazid provokes rebellion by Hussein b. Ali. “Martyrdom” of Hussein and followers at Karbala. 685–705 Reign of Abd al-Malik, builder of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. 687–691 Kharijis prevail in much of Arabia. 711 Arabs advance into Spain. 712–713 Arabs conquer Transoxiana (Bukhara and Samarkand). 728 Death of Hasan al-Basri, early Sufi master. 732 Battle of Poitiers: Charles Martel checks Arab advance into France. 744–750 Third fitna. Weakened by internal dissent, Umayyad dynasty overthrown by Abbasids (749). 756 Umayyad rule established in Spain. 765 Death of Jafar al-Sadiq, sixth Iman of the Shiite. Movement divided between Ismailis, Ithnaasharis (“Twelvers”) and Zaidis. 767 Death of Abu Hanifa (b. 699), founder of the Hanafi legal school. 786–809 Reign of Harun al-Rashid, model caliph of Islam’s “golden age.” 795 Death of Malik b. Anas (b. 713), founder of the Maliki school. 801 Death of Rabia of Basra, mystic and poet. 813–833 Caliphate of al-Mamun. Ascendancy of Mutazili (“rationalist”) school of theologians. 820 Death of al-Shafi (b. 767), founder of the Shafi school of law. 847–861 Caliphate of al-Mutawakkil, who reverses proMutazili policy. 861–945 Breakup of Abbasid Empire as provinces become independent until caliphate government loses territorial power completely. 855 Death of Ahmad Ibn Hanbal (b. 780), founder of Hanbali school. 870 Death of al-Bukhari (b. 810), hadith collector. 873 Death of Muslim (hadith collector). “Disappearance” of 12th Imam of the Shiite, Muhammad al-Muntazar (the “Awaited One”). 873–940 Lesser ghaiba or Absence during which Imam of Twelver Shiite is represented by Four wakils (deputies). 874 Death of Abu Yazid al-Bistami, first of the “drunken” Sufis. 909 Creation of first Ismaili Fatimid state in Ifriqiya

196

922 929–961 940 945 969–1171 998–1030 1037–1220 1056–1167 1071 1090–1118 1091 1096–1291 1099 1111 1130 1187 1198 1205–87 1220–31 1225 1227 1240 1256 1258 1260 c. 1300 1326 1362 c. 1378 1389 1405 1453 1498 1501

(present-day Tunisia). Execution of al-Hallaj for heresy, a martyr for later Sufis. Umayyad ruler Abd al-Rahman III establishes Umayyad caliphate at Cordoba (Spain). Beginning of the Greater ghayba (absence or occultation) when Twelvers lose contact with their Imam. Shii Buyids take Baghdad, making caliph a virtual prisoner. Fatimid (Ismaili) caliphate in Egypt. Mahmud of Ghazna (present-day Afghanistan) invades northern India. Saljuq Turks, starting in central Iran and moving westward, restore Sunni orthodoxy to the heartlands. Almoravid dynasty, originating in Subsaharan Africa, halts Christian advance in Spain. Saljuqs defeat Byzantines at Battle of Manzikert, opening Anatolia to Turkish settlement. Nizari Ismaili uprisings against Sunni caliphs. Saljuqs make Baghdad their capital. Crusaders hold parts of Syria and Palestine. Crusaders take Jerusalem. Death of al-Ghazali (b. 1058), Sunni mystic and theologian. Death of Ibn Tumart, founder of Almohad dynasty in Spain. Saladin (Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi) expels Crusaders from Jerusalem. Death of Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (b. 1126), philosopher. Rise of Delhi Sultanate in India. Mongol raids in Transoxiana and eastern Iran cause massive destruction of cities Almohads abandon Spain. Muslim presence reduced to small kingdom of Granada (1232–1592). Death of Chingiz Khan. Death of Ibn Arabi (b. 1165), Sufi theosophist. Fall of Alamut, last Ismaili stronghold south of the Caspian Sea. Destruction of Baghdad by Mongols. Mamluks (military slaves) who succeed the Ayyubids in Egypt, defeat the hitherto invincible Mongols at the Battle of Ain Jalut in Syria. Emergence of Ottoman (Osmanli) dynasty in Bithynia on the Byzantine frontier in western Anatolia. Ottomans capture Bursa, their first real capital. Ottomans capture Adrianople (Edirne) in Balkans. Emergence of Timur Lenk (Tamerlane) a Turk who rose in the Mongol service in Transoxiana to conquer much of central and western Asia. Ottomans defeat Serbs, assisted by Albanians, Bulgarians, Bosnians, and Hungarians, at Kosovo in central Serbia. Death of Timur. Mehmed “The Conqueror” (1451–81) captures Constantinople and subdues Byzantine Empire. Vasco da Gama rounds the Cape of Good Hope, ending Muslim monopoly of Indian Ocean trade. Rise of Safavid power in Iran. Twelver Shiism becomes the state religion.

CHRONOLOGY

1517 1526

1529 1552 1556–1605 1682–99 1718 1739 1757 1762 1774 1779 1789–1807 1798 1805–48 1806 1815–17 1818 1820 1821–30 1830 1832–48 c. 1839–61 1859 1867 1868 1869 1875 1876 1876–1909 1881 1882 1885

Ottomans conquer Egypt and Syria. Battle of Paniput (India) enables Babur, a Timurid prince, to become founder of the Mughal Empire; Battle of Mohacs makes Catholic Hungarians tributaries of Ottomans. Ottomans besiege Vienna. Kazan Khanate annexed by Moscow. Reign of Akbar, third Mughal emperor, who fosters Hindu-Muslim cultural and religious rapprochement. Ottomans lose Hungary and Belgrade in war with Austria and Poland. Peace of Passarowitz consolidates Ottoman losses to Habsburgs. Delhi sacked by Iranian monarch Nadir Shah, ending effective Mughal power. Wahhabis take al-Hasa in eastern Arabia. British victory at Plassey opens India to British expansion. Death of Shah Wali Allah, Indian Sufi reformer in Sirhindi tradition. Treaty of Kuchuk Kaynarji. Following defeat by Russia, Ottomans lose Crimea. Tsar recognized as protector of Orthodox Christians in Ottoman lands. Qajar dynasty established in Iran. First Westernizing Ottoman reforms under Selim III. Napoleon Bonaparte lands in Egypt, defeats the Mamluks at the Battle of the Pyramids, generates interest in European culture. Muhammad (Mehmed) Ali begins modernizing process in Egypt. Wahhabis sack Shiite shrines of Najaf and Karbala. Serbian revolt against Ottomans. Britain becomes paramount power in India. Muhammad Ali begins conquest of Sudan. Greek War of Independence. French occupation of Algeria begins. Khartoum founded as British-Egyptian outpost on the Upper Nile. European powers save Ottoman Empire from invasion by Egyptian Viceroy, Muhammad Ali. Failure of Indian “Mutiny” leads to abolition of the East India Company, opening the way for incorporation of India into British Empire. Defeat of Imam Shamil in Caucasus followed by Russian annexation of Chechnya and Daghestan. Foundation of the academy of Deoband in northern India by a group of the reformers who eschew contact with the British. Russian annexation of Kazakhstan completed. Amirate of Bukhara becomes Russian protectorate. Opening of the Suez Canal. Collapse of Egyptian finances. Suez Canal sold to British. First Ottoman constitution promulgated after palace revolution. Sultan Abd al-Hamid suspends constitution, enacting major reforms in education, transportation, and communications through dictatorial rule. French protectorate in Tunisia. British occupation of Egypt. General “Chinese” Gordon killed in Khartoum during

1889

1897 1898

1905 1906 1906–08 1908 1909 1911–13 1912 1914–18 1916–18 1917 1917–20

1919

1919–22

1923

Mahdist revolt against British-backed Egyptian rule. Return of Muhammad Abduh, al-Afghani’s disciple to Egypt, who decides to collaborate with the British. Military students in Istanbul found first “Young Turk” revolutionary organization, Society of Union and Progress. Death of Sayyid Jamal al-Din al-Afghani (b. 1838), pan-Islamic reformer and activist. Defeat of the Mahdist movement by an AngloEgyptian force under General Kitchener at the Battle of Omdurman. Death of Sir Sayyid Ahmed Khan (b. 1817), Islamic modernist reformer and founder of Aligarh College (1875). Death of Muhammad Abduh (b. 1849), founder of the modern salafiyya reform movement. Muslim League founded in India. Constitutional Revolution in Iran. Young Turk revolution forces sultan to restore constitution and reconvene parliament. Separate Muslim and Hindu provincial electorates in India. Italy takes Tripoli from Ottomans. French protectorate in Morocco. Defeat of Ottoman Empire in First World War. Egypt formally declared British Protectorate. British-backed Arab revolt against Turkish rule under leadership of Sharif Hussein of Mecca, his son Faisal, and Colonel T. E. Lawrence. Balfour Declaration opens the way for increased European Jewish settlement in Palestine. Russian Revolution and civil war leads to Soviet–Muslim conflicts in Central Asia. Muslims of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and the Caucasus struggle for regional independence. Overthrow of Autonomous Republic of Turkestan by Russian forces (1918) precipitates Basmachi revolt. Bukhara and Khiva absorbed into Soviet states. Some leading Muslim Jadidists (renovators) join the Communist Party. San Remo Conference. League of Nations Mandates awarded to Britain in former Ottoman territories of Palestine, Transjordan, and Iraq, and to France in Syria and Lebanon. Faisal b. Hussein expelled by French from Damascus and established on throne of Iraq. His younger brother, Abdullah, established on throne of Transjordan. Egyptian leader Saad Zaghlul leads wafd (delegation) demanding independence for Egypt. His deportation sparks nationalist “revolution.” Ottoman suzerainty abolished in Egypt. Britain keeps control of defense, foreign policy, Sudan, and the Suez Canal. Turkish War of Independence: Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) rallies nationalist forces to defeat Greek invaders and resist European dismemberment of Anatolia. Treaty of Lausanne ensures Turkey’s territorial integrity.

197


1924

1926 1928 1932 1935 1936

1938 1940–47 1941 1942 1943 1945 1946 1947 1948

1949 1952 1956

198

Soviet Central Asia reorganized under socialist republics of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, and Kirgizia. Ottoman Caliphate abolished. Turkish Sharia courts replaced by civil courts. Khilafat movement in India blames British for abolition. Ibn Saud conquers Hejaz, expelling the Sharif Hussein and establishing neo-Wahhabi kingdom. Lebanon enlarged and detached from Syria under French auspices. Hasan al-Banna, Egyptian schoolteacher, founds the Muslim Brotherhood. Iraq granted independence and admitted to League of Nations. Death of Rashid Rida (b. 1865), Islamic reformer and leader of the salafiyya movement. Palestinians revolt against British rule in Palestine and the increase in Jewish immigration caused by Nazi rule in Germany. Muhammad Ali Jinnah assumes leadership of Muslim League, ending Muslim backing for Congress. New Soviet Constitution organizes Muslim Central Asia into six Union Soviet Socialist Republics (Uzbekishan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, and Kirgizia) and eight Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics including Tataristan, Bashkitia, Daghestan, and other Caucasian units under communist control. Death of Muhammad Iqbal, poet, philosopher, and progenitor of Pakistan. Muslim League adopts idea of separate Muslim states for Indian Muslims. British suppress pro-Axis revolt by Iraqi army officers. British force Egyptian King Farouq to replace proAxis prime minister with one more amenable to the Allied cause. Beginning of Zionist terror campaign against British in Palestine Arab League founded. Transjordan, Lebanon, and Syria recognized as independent. Widespread Hindu-Muslim rioting in India. Indian independence. Creation of Pakistan out of Muslim majority areas, excepting Kashmir. British end mandate in Palestine. Arab armies routed following proclamation of Israel. Palestinian exodus creates massive refugee problem. Amir Abdullah of Transjordan annexes east Jerusalem (including the Old City and the West Bank). Egyptian prime minister Muhammad Nuqrashi assassinated. Hasan al-Banna assassinated by Egyptian security agents in retaliation for the murder of Nuqrashi. Egyptian monarchy overthrown by Arab nationalist army officers led by Gamal Abd al-Nasser with support from the Muslim Brotherhood. Nasser nationalizes the Suez Canal, provoking Anglo–French military intervention in secret collusion with Israel.

1958 1963

1965 1967

1968

1969

1970

1972 1973

1975 1977

1978–79 1979

Pro-British Iraqi monarchy overthrown in bloody coup d’état masterminded by General Abd al-Karim Qasim. Execution in Egypt of Sayyid Qutb, writer and Muslim Brotherhood’s most militant ideologist. Iraq’s President Qasim overthrown in coup by Baathist military officers under Abd al-Salam Arif. Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) founded. (June) The Six Day War leaves the whole of the Sinai peninsula, the West Bank (including the Old City of Jerusalem), and the Syrian Golan Heights under Israeli military control. Yassir Arafat (Abu Ammar), commander of al-Fatah, the largest guerrilla organization, becomes leader of the PLO. President Abd al-Rahman Arif (brother and successor of Abd al-Salam) overthrown by General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr. Real power held by Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti. Pro-British Sanusi monarchy in Libya overthrown in Nasser-style coup d’état led by 27-year-old Colonel Muammar al-Qadhafi. Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) established to promote Islamic solidarity and foster political, economic, social, and cultural cooperation among Muslim states. Hafez al-Asad, an air force general from the Alawi (Nusairi) minority, takes power in Syria at the head of the Baath Party. Civil war in Jordan between the army and Palestinian guerrillas (“Black September”). Anwar al-Sadat succeeds to the Egyptian presidency following the death of Abd al-Nasser. Bangladesh, formerly East Pakistan, wins independence with Indian army help. October (Ramadan/Yom Kippur) War. Egypt establishes a bridgehead on the East Bank of the Suez Canal—the first major success of Arab arms against Israel. Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) under the leadership of Iran and Saudi Arabia imposes a four-fold increase in the price of crude oil, leading to massive “petrodollar” surpluses for investment in industrialized economies and support for Islamic movements (as well as worldwide economic recession). Lebanese civil war provoked, in part, by presence of militant Palestinian refugees and Israeli reprisals against them. Beginning of negotiations between Egypt and Israel. Zia ul-Haqq, Pakistani general, assumes presidency and imposes martial law. Former President Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto executed. Zia initiates Islamization program. Death of Ali Shariati (b. 1933), Islamist philosopher, in Southampton, Britain. Growing unrest in Iran against dictatorship of Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi. Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile in Europe to

CHRONOLOGY

1980–88

1981 1982

1987 1988

1989

1990 1991

establish the Islamic Republic in Iran. Fifty-two US diplomats taken hostage and held for 444 days. Camp David peace accords between Egypt and Israel begin the peace process between Arabs and Israelis. Death of Abu al Ala al-Mawdudi (b. 1909), IndoPakistani ideologue and founder of the Jamaati-i-Islami. President Zia al-Haqq introduces Hudood ordinance, prescribing Koranic penalties for certain categories of theft, sexual misconduct, and drinking alcohol. Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in support of ailing communist regime. Western training and armaments for the mujahidin (holy warriors) creates a welltrained cadre of Islamist militants. Iran–Iraq war, provoked by Iraqi attack on Iran, becomes the longest-lasting international conflict of the twentieth century, leading to the loss of at least half a million lives on the Iranian side and massive economic dislocation. Assassination of Anwar al-Sadat by Islamic extremists. Israeli invasion of Lebanon and expulsion of PLO to Tunisia. Up to 10,000 people killed in government reprisals after failed Muslim Brotherhood rebellion in Syrian city of Hama. Beginning of the intifada—a massive, popular uprising of Palestinians against Israeli occupation, spearheaded by stone-throwing children. Shaikh Ahmad Yasin, head of the Islamic Center in Gaza and a member of the Muslim Brotherhood, founds Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement. Ayatollah Khomeini, Iran’s religious leader, “swallows poison” and accepts a ceasefire with Iraq. Death of President Zia al-Haqq of Pakistan in suspicious air crash. Publication of The Satanic Verses by British Muslim author Salman Rushdie. Muhammad Mahmud Taha, leader of the Republican Brotherhood and a reformer with Sufi leanings, hanged for “apostasy.” Fatwa pronounced against Rushdie by Khomeini prevents detente between Iran and the West, despite the presence of pragmatists in the government. June: Khomeini dies and is succeeded as supreme religious leader by Ali Khamenei. In Algeria the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) wins 55 percent of the vote in the regional elections. Invasion of Kuwait by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Operation Desert Storm, led by the United States with military support from Britain, France, Italy, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, and Pakistan, expels Iraqi troops from Kuwait. Shiite revolt in Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala brutally suppressed. Disbanding of Soviet Union after failed antiGorbachev coup leads to independence for the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia (under the leadership of ex-members of the Soviet nomenklatura). In Tajikistan rivalry between the excommunist leadership and Islamist opposition leads to a bitter and costly civil war. In Algeria the FIS wins 49 percent of the vote in the

1992

1994 1995 1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002 2003

2004

first round of the general elections. The army intervenes to prevent victory for the FIS in the second round, provoking an eight-year civil war said to have cost at least 100,000 lives. Farag Foda, the prominent Egyptian humanist and writer, gunned down by Islamists in Cairo. “No-Fly Zones” established in northern and southern Iraq to prevent Iraqi attacks on Kurdish and Shiite populations. UN sanctions imposed on Iraq lead to significant hardship among vulnerable groups, especially children. Cheb Hasni, a popular rai singer, murdered in France. Tahar Djaout, award-winning novelist and editor, shot outside his home in Algiers. More than 7,000 Muslims massacred at Srebrenica in Bosnia after UN fails to protect enclave from Bosnian Serb attack. Taliban movement based on madrasa-educated students in rural Afghanistan captures Kabul. Its program of pacification bears harshly on women and minorities. More than 60 European tourists massacred near Luxor by Islamists. Muhammad Khatami, former minister of culture, elected President of Iran. Taliban fighters murder between two and five thousand members of the Shiite Hazara community after the capture of Mazar-el-Sharif. Al-Qaeda attacks the US Embassies in east Africa. In Algeria Abd al-Aziz Bouteflika, former foreign minister, elected President on a program of reconciliation. Pro-democracy demonstrations in Iran suppressed by police and street gangs under conservative control. NATO bombing campaign forces Serbs to relinquish Kosovo, reversing “ethnic cleansing” of mainly Muslim Albanians. Russia bombs Chechnya on pretext of suppressing “Islamic terrorism.” (February) Russians occupy Grozni, the capital of Chechnya. In Pakistan, General Pervez Musharraf overthrows democratically elected government of Nawaz Sharif. (September) Suicide hijackers linked to al-Qaeda attack the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, killing approximately 3,000 people. US bombs Afghanistan, removing Taliban regime. (October) Terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda kills more than 200 people, mostly Australians, in bombing of nightclub in Bali, Indonesia. (March) US and UK attack Iraq without UN support, on pretext that Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction. No such weapons found. Islamist terrorists linked to al-Qaeda kill civilians in Casablanca, Riyadh, Istanbul, and other cities. (December) Saddam Hussein captured near his home town of Tikrit. Reformists defeated in Iranian parliamentary elections after clergy-dominated guardianship of

199


Glossary Abd

“Servant” or “slave”; commonly used as a name when coupled with one of the names of Allah. See also Ibada. Adhan Call to prayer performed by muadhin (muezzin). Ahl al-Bait “People of the household”; specifically used for the Phrophet’s family. Ahl al-Kitab “People of the book”; originally referred to Muslims, Jews, and Christians but came to include Zoroastrians and other groups prossessing sacred texts. Ahl al-Sunna “People of the Sunna” (Sunnis); those who uphold customs based on the practice and authority of the Prophet and his Companions, as distinct from the Shiites and Kharijis. See also Sunna. Al “Clan” or “House”; as in Al Imran (3rd Sura of Koran), Al Saud, etc. Not to be confused with al-, the definite article. Alawi Member of ghulu (extremist) Nusairi sect in northeastern Syria which venerates Ali. Alid Descendant of Ali, cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet. Alim See Ulama. Amir “Commander”; originally military commander but subsequently applied to rulers and members of their families. Amir al-Muminin (“Commander of the Faithful”), a title held by caliphs and some sultans. Ansar “Helpers” of Muhammad native to Medina, as distinct from the Muhajirun who accompanied him from Mecca. Asabiyya Tribal or group solidarity; a term used by philosopher Ibn Khaldun in his theory on state formation in North Africa. Ashura The tenth of the month Muharram, when Shiite rituals are held commemorating the death of the Prophet’s grandson Hussein. Aya “Sign” or “miracle”; used for verses of the Koran. Baraka “Sanctity” or “blessing” vested in, and available from, holy people, places, or objects. Bast “Twelver” Shiite institution of sanctuary in mosques and other holy places. Baya “Contract” or oath of allegiance binding members of an Islamic sect or Sufi tariqa to their spiritual guide. Chador Traditional Iranian garment covering women from head to foot. See also Hijab. Dai “Propagandist” or missionary, especially in Shiite Ismaili movements. See also Dawa. Dar al-Harb The “realm of war” or those lands not under Muslim rule, where, under certain circumstances, a war or jihad can be sanctioned against unbelievers. Dar al-Islam “Realm of Islam”; originally those lands under Muslim

200

Dawa Dervish Dhikr

Dhimmi

Din Dua Fana Faqih Faqir Fatwa Fidaiyyia Fiqh Fitna

Ghaib Hadith

Hajj

Halal Hanafi Hanbali Haram Hijab

Hijra Ibada Id al-Adha

rule, later applying to lands where Muslim institutions were established. “Propaganda” or mission. “Mendicant”; member of a Sufi tariqa. “Mentioning” or “remembering”; specifically used for Sufi rituals designed to increase consciousness of God which include the repetition of his name(s). Non-Muslim peoples afforded security of life and property under the Sharia on payment of a jizya (poll tax). “Religion” or “belief” as opposed to dunya (worldly existence). Prayer (additional to salat). The extinction of individual consciousness, and thus union with God, in Sufism. Exponent of fiqh. “Pauper”; term applied to ordinary member of Sufi tariqa. Legal decision of a mufti. Soldiers prepared to sacrifice their lives in the cause of Islam. Now used for guerrilla fighters. (Singular: fidai.) “Understanding” of Sharia, the system of jurisprudence based on the usul al-fiqh. “Temptation” or “trial”; the name given to the civil wars which broke out within the expanding Muslim empire during the first 200 years after Muhammad’s death. “Unseen” and “transcendent”; hence al-ghaiba, the “occultation” of the Hidden Imans in Shiite doctrine. “Tradition” or report of a saying or action of the Prophet. One of four roots of Islamic law. See also Sharia, Usul al-fiqh. The annual pilgrimage to Mecca. One of the five rukns (duties) of Islam, required of every believer once in his life if possible. That which is “permissible”, particularly foods which comply with Islamic dietary rules. Referring to the Sunni legal madhhab ascribed to Abu Hanifa. Referring to the Sunni legal madhhab ascribed to Abu Hanbal. A sanctuary, “that which is forbidden” by the Sharia. “Screen”, veil traditionally worn by Muslim women in public. Always covers the head, but not necessarily the face and hands. “Emigration” of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina in AD 622, the base year of the Muslim calender. Religious worship. “The festival of the sacrifice” on the last day of the Hajj.

GLOSSARY

Id al-Fitr Ijima

Ijtihad

Ikhwan

Ikhwan alMuslimin Ilm Imam

Iman Intifada Infitah Islam

Isnad Jafari Jahl Jihad

Jizya Kaba

Kafir Khalifa

“The festival of breaking the fast” at the end of Ramadan. Consensus of the Muslim community or scholars as a basis for a legal decision. Shiites interpret it as a consensus of Imams. Individual judgement to establish a legal ruling by creative interpretation of the existing body of law. See also Muijtahid. The “Brothers”, soldiers of Abd al-Aziz, founder of the Saudi dynasty, and adherents of the Hanbali reformer, Abd al-Wahhab. Muslim Brotherhood, a society founded in 1929 by Hasan al-Banna; originally aimed at reestablishing a Muslim polity in Egypt. “Knowledge”; in particular, religious knowledge, of ulama. “One who stands in front” to lead the salat, hence the leader of the Muslim community. In Shiite tradition, Ali and those of his descendants considered to be the spiritual successors of Muhammad. “Faith” or religious conviction. Uprising, especially of Palestinians against Israel in 1900s and after 2002. The “opening up” of the Egyptian economy to the West in 1972, in the hope of attracting foreign investment. “Self-surrender” or “submission”; reconcilliation to the will of God as revealed to Muhammad. See also Muslim. “Support”; chain of authorities transmitting a hadith, thus guaranteeing its validity. Referring to the sole Shiite madhhab ascribed to the Imam Jafar al-Sadiq. “Ignorance”, hence jahiliyya (period of ignorance), or pre-Islamic times. War against unbelievers in accordance with Sharia. Also applied to an individual’s struggle against baser impulses. Poll tax levied on dhimmis in a Muslim-ruled society. Cubic building in Mecca containing the Black Stone, believed by Muslims to be a fragment of the original temple of Abraham. Focus of salat (prayer) and the Hajj. See also Qibla. “Disbeliever” or infidel who has rejected the message of the Koran. Caliph, the “deputy” of God on earth. In the Koran applied to Adam, and hence to all humanity in relation to the rest of creation; specifically applied to the early successors of the Prophet as leaders of the Islamic state or khilafa, and to the successors of founders of Islamic states or Sufi tariqas.

Khaniqa Kharijis

Sufi hospice, mainly in areas of Persian influence. “Those who go out”; members of a group of puritanical Muslim sects during Umayyad and early Abbasid times. (Arabic plural: Khawarij.) Khums “Fifth’, a tax of one-fifth of all trading profits, payable to mujtahids in Shiite areas. Khutba Sermon preached at Friday prayers. Kiswa Black clothing or covering of the Kaba, renewed annually. Kitab “The book”, or religious scriptures. Koran (Quran) “Discourse” or “recitation”, the immutable body of revelations received by Muhammad. Kufr “Disbelief”, an ungrateful rejection of Islam. See also Kafir. Kuttab School at which the Koran is taught. Madhhab “Adopted policy”, specifically applied to five recognized systems of fiqh (jurisprudence). Madrasa “College”, especially for religious studies. Maghrib “Sunset”, hence the salat (prayer) at sunset. Also Muslim “occident”, i.e., northeastern Africa, Morocco, for which the French transliteration “Maghreb” is commonly used. Mahdi “Awaited One”; a Messiah and reformist leader who aims to restore the original purity of the Islamic faith and polity. In Shiite tradition the Twelfth Imam. Maliki Referring to the Sunni legal madhhab ascribed to Malik ibn Anas. Maruf “Known”, term used in the Koran for familiar and approved custom; hence, generally, “the good.” Mashriq “Sunrise”; Levant. Maslaha That which is “beneficial”; term used for the principle of public interest in the Maliki madhhab, adopted by modern legal reformers. Mawlid “Birthday”; festival celebrating the anniversary of a religious figure. Mawali “Associates” or “clients”; status at first given to nonArab converts to Islam. (Singular: Mawla.) Mihrab Niche in wall of mosque indicating Qibla. Millet Non-Muslim religious community within the Dar alIslam. Mufti Expert on the Sharia, qualified to give fatwas (rulings) upon questions of law. Muhajirin Those who emigrated from Mecca to Medina with Muhammad. See also Hijra. Mujahid Soldier fighting a holy war or jihad. (Plural: mujadidun.) Mujtahid Religious scholars sanctioned to make individual interpretations to determine points of law, especially among Shiite. Mukhabarat Intelligence services, security police.

201


Munkar Murid Murshid Muslim

Mutazilis

Nisab Pir Qadi Qibla Qiyas Ribat Risala Rukn Sadaqa Salaf

Salat Sawm Sayyid Shahada

Shaikh Sharia

Shiites

Shirk Shura Silsila Sufi Sunna

202

“Unknown”; term used in the Koran for wrongful action as distinct from maruf: hence evil generally. “Aspirant”, or follower of a Sufi master. Sufi master. One who has submitted to God; a follower of the religion revealed to, and established by, Muhammad. See also Islam. “Those who stand aloof”; theologians belonging to the rationalist school which introduced speculative dogmatism into Islam. Minimum amount of wealth prior to assessment for zakat. Persian Sufi master. Judge administering Sharia. Direction of the Kaba to which Muslims turn while praying, hence the recess in a mosque which shows it. “Analogy”; the principle in jurisprudence used to deal with new situations not mentioned in the Koran or Sunna. Sufi hospice. “Report” or “epistle”. (Plural: rasail.) “Pillar’; one of the five religious duties prescribed for Muslims—hajj, salat, sawm, shahada, and zakat. Voluntary contribution of alms. “Predecessors”; appellation of the first generation of Muslims. Salafi: term describing the twentieth-century reform movement inspired by them. Ritual worship performed five times daily, one of the rukns (five pillars) of Islam. Annual fast and daylight abstinence during the month of Ramadan, one of the rukns of Islam. Descendent of Ali’s son Hussein. Sidi (local usage in the Maghrib) is applied to members of saintly lineages. Profession of faith whereby a Muslim declares his acceptance of God and his Prophet; one of the rukns of Islam. “Elder”; head of a tribe or Sufi master. “The path to a water-hole’; a name given to the sacred law of Islam which governs all aspects of a Muslim’s life. It is elaborated through the discipline of fiqh. “Party” of Ali, comprising those groups of Muslims who uphold the rights of Ali and his descendants to leadership of the Umma. “Association” of partners to the divinity; idolatry. Consultation. Majlis al Shura Parliament. “Chain” of baraka (inherited sanctity) or kinship connecting the leaders of Sufi orders to their founders. Follower of Sufism, the Islamic mystic path, from suf (wool) garments worn by early adepts. (Arabic: tasawwuf.) Custom sanctioned by tradition, particularly that of the Prophet enshrined in hadith.

Sunni Sura Sultan

See Ahl al-Sunna. Chapter of the Koran. “Authority” or “power”; actual holder of power, as distinct from the khalifa; later common term for sovereign. Tahlil Prayer—la ilaha illa allah (there is no deity but God)— particularly used in Sufi rituals. Taifa Organization of a Sufi order, as distinct from its spiritual path. Takbir The phrase “Allahu Akbar” (God is most great). Tanzimat Administrative decrees, reforms instituted by the nineteenth-century Ottoman sultans. Taqiyya Dissimultation of one’s beliefs in the face of danger, especially among Shiites. Taqlid “Imitation”, or the basing of legal decisions on the existing judgments of the four Sunni madhhabs. Tariqa “Path” of mystical and spiritual guidance. A term which also came to be applied to the organization through which a tariqa extends itself in Muslim society. Tasawwuf See Sufi. Tawaf Ritual circumambulation of the Kaba by a pilgrim during the Hajj or Umra. Tawhid “Unity” of God. Central theological concept of Islam. Tawil Esoteric or allegorical interpretation of the Koran, predominant among Shiites. Tekkes Sufi centers in Turkish-speaking areas. Ulama “Learned men’, in particular the guardians of legal and religious traditions. (Singular: alim.) Umma Community of believers, in particular the community of all Muslims. Umra Lesser pilgrimage to Mecca which can be performed at any time of the year. Usul (al-Fiqh) “Roots” or foundations of jurisprudence. In the Sunni madhhabs they comprise: the Koran, the Sunna, ijma (consensus) and qiyas (analogical deduction). See also Fiqh. Wali “One who is near God”; a saint in popular Sufism. Waqf Pious endowment, originally for a charitable purpose; sometimes used as a means of circumventing the Sharia’s inheritance laws. Watan “Homeland” or “nation”. Wazir Administrator or bureaucrat apponted by the ruler. Zakat “Purity”, a term used for a tax of fixed proportion of income and capital (normally 21/2 percent) payable annually for charitable purposes; one of the “five pillars” of Islam. Zawiya “Corner”; building for Sufi activities.

GLOSSARY AND FURTHER READING

Further Reading Ahmed, Akbar S., Living Islam – From Samarkand to Stornoway, London, 1993.

Guillaume, A. (tr.), The Life of Muhammad: A Translation of Ibn Ishaq’s Sirat Rasul Attah, Karachi and London, 1955.

Ahmed, Akbar and Donnan, Hastings (eds.), Islam, Globalization and Postmodernity, London, 1994.

Hillenbrand, Robert, Islamic Art and Architecture, London, 1999.

Ahmed, Leila, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate, New Haven, CT, 1994. Ali Abdallah Yusuf (tr.), The Holy Quran (with commentary), Leicester, 1979. Al-Qaradawi, Yusuf, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, Helbawy et.al. (tr.), Indianapolis, ID, 1985.

Hodgson, Marshall G. S., The Venture of Islam: Conscience and History in a World Civilization, 3 vols., Chicago, IL, 1974. Hourani, Albert, Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age, Oxford, 1969. Hourani, Albert, A History of the Arab Peoples, 2nd ed., London, 2000.

Arberry, A. J. The Koran Interpreted, Oxford, 1990.

Ibn Khaldun, The Muqadimmah: An Introduction to History, F. Rosenthal (tr.), 3 vols., New York, NY, 1958; ed. and abridged by N. Dawood, London, 1978.

Armstrong, Karen, Muhammad: A Western Attempt to Understand Islam, London, 1991.

Keddie, N.R. (ed.), Scholars, Saints and Sufis: Muslim Religions Institutions Since 1500, Berkeley, CA, 1973.

Asad, Muhammad, The Message of the Quran, Gibraltar, 1980.

Lapidus, Ira, A History of the Islamic Peoples, 2nd ed., Cambridge, 2002.

Beinin, Joel and Stock, Joe (eds.), Political Islam: Essays from Middle East Report, London, 1997. Bell, Richard, Introduction to the Quran (1953), ed. and rev. W.M. Watt, Edinburgh, 1978. Blair, Sheila and Bloom, Jonathan, Islamic Art and Architecture 1250–1800, New Haven, CT, 1994. Bouhdiba, Abdalwahab, Sexuality in Islam, Alan Sheridan (tr.), London, 1985. Cook, Michael, Muhammad, Oxford, 1983 Coon, Carleton S., Caravan: The Story of the Middle East, rev. edn., New York, NY, 1961.

Mayer, Ann Elizabeth, Islam and Human Rights: Tradition and Politics, Boulder, CO, 1991. Mernissi, Fatima, Women and Islam: An Historical and Theological Enquiry, Mary Jo Lakeland (tr.), Oxford, 1991. Momen, Moojan, An Introduction to Shi’i Islam, New Haven, CT, 1985. Peters, F. E., Muhammad and the Origins of Islam, Albany, NY, 1994. Rahman, Fazlur, Islam, Chicago, IL, 1979. Richard, Yann, Shiite Islam, Antonia Nevill (tr.), Oxford, 1995.

Coulson, N. J., A History of Islamic Law, Edinburgh, 1964.

Rodinson, M., Mohamed, Harmondsworth, 1971.

Daftary, Farhad, A Short History of the Ismailis, Edinburgh, 1998.

Rosen, Lawrence, The Anthropology of Justice – Law as Culture in Islamic Society, Cambridge, 1989.

Denny, Frederick Mathewson, An Introduction to Islam, New York, NY, 1985

Roy, Olivier, The Failure of Political Islam, London, 1994.

Donner, Fred, Early Islamic Conquests, Cambridge, MA, 1982.

Ruthven, Malise, Islam in the World, 2nd ed., London, 2000.

Eickelman, Dale F., The Middle East: An Anthropological Approach, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1981/1989.

Ruthven, Malise, A Fury for God: The Islamist Attack on America, London, 2002.

Esposito, John L., (ed.), Oxford Encyclopedia of the Modern Islamic World, 4 vol., NY, 1995.

Said, Edward, Orientalism, London, 1978.

Ettinghausen, Richard, et al., Islamic Art and Architecture 650–1250, New Haven, CT, 2002. Geertz, Clifford, Islam Observed, New Haven, CT, 1968. Gibb, H. A. R., Bernard Lewis, et al. (eds.), Encyclopaedia of Islam, 6 vols., Leiden, 1962.

Schacht, Joseph, An Introduction to Islamic Law, Oxford, 1964. Trimingham, J. S., The Sufi Orders in Islam, Oxford, 1971. Waines, David, An Introduction to Islam, Cambridge, 1995. Watt, W. M., Muhammad at Mecca, Oxford, 1953. Watt, W. M., Muhammad at Medina, Oxford, 1956.

Gilsenan, Michael, Recognizing Islam, London, 1983.

203


Acknowledgments

Map List

Most of the essays accompanying the maps in this volume were written by Malise Ruthven, with editorial overview provided by Professor Azim Nanji (with contributions on pages 24–25, 66–69, 96–102), and Professor Nur Yalman and Kathleen McDermott. In preparing the texts and maps special mention should be made of the works of two outstanding American scholars of Islam: Marshall G.S. Hodgson’s The Venture of Islam (3 volumes, University of Chicago Press, 1974) and Ira Lapidus’s magisterial A History of Islamic Societies (revised edn. Cambridge University Press, 2002). Sheila Blair and Jonathan Bloom wrote the texts and kindly provided the cartographical information for pp. 172–179. The following also contributed to the text: Dr Jonathan Meri (p. 36–37); Dr Nader El-Bizri (p. 38–39), Farhad Daftari (p. 50–51); Dr Zulfikar Hirji (p. 76–77, 152–153); Safaroz Niyozof (p. 94–95); Richard Gott (p. 116–117); Dan Plesch (p. 150–151, 164–165); Trevor Mostyn (p. 162–163, 192–193); Mustafa Draper (p. 166–169); Nacim Pak (p. 188–189). Dr Abdou Filali Ansari contributed to the initial discussions concerning the choice of subjects.

The World according to al-Idrisi 549–1154 6/7 Geography of the Muslim Lands 18/19 Languages and Peoples of Islam 22/23 Arabia before the Muslim conquests 25 Muhammad’s Missions and Campaigns to 632 27 Expansion to 750 28/29 Expansion 750–1700 32/33 Abbasid Empire c. 850 36/37 Post-Imperial Successor Regimes late 10thC 40/41 Post-Imperial Successor Regimes early 11thC 42 The Saljuq Era 44/45 Military Recruitment c. 1500 46/47 Fatimid Empire and other States c. 1000 50/51 Empires and Trade Routes c. 1500 54/55 Christian Crusades 56 The Mamluk conquest of the coast 1263–91 57 Sufi Orders 1145–1389 61 The Muslim Near East 1127–74 63 Mongol Invasions 1206–59 64/65 Muslim conquests in North Africa and Europe 66/67 Islamic Spain c. 1030 68 The Christian Reconquest 69 Plan of the Great Mosque at Kilwa 70 East African Slave Trade to 1500 71 Ghana and Mali Empires 73 Jihad States c. 1800 74/75 Trade Routes to 1500 76/77 Indian Ocean c. 1580 80/81 Indian Ocean c. 1650 80/81 Indian Ocean 1800–1900 82/83 Expansion of Ottoman Empire 1328–1672 84/85 Ottoman Empire 1683–1914 88/89 The Dominions of Timur 94/95 Muslim India 97 The Mughal Empire 1526–1707 98 India, Invasions, and Regional Power 1739–60 99 British Conquest of India 100 Conflict over Kashmir 101 Expansion of Russia in Asia 1598–1914 104/105 Expansion of Islam in Southeast Asia 1500–1800 106/107 Eurasian Empires c. 1700 109 The Balkans 1914–18 113 The New Turkey 1926 115 European Imperialism in the Muslim World 116/117 The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1878–1912 119

The publishers would like to thank the following picture libraries for their kind permission to use their pictures and illustrations: The Collection of Prince and Princess Sadruddin Aga Khan 10, 35, 173 Bodleian Library, Oxford 11 Werner Forman Archive 16 Hulton Getty Archive 17, 36, 44, 49, 53, 59, 62, 91, 101, 102, 111, 112, 114, 118, 132, 146, 150, 152, 156, 160, 169, 180, 185, 188, 193 Corbis 21 e.t. archive 24, 72, 82, 84 Metropolitan Museum of Art 26 Deutsches Archaiologisches Institut, Madrid 28 Aga Khan Trust for Culture, Geneva 30, 74, 80, 94, 122, 170 Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris 31, 57, 64, 177 Bildarchiv Steffens 39, 147 Cartographica Limited 40, 43, 76 Bildarchiv Preußischer Kulturbasitz 51, 172 David N. Kidd 69 Ianthe Ruthven 71 D. Dagli Orti, Paris 78, 88 Agence Rapho, Paris 87 Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Science 92 Images Colour Library 128 British Museum 131 Foto-Thome, Germany 167 Dr Omar Khalidi 171 Institut Amatller, Barcelona 176 Mamoun Sakkal 195 For Cartographica Limited: Illustration: Peter A.B. Smith Cartography: Francesca Bridges, Peter Gamble, Isabelle Lewis, Jeanne Radford, Malcolm Swanston and Jonathan Young Typesetting: Jeanne Radford Picture Research: Annabel Merullo and Michéle Sabèse

204

The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1912–13 120 The Balkans, Crete, and Cyprus 1920–23 121 China under Manchu Dynasty 1840–1912 123 The Last Years of Turkish Rule 1882–1916 124 Sykes-Picot Plan May 1916 125 League of Nations Mandate 1921 126 Pledges and Border Changes 1920–23 127 Invasion of Lebanon June 1982–September 1983 127 Nasir Khusraw’s Journeys c. 1040 129 Travels of Ibn Jubair 1183–85 130 Travels of Ibn Battuta 1325–54 131 Ottoman Africa c. 1880 132 Northeast Africa 1840–98 133 Africa after the Berlin Conference 1885 135 Africa c. 1830 136 Northwest Africa to 1914 137 Pilgrim Routes of Arabia 138 Plan of Mecca 139 The Growth of the Hajj 140/141 Early Baghdad 142 Cairo at the time of Sultan Al-Nasir 143 Cairo at the time of Ismail 1869–70 143 Growth of Cairo 1800–1947 144 Tashkent 145 Oilfields and Pipelines in the Middle East and Inner Asia 147 The Struggle for Water 1950–67 149 Military Spending and Service c. 2000 151 New States in Southeast Asia 1950–2000 153 Mesopotamia 1915–18 154 The Gulf War Phase 1 155 The Gulf War Phase 2 155 The Gulf War Phase 3 155 The Afghanistan War and Soviet Retreat 157 Arabia and the Gulf c. 1900 159 Territorial Growth of the Saudi State 1902–26 161 The Six-Day War—Israeli Attack 162 October War 1973 163 The Intifada February–December 1992 163 The Advance to Baghdad 20–30 March 2003 164 The Advance to Baghdad March–April 2003 165 Muslim Migration into the European Union 166 Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries 168 After World War II 169 Islam Mosques by State 2000 171 Islamic Arts 174/175 Architectural and Archaelogical Sites 178/179 Muslim Population in the World Today 182/183 World Terrorism 186/187 Telephone Lines per 100 People 2001 190/191

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS, MAP LIST, AND INDEX

Index Abbas, Shah (1588–1629) 92 Abbasid/s 42, 36, 38, 40, 46, 52, 53, 148 Abbasid Empire 11 Abbud, Ibrahim (r. 1954–64) 134 Abdalla, Idris bin 40 Abduh, Muhammad (1849–1905) 110 Abdul Hamid II 88 Abdullah 162 Aboukir Bay, Battle of 108 Abraham 30 Abu Bakr 8, 28, 34 Abu Dhabi 158 Abu Hamid al-Ghazali 15, 58 Abu Jafar al-Mansur 142 Acheh 107, 152 Acre 50 Aden 53, 77, 79, 116, 158 Adhan (call to prayer) 14 Adrianople (Edirne) 115 Afghanistan 12, 16, 96, 128, 156, 181 Aghlabids 50 ahl al-dhimma (protected community) 31 ahl al-kitab (Peoples of the Book) 10 Ahmad, Khan 111 Ahmad, Mahdi Muhammad 110 Ahmad, Muhammad 109 Aisha 34 Akbar I (1556–1605) 99 al-Adid 51 al-Aghlab, Ibrahim 37 al-Azhar 111, 143 Albania 118 Alhambra 68, 176 Almohads 68 Almoravids 68 al-Amin 37 al-Andalus 68, 72, 108 al-Ashari, Abul Hasan 39 Alawi/s (Shiite) 127 al-Azhar 38, 111 al-Aziz, Abd (known as Ibn Saud) 160, 194 al-Bakri, General Hasan 154 al-Banna, Hasan 194 al-Barmaki 37 al-Bashir, General Umar 134 al-Dawla, Nawab Siraj 108 al-Din, al-Afghani, Jamal (1838–97) 110, 132 al-Din, al-Ayyubi, Salah (Saladin) 50, 62, 143 al-Din Aybeg, Qutb 96 al-Din, Jamal 60 al-Din, Naqshband, Baha (d. 1389) 95 al-Din, Nur 62 al-Din, Safi, Shaikh (1252–1334) 92 al-Din, Salah (Saladin) 50, 62, 143 Al-e-Ahmed, Jalal 93 Aleppo 50, 52, 128 Algeria/n 50, 90, 136, 137, 166, 180, 181 al-Ghazal, Bahr 134 al-Ghazali, Abu Hamid 58 al-Ghazi-Ghumuqi 60 Algiers 86, 109 al-Hadi 36 al-Hamid, Abd bin Badis (Ben Badis) 136 al-Hasa 92, 160 al-Hussien, Imam 38 Ali 34, 40, 42, 50, 92 Aligarh 110 Ali, house of 30, 62 Ali, ibn Abi Talib 38 Ali, Mehmed (1805–48) 90 Ali, Muhammad 132, 148 al-Karkhi, Maruf 37 al-Khattab, Umar ibn 38 al-Kisai 36

al-Mahdi, caliph 142 al-Mamun 37, 38 al-Mansur 50 al-Mawsili, Ibrahim 36 Almohads 68 Almoravids 68 al-Maududi,Adu al-Ala (1906–79) 194 al-Muizz, caliph 50 al-Mustansir, Imam-caliph (1036–94) 50, 128 al-Mutawakil 39 al-Nasser, Jamal Abd 148, 194 al-Qaeda 152, 184, 185 al-Qahira 50 al-Qadir, Abd, shaikh 60, 109, 136 al-Rahman, Sayyid Abd 134 al-Rashid, Harun 36, 142, 160 al-Saud, Muhammad 160 al-Siquilli, General Jawhar 143 al-Taishi, Abdullah, Khalifa 134 al-Wahhab, Muhammad Ibn Abd 160 Amanullah (1919–29) 116, 156 Amboyna 81 Amin 41 Amu Darya 64 Anatolia 64, 86, 92, 114, 118 Anatolian 56 Andalusia 68, 167 Animist 107 Aniza 160 Amsterdam 167 Antioch Arab/s 52, 64, 82, 107, 122, 137, 162 Arab League 165 Arabia 43, 106, 148, 158, 160 Arabic 20, 38, 47 Arab-Israeli conflict 162 Arafat, Chairman Yasser 163 Aral Sea 103 Architecture 176, 177 Armenia/n 36, 46, 87 Asabiyya (loyalties or group solidarity) 12, 13, 21, 104 Ascalon 50 Ashura 93 Asir, province of 13 Askeri (ruler) 87 Astrakhan 102 Aswan 70, 148 Atlantic Ocean 11, 16, 21, 82 Atlas Mountains 16 Atatürk, Mustafa Kemal 114, 115, 116 Attila 64 Aurungzeb (r. 1658–1707) 96, 99 Austria 91, 114 Axum 76 Aydhab 53 Ayn Jalut, Battle of 62 Ayodhya 101 Ayyubids 62, 79 Azam, Abdullah 195 Azerbaijan 36, 147 Azeris 20 Baath (Renaissance) Party 127, 154 Babur 96 Baghdad 44, 52, 142, 154, 165 Bahasa Indonesia 20 Bahrain 43, 78, 92, 158, 181 Balakot, Battle of 109 Bali 6, 152 Balkans 47, 86, 87, 90, 118 Balkh 128 Bamba, Amadu (c. 1850–1927) 60, 141 Bambuko 72 Banda 81

Bangladesh 153 Baptist 13 Barelwi, Sayyid Ahmed (1786–1831) 108 Baring, Sir Evelyn (later Viscount Cromer) 132 Barqa 50 Basra 52, 116, 154, 155 Batu (r. 1227–55) 94 Bayazid I (r. 1389–1402) 94 Baybars 62 Bektashi (Sufi order) 112, 118 Belgrade 86 Belo, Muhammad 75 Ben Badis 136 Bengal 96, 101, 108, 139 Bengalis 20 Berber/s 20, 58, 72, 136 bin Laden, Osama 157, 184, 195 Biqaa valley 127 Bithynia 84 Birmingham,UK 167 Black Sea 94 Blue Nile 70 Bolshevik Revolution (1917–18) 103 Book production 173 Bosnia-Herzegovina 118 Bradford 167 Britain 20, 53, 56, 80, 81, 91, 108, 109, 114, 116, 125, 151, 158, 160, 162 British Royal Air Force 160 Broach 77 Brunei, sultanate of 152 Buddhism 10, 94 Bugeaud, Robert 136 Bukhara 95, 103 Buksar, Battle of (1764) 108 Bulgaria 84, 91, 94, 118 Buraimi Oasis 158 Bursa 84, 86 Buyids 43, 44, 46 Byzantine 11, 28, 56, 57, 78, 84, 86, 88, 118 Byzantium 24 Cairo 62, 128, 143 Camp David (1979) 163 Canada 15 Cape Comorin 77 Casablanca 6 Caspian Sea 94, 102 Catherine the Great 102 Catholic see Christian Caucasus 46, 102, 117 Ceramics 173 Ceyhan 147 Ceylon see Sri Lanka Chaghatay 94 Chaghatay Khanate 64 Chaldiran, Battle of 86 Charlemagne 36 Charles X (Bourbon monarch) 136 Chechen-Ingushiite 104 Chechnya 104 China 52, 64, 76, 103, 129 Chinese emperors 64 Chistis 99 Chistiya 96 Christendom 56 Christian/s 10, 13, 20, 30, 47, 57, 84, 86, 90, 117, 118, 127, 151, 162 Christianity 8, 10 Churchill, Winston 109 Cinema 188, 189 Circassians 62 Civil liberties 192, 193 Cochin 77 Communist Party 103, 117

205


Congress of Berlin 118 Constantinople 24, 56, 86 Córdoba 38, 68 Council of Masjids 170 Council of Muslim Communities of Canada 169 Crete 118 Crimea 90, 91 Crimean War (1854–56) 91 Crusader 38, 108 Crusades 56, 57, 129 Ctesiphon 28 Cyprus 28, 86, 118 Cyrenaica see Libya Cyrenaican massif 16 da Gama, Vasco 70, 79, 80 Dahlan, Ahmad 111 Dalmatia 90 Damascus 38, 50, 114, 154 Dan Fodio, Uthman (1754–1817) 74, 110 Danube 90 Dar es Salaam 6 Daud, Muhammad 156 Dayton accords 118 Deccan 96 de Gaulle, General Charles 136, 137 de Reuter, Baron 92 Deir Yassin (1948) 162 Delhi 95, 96, 110 Deng Xiaoping 123 Deoband 99, 110 Descartes, René 108 Devshirme (military levy) 48 Dhikrs (ceremony) 14, 58 Dhufar 16 Dinka 134 Dipanegara, Prince 108 Druze/s 125, 127 Duas 14 Durrani, Ahmad, Shah (r. 1747–72) 156 Dutch 20, 53, 80, 81, 107, 108 East Africa 70 Ebro River 38 Egypt 15, 16, 20, 36, 43, 86, 116, 139, 143, 148, 151, 160 Egyptians 163 Elburz 16 England see British English see British Eretz Yisrael 162 Ernst, Carl 9 Eritrea 116 Ethiopia 70 Euphrates River 16, 24, 52, 148 Europe 162 European powers 160 European Union 149 Faisal 126, 162 Faqis (holy men) 70 Farsi see Persian Fatima 40, 50 Fatimid/s 15, 38, 41, 50, 56, 62, 79 Feisal 114 Fergana Valley 103 Fez 130 Fiqh (jurisprudence) 58 First Crusade 45 First World War 162 FNL 136 France 56, 81, 91, 114, 125, 136, 137, 151, 166 Fulani 20, 74 Fulfulde 72 Funj sultanate 70 Furu (revelation) 110 Futa Jallon 74 Futa Toro 74 Galiev, Mir Said, Sultan 103 Gansu 122

206

Gao 52 Garang, Colonel 134 Gaza 163 Gellner, Ernest 12, 21 Genoa 56, 86 Genoese 82 Germany 56, 91, 114, 162 Ghassanids 24 Ghaznavids 43, 44, 46 Ghenghis Khan 64, 94 Ghulams 43 Ghurids 96 Gizeh 148 Gladstone, William (British prime minister) 132 Glasgow 167 Goa 80 Golan Heights 163 Golden Horde 64, 94 Golden Square 154 Gordon, General Charles George “Chinese” (1833–85) 132, 134 Gorno-Badakhshan 128 Granada 68, 129 Greece 24, 84, 86, 87, 91, 115, 118, 137 Greek War of Independence (1821–29) 90 Green Mountain 16 Guangzhou (Canton) 52 Guinea 72 Gujerat 96 Habbaniya 154 Habibullah (r. 1901–19) 156 Habsburg 90 Hadith 9, 58, 110 Haidar Ali 108 Hajj 15, 26, 138, 139 Hajj, Messali 136 Hamas 163 Hanafi/s 38, 123, 132 Hanbali 38 Hanbali school 160 Hangzhou 52 Hashemite kingdoms 160 Hausa 20, 72, 74 Hazaras 156 Hejaz 50, 52, 70, 86 Heliopolis 144 Herat 95 Hicks Pasha 134 Hijaz 132, 160 Hijra/s (migration) 26, 160 Hindu 96, 99, 101, 104, 106, 108 Hinduism 10, 99 Holland see Dutch Hormuz 52, 80 Hourani, Albert 20 Hui 122 Hulegu 65 Human Rights 192, 193 Hungary 86, 90, 94, 117 Hussein, Feisal bin 117, 154 Hussein, Imam 34, 62, 92 Hussein (al-Tikriti), Saddam 93, 142, 146, 154, 164 Ibadi sect 70 Ibadism 34 Ibn Aghlab, Ibrahim (Harun al-Rashid’s governor) 40 Ibn al-Arabi 99 Ibn Arabi 69 Ibn Battuta 79, 129, 130, 131 Ibn Hanbal, Ahmad 42 Ibn Jubair (1145–1217) 129, 139 Ibn Juzay (1321–c. 1356) 130 Ibn Khaldun (1332–1406) 11, 12, 13, 160 Ibn Majid 79 Ibn Muljam 34 Ibn Rushd (Averroës) 69 Ibn Saud (Abd al-Aziz) 160 Ibn Saghir 41

Ibn Tulun 43 Id al Adha (Feast of sacrifice) 15, 138 Id al Fitr (Feast of fast breaking) 15 Idris II 40 Idris, Moulay 141 Ifriqiya see Tunisia Ikhshids 43 Ikhwan (brethren) 160 Imam Hussein 92 Imam Rida 140 Imam Sayid bin Sultan (1804–56) 70 Imam Shamil 60, 103 Imam Yahya 116 India 52, 95, 102, 106 Indian Councils Act of 1909 100 Indian Empire (British) 158 Indian Navy (British) 158 Indonesia 107, 151, 152 Indus Valley 11, 16, 96 Inquisition 68 Internet 190, 191 Iran 24, 31, 38, 92, 94, 96, 102, 107, 150, 154, 156, 181, 184 Iran-Iraq War 164 Iraq 20, 31, 36, 38, 43, 90, 92, 95, 117, 139, 146, 148, 158, 160, 181, 184 Iraqi Petroleum Company (IPC) 154 Irtysh 102 Isfahan 92 Islamization 10 Islamic Jihad 163 Isly, Battle of (1844) 136 Ismail, Shah (1487–1524) 92 Ismaili/s 65, 71, 128 Ismaili Fatimids 43 Ismailism 96 Ismail Pasha (r. 1863–79) 132 Israel 162 Istanbul 6, 48, 90 Italy 56, 91 Ithnashari Khojas 71 Jadidists (advocates of reform) 103 Jakarta 6, 107 Janissaries 47, 48 Java 20, 52, 79, 107, 117, 139 Javanese 20 Jerba 86 Jericho 163 Jerusalem 28, 56, 128, 149, 162 Jewish 87, 90, 162 Jewish settlement 117 Jewish sovereign state 162 Jews 7, 30, 57, 86, 92, 117, 162 Jidda 53, 139 Jihad/s 13, 72, 74, 109, 160 Jizya (poll tax) 30, 99, 112 Jordan 148, 150, 162 Jordan River 148 Judaism 10, 24 Kaba 14, 138 Kalmyks 145 Kamal, Babrak 157 Karakaya 148 Karbala 38, 92, 140, 155 Karzai, Ahmad 157 Kashmir 96, 101 Kazakh/s 21, 102, 122, 145 Kazakhstan 103, 147 Kazan 102 Keban 148 Kemal, Mustafa see Atatürk Khalidiyya 60 Khalwatiya 109 Khamenei 93 Khan, Abd al-Rahman (r. 1880–1901) 156 Khan (resting places) 53 Khaniqa (Sufi lodge) 53

INDEX

Khan, Sir Sayyed Ahmed (1817–98) 110, 111 Kharijis 34, 70 Khartoum 132, 134 Khatmiya 132 Khomein 93 Khruschev, Nikita 103 Khums (religious taxes) 92 Khurasan 43, 44 Khusraw, Nasir (1004–c. 1072) 128 Khutba 14 Khwarzim 94 Kilwa 70, 79, 80 Kipchak 62 Kirghiz 156 Kitchener, General Herbert Horatio 134 Koprulu, Ahmed (r. 1661–76) 90 Koprulu, Mehmed (r. 1656–61) 90 Koran 9, 10, 20, 26, 38, 39, 42, 110, 148, 193 Kosovo, Battle of 84 Kubrawiyya 122 Kuchuk Kaynarca, Treaty of (1774) 90 Kurdish 47, 154 Kurds 20, 155 Kutama 50 Kuwait/i 146, 155, 158, 164 Kyrgyz 103, 122 Kyrgyzstan 103 Lahej 158 Lahore 96 Lake Van 128 Lamtuna 72 Lamu 52 Latakia 127 Latin see Christian Latin kingdoms 57 Lausanne, Treaty of 115 Lawrence, T. E. 114 Lebanon 117, 127, 168, 181 Lenk, Timur 94, 95 Lepanto, Battle of 86 Libya 91, 109, 116, 151 Lille 166 London 167 Lyons 166 Maan family 125 Macedonia 84 Madhabs (schools of jurisprudence) 13 Madurese 20 Mafia 79 Maghreb 50, 72 Mahdi (Muslim Messiah) 134 Mahdiya 110 Mahdiyya 50 Mahmud II (r. 1807–39) 112 Mahmud of Ghazna 96 Mahmud of Ghazni 43 Ma Hualong 123 Majid 158 Malabar 52, 77, 80 Malacca 79, 80, 107 Malaya 139 Malay peninsula 107 Malay/s 20, 107 Malay states 117 Malaysia 107, 152 Mali 72, 131 Maliki/s 38, 132 Malindi 52 Mallam (religious scholar) 74 Malta 86 Maluku 152 Ma Mingxin, shaikh (b. 1719) 122 Mamluk amirs 143 Mamluk Empire 86 Mamlukism 12 Mamluk soldiers 62 Mamluk sultans 53

Mamluk/s 43, 46, 47, 62 Mamun 41, 42 Manchester 167 Mansuriyya 50 Manzikert, Battle of 45, 56 Mao Zedong 123 Marabouts 58, 72 Maronites 125, 127 Marseilles 166 Mashhad 38, 141 McMahon, Sir Henry 117 McVeigh, Timothy 7 Mecca 9, 26, 34, 43, 52, 72, 74, 92, 129, 138, 139, 160 Medina 9, 26, 36, 72, 74, 114, 139, 160 Mehmet the Conqueror 86 Mesopotamia 16, 86, 148 Mesopotamian culture 24 Mesopotamian cities 52 Mesopotamian heritage 155 Messali Hajj 136 Metalware 173 Mevlevis 118 Mihna (inquisition or test) 38 Minangkabau 107 Mindanao 153 Mocha 76 Mogadishu 79 Moldavia see Romania Mombasa 6, 70, 80 Momens 71 Mongol/s 58, 64, 84, 122 Mongol Oirots 145 Mongolia 64 Montenegro 91 Morocco 20, 60, 151, 166 Moros 153 Moses 30 Mount Arafat 139 Mount Lebanon 16 Muadhdhin 14 Muawiya 34 Mubarak, Shaikh 158 Mughal India 83, 107 Muhammad 9, 26, 34, 42, 52, 58, 110, 160 Muizz, Caliph al- 143 Multan 96 Mumbhai (Bombay) 6 Muqaddima 11 Murabits 72 Muridiya 60 Murids (aspirants) 60 Murshid 60 Musa, Ibrahim (d. 1751) 74 Musa, Mansa (1307–32) 72 Muscat 158 Muslim Americans 170, 171 Muslim Brotherhood 60, 134, 194 Muslim populations 180, 181 Muslim Students' Association 169 Muslim World League 181 Mutazila 38 Muzdalifa 138 Myanmar (Burma) 153 Mysore 108 Nabateans 24 Nairobi 6 Najaf 38, 140, 155 Najiballah, General 157 Naples 86 Napoleon 90, 108 Naqshbandi 95, 103, 104, 108, 111, 156 Naqshbandiyya 60, 122, 167 Nasridas 68 Nation of Islam (NOI) 168, 170 National Islamic Front (NIF) 134 Nazis 162

Nejd Plateau 160 Nelson, Admiral 108 Nestorian Christianity 94 Netherlands 167 New Sect 123 New York 184 Nigeria 75 Nile 16, 53, 148 Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region 122 Nishapur 128 Normans 50 Norway 15 Nuba Mountains 134 Nuer 134 Numairi, Jafar (r. 1969–85) 134 Nurculuk 60 Nursi, Said (1876–1960) 60 Nuwas, Abu 36 Oghuz 44 Oghuz Turks 56 Oklahoma City 7 Oman 158 Omani Albu Said dynasty 158 Omar, Mullah Muhammad 157 Omdurman 134 Orthodox see Christian Oslo accords (1993) 163 Oslo negotiations 149 Oslo II negotiations 149 Osmanli see Ottoman Ottoman/s 45, 46, 47, 83, 84, 86, 88, 109, 112, 117, 154, 158, 160 Ottoman Turks 162 Oxus Valley 38 Pahlavi 93 Pakistan 100, 101, 107, 151, 154, 156, 157 Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) 127, 163 Palestinians 127 Palestine 20, 50, 56, 117, 162 Palmyra 24 Pan-Turkism 104 Parcham (non-Pushtun) 156 Paris 166 Patriot Act 193 Pemba 70, 76, 79, 80 People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) 156 Persia 95 (also see Iran) Persian/s 20, 38, 47, 122, 145 Persian Gulf 158 Petah Tikva 162 Peter the Great 90 Peter the Hermit 56 Petra 24 Philippines 153 Pir (Sufi shaikh) 60, 95, 99 Plassey, Battle of (1757) 108 Podolia 90 Poland 94 Polo, Marco 129 Pope Urban II 56 Portuguese 53, 79, 80, 82, 106 Prophet Abraham 162 Protestant 108 Punjabis 20, 101 Pushtuns 20, 108, 156, 157 Putin, Vladimir 109 Qadariyya 60, 122 Qadiri 103 Qajar dynasty (1779–1925) 92 Qaramatians 42 Qaraqanid dynasty 43, 44, 46 Qarawiyyin 38 Qarluqs 43, 44 Qizilbashis 92 Quanzhou (Zaitun) 79 Qulzum 53 Qumm 38

207


Quraish, tribe 26, 79 Quraishi pedigrees 70 Qutb, Sayyid 194, 195 Reconquista 68 Ramadan 14, 15 Rayy 128 Red Sea 52 Reza, Muhammad 93 Reza, Shah 93 Rhodes 28 Rida, Rashid, Imam 111, 141 Riffian Mountain 16 Riyadh 6, 160 Rome 167 Roman Catholicism 7 Romania 90, 91, 118 Rumi, Jalal al-Din (1207–73) 59 Russia 90, 91, 94, 101, 114, 149, 151 Sabah 152 Sabilla, Battle of (1929) 160 Sadaqa (voluntary charity) 14 Sadat, Anwar 163 Safavid 83, 86, 92 Sahara 72 Sahil (shore) 72 Salafists 111 Salat 14 Saljuq/s 38, 44, 46, 50, 56, 64, 84, 118 Samanid 43 Samarra 42 Samarkand 95, 103 Sammaniya 132 San Remo Conference (1920) 154 San Stefano, Treaty of (1878) 91 Sanusiyya 60, 109 Sarandib see Sri Lanka Sarawak 152 Sasanian 24, 78, 148 Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of 15, 146, 156, 157, 158, 160 Sawm 14 Sayyida Zainab 141 Sayyids 158 Sayyid Said bin Sultan (1807–56) 158 Scandinavia 56 Second World War 104, 137, 150, 162, 164, 168 Selim III (r. 1789–1807) 112 Senegal River 74 Senegambia 74 Serbia 86, 90, 91, 118 Serbian Revolt (1804–13) 90 Seville 68 Sèvres, Treaty of (1920) 114 Shaanxi 122 Shafii 38 Shahada 14 Shamanism 94 Shamil, Imam 103, 109 Sharia 12, 21, 44, 95, 99, 107, 110, 112, 115, 148, 194 Shariati, Dr Ali 93 Sharif Hussein 160 Sharif of Mecca 114, 154, 162 Sheikhan 134 Shiite Hazaras 157 Shihabs (1697–1840) 125 Shiism 92, 154 Shiite/s 8, 9, 13, 34, 37, 90, 95, 96, 127, 140, 154, 155 Shiite Ismaili 50 Shuaiba 154 Sidon 127 Siffin, Battle of 34 Sijilmassa 40 Sikhism 10 Sinai 163 Sindhis 20, 101 Singapore 139, 152

208

Siquilliyya (Sicily) 50 Sirhindi, Shaikh Ahmad (1564–1624) 99 Slavery 158 Slaves/slave trade 71, 74 Socotra 76 Sofala 53 Sokoto 75 Soviet Union 144 South Arabian protectorate 158 Spain 38, 167, Spain 184 Spanish Morocco 116 Spanish Sahara 116 Sri Lanka 81 Stalin 103, 104 Sudanese 20 Sudan People’s Liberation Movement 134 Suez crisis (1956) 154 Sufi orders 58, 60, 72, 74, 87, 92, 94, 96, 104, 107, 110, 115, 118 Sufism 37 Sufi tariqas 109 Suhrawardis 96 Suhrawardiya 96 Sulawesi 152 Suleiman the Magnificent 86 Sultan Mahmud II 48 Sultan Muhammad V 137 Sultan Muhammad VI 137 Sumatra 52, 79, 117 Sunni/s 8, 34, 38, 95, 96, 127, 154 Sunnism 92 Swahili 70 Sykes-Picot Agreement (1916) 117 Syr Darya 145 Syria 20, 36, 43, 50, 53, 56, 86, 92, 95, 117, 139, 148, 151, 163, 168, 184 Tablighi Jamaat (preaching association) 110 Tabriz 86, 92 Tafsir (hermeneutics) 58 Tahert 40 Tahir 42 Tahirids 43, 46 Tajdid (reform) 110 Tajikistan 103, 128 Tajiks 103, 122 Taj Mahal 176 Takbir 14 Talbot, Major 92 Talha 34 Taliban 157, 184 Tanganyika 116 Tangier 129 Tanzimat-i Hairiye (auspicious re-orderings) 112 Tariqas 60 Tarmarshirin 94 Tashkent 103, 144, 145 Tatars 94, 102, 104, 122 Tel el Kebir 132 Terrorism 184, 193 Textiles 172 Thailand 152, 153 Thanawi, Maulana Asraf Ali 100 Thuwaini 158 Tigris River 16, 24, 52, 142, 148 Tijaniya 60 Timbuktu 21, 52, 72 Timur 95 Timurid Empire 92 Tipu Sultan (1705–99) 108 Toledo 68 Torodbe (scholar) 74 Transjordan 117, 160, 162 Transjordan Frontier Force 160 Transoxiana 43, 46, 94, 102 Transylvania 86 Tripoli 91, 116, 127 Trucial Oman Scouts 158

Trucial System 158 Tsarist Russia 158 Tuareg 21, 72 Tughluq dynasty (1320–1413) 96 Tughril Beg, Sultan 44 Tunis 86 Tunisia 6, 36, 37, 50, 90, 137 Turabi 134 Turkey 60, 91, 112, 147, 151, 154, 158, 181 Turkish ghulams 46 Turkish nomads 64 Turkish tribesmen 53 Turkmen 156 Turkmenistan 103, 147 Turks 20, 56, 118 Tusi, Nasr al-Din 65 Tyre 50 Uighurs 123 Ukraine 94 Ulama 58, 74, 110 Ulugh Beg (r. 1404–49) 95 Umar 8, 28, 34 Umayyad 34, 38, 40, 68, 79, 176 Umayyad Caliphate 68 Umma 13 United Kingdom 167 United Nations (UN) 149, 162, 165 United States (US) 149, 157, 164, 165, 168, 184, 185 Urabi Pasha 132 Urals 102 Urdu 20, 99 Usul (fundamentals) 110 Uthman, Caliph 8, 10, 26, 34 Uzbekistan 103, 145, 147 Uzbek 103, 122, 145, 156 Venetians see Venice Venetian-Habsburg coalition 86 Venice 82, 86, 118 Vienna 86, 90 Volga River 52, 64, 94, 102 Wadi Hadhramaut 158 Wahhabi 104, 110, 139 Wahhabism 8 Wahhabite 160 Wahhabi 60 Wallachia see Romania Waliullah, Shah (1702–63) 99 Waqfs (charitable trusts/religious endowments) 92, 102 Wargala 40 Washington 185 Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) 165 West Bank 163 Wilson, President Woodrow 117 Xinjiang 122 Yahya, Zaidi Imam 116 Yathrib see Medina Yellow River 16 Yeltsin, Boris 109 Yemen 16, 70, 158, 160, 181 Yemeni 13, 167 Yihewani 123 Young Turks 114 Yunnan 122 Zagros 16 Zahir Shah (1933–73) 156, 157 Zakat (act of charity) 14, 92 Zangi 62 Zanzibar 52, 70, 71, 79, 80, 158 Zaytuna 38 Zionism 162 Zirids 50 Ziyara (visitation) 140 Zoroastrian/s 10, 24, 30, 92 Zoroastrianism 10, 94 Zubaida 36 Zubayr 34

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