THE ARAB CONQUEST (637 AD)
The first conflict between local
Bedouin tribes and Sasanian forces seems to have been in 634, when the
Arabs were defeated at the Battle of the Bridge. There a
force of some 5,000 Muslims under Abu 'Ubayd ath-Thaqafi
was routed by the Persians. In 637 a much larger Muslim force under
Sa'd ibn Abi Waqqas defeated the main Persian army at the
battle of Al-Qadisiyya and moved on to sack
Ctesiphon. By the end of the following year (638), the Muslims
had conquered almost all of Iraq, and the last Sasanian king,
Yazdegerd III, had fled to Iran, where he was killed in 651.
The Muslim conquest was followed by mass immigration of Arabs from
eastern Arabia and Oman. These new arrivals did not disperse and settle
throughout the country; instead they established two new garrison cities,
at Al-Kufah, near ancient Babylon, and at Basra
in the south. The intention was that the Muslims should be a separate
community of fighting men and their families living off taxes paid by the
local inhabitants. In the north of the country, Mosul
began to emerge as the most important city and the base of a Muslim
governor and garrison. Apart from the Persian elite and the Zoroastrian
priests, whose property was confiscated, most of the local people were
allowed to keep their possessions and their religion.
Iraq now became a province of the Muslim Caliphate, which stretched
from North Africa and later Spain in the
west to Sind (now southern Pakistan) in the east. At
first the capital of the Caliphate was at Madinah
(Medina), but, after the murder of the third caliph, 'Uthman,
in 656, his successor, the Prophet's cousin and son-in-law
Ali, made Iraq his base. In 661, however, 'Ali was
murdered in Al-Kufah, and the caliphate passed to the rival
Umayyad family in Syria. Iraq became a subordinate province, even
though it was the richest area of the Muslim world and the one with the
largest Muslim population. This situation gave rise to continual
discontent with Umayyad rule; this discontent was in various forms.
In 680 'Ali's son
al-Husayn arrived in Iraq from Madinah, hoping that
the people of Al-Kufah would support him. They failed to act, and his
small group of followers was massacred at
Karbala', but his memory lingered on as a source of
inspiration for all who opposed the Umayyads. In later centuries, Karbala'
and 'Ali's tomb at nearby An-Najaf became important centres of
Shi'ite pilgrimage and are still greatly revered today. The
Iraqis had their opportunity after the death in 683 of the caliph
Yazid I when the Umayyads faced threats from many quarters. In
Al-Kufah the initiative was taken by al-Mukhtar ibn Abi 'Ubayd,
who was supported by many "mawali", non-Arab converts to
Islam who felt they were treated as second-class citizens. Al-Mukhtar was
killed in 687, but the Umayyads realized that strict rule was required.
The caliph 'Abd al-Malik (685-705) appointed the fearsome
al-Hajjaj ibn Yusuf as his governor in Iraq and all of
the east. Al-Hajjaj became a legend as a stern but just ruler. His firm
measures aroused the opposition of the local Arab elite, and in 701 there
was a massive rebellion led by Muhammad ibn al-Ash'ath.
The insurrection was defeated only with the aid of Syrian soldiers. Iraq
was now very much a conquered province, and al-Hajjaj established a new
city at Wasit, halfway between Al-Kufah and Basra, to be
a base for a permanent Syrian garrison. In a more positive way, he
encouraged Iraqis to join the expeditions led by Qutaybah ibn
Muslim that between 705 and 715 conquered what is now Central
Asia for Islam. Even after al-Hajjaj's death in 714, the Umayyad-Syrian
grip on Iraq remained firm, and resentment was widespread.
The 'Abbasid caliphate
Opposition to the Umayyads
finally came to a head in northeastern Iran (Khorasan) in 747 when the
mawla Abu Muslim raised black banners in the name of the
'Abbasids, a branch of the family of the Prophet,
distantly related to 'Ali and his descendants. In 749 the armies from the
east reached Iraq, where they received the support of much of the
population. The 'Abbasids themselves came from their retreat at
Humaymah in southern Jordan, and in 749 the first 'Abbasid
caliph, as-Saffah, was proclaimed in the mosque at
Al-Kufah.
This " 'Abbasid Revolution" ushered in the
golden age of medieval Iraq. Khorasan was too much on the
fringes of the Muslim world to be a suitable capital, and from the
beginning the 'Abbasid caliphs made Iraq their base. By this time Islam
had spread well beyond the original garrison towns, even though Muslims
were still a minority of the population.
At first the 'Abbasids ruled from
Al-Kufah or nearby, but in 762 al-Mansur founded
a new capital on the site of the old village of Baghdad.
It was officially known as
Madinat as-Salam
("City of Peace"), but in popular usage the old name prevailed. Baghdad
soon became larger than any city in Europe or western Asia. Al-Mansur
built the massive Round City with four gates and his palace and the main
mosque in the centre. This Round City was exclusively a government
quarter, and soon after its construction the markets were banished to the
Karkh suburb to the south. Other suburbs soon grew up,
developed by leading courtiers: Harbiyyah to the
northeast, where the Khorasani soldiers were settled, and, across the
Tigris on the east bank, a new palace quarter for the caliph's son and
heir al-Mahdi.
The sitting of Baghdad
proved to be an act of genius. It had access to both the Tigris
and Euphrates river systems and was close to the main
route through the Zagros Mountains to the Iranian
plateau. Wheat and barley from Al-Jazirah and
dates and rice from Basra and the south could be brought
by water. By the year 800 the city may have had as many as 500,000
inhabitants and was an important commercial centre as well as the seat of
government. The city grew at the expense of other centers, and both the
old Sasanian capital at Ctesiphon (called Al-Mada'in,
"The Cities," by the Arabs) and the early Islamic centre at Al-Kufah
fell into decline.
The high point of prosperity was probably
reached in the reign of Harun ar-Rashid (786-809), when
Iraq was very much the centre of the empire and riches flowed into the
capital from all over the Muslim world. The prosperity and order in the
southern part of the country was, however, offset by outbreaks of
lawlessness in Al-Jazirah, notably the rebellion of the
Bedouin Walid ibn Tarif, who defied government forces
between 794 and 797. Even the most powerful governments found it difficult
to extend their authority beyond the limits of the settled land.
Much more serious disruption followed the
death of Harun in 809. He left his son al-Amin as caliph
in Baghdad but divided the Caliphate and gave his son al-Ma'mun
control over Iran and the eastern half of the empire. This arrangement
soon broke down, and there ensued a prolonged and very destructive civil
war. The supporters of al-Amin made an ill-judged attempt to invade Iran
in the spring of 811 but were soundly defeated at Rayy
(modern Shahr-e Rey, just south of modern Tehran). Al-Ma'mun's supporters
retaliated by invading Iraq, and from August 812 until September 813 they
laid siege to Baghdad, while the rest of Iraq slid into anarchy. The
collapse of Baghdadi resistance and the death of al-Amin did not improve
matters, for al-Ma'mun, now generally recognized as caliph, decided to
rule from Marw in distant Khorasan
(modern Mary, in Turkmenistan).This downgrading of Iraq united many
different groups in prolonged and bitter resistance to al-Ma'mun's
governor and led to another siege of Baghdad. Finally al-Ma'mun was forced
to concede that he could not rule from a distance, and in August 819 he
returned to Baghdad.
Once again Iraq was the central province of
the Caliphate and Baghdad the capital, but the prolonged conflict had left
much of Baghdad in ruins and caused great destruction in the countryside.
It probably marked the beginning of the long decline in the prosperity of
the area; this decline was marked from the 9th century onward. Al-Ma'mun
sent his generals to bring Syria and Egypt
back under 'Abbasid rule and set about restoring the government apparatus,
many of the administrative records having been destroyed in the fighting.
His reign in Baghdad (819-833) saw Iraq become the centre of remarkable
cultural activity, notably the translation of Greek science and philosophy
into Arabic. The caliph himself collected texts, employed translators like
the celebrated Hunayn ibn Ishaq, and established an
academy in Baghdad, the Bayt al-Hikmah ("House of
Wisdom"), with a library and an observatory. Private patrons such as the
Banu Musa brothers followed his example. This activity
had a profound effect not only on Muslim intellectual life but also on the
intellectual life of western Europe, for much of the science and
philosophy taught in universities in the Middle Ages was derived from
these Arabic translations, rendered into Latin in Spain
in the 12th century.
Politically the position was less rosy. Al-Ma'mun
was unable to recruit sufficient forces to replace the old 'Abbasid army
that had been destroyed in the civil war, and he became increasingly
dependent on his younger brother, Abu Ishaq, who had
gathered a small but highly efficient force of Turkish mercenaries,
many of them slaves or ex-slaves from Central Asia. When al-Ma'mun died in
833, Abu Ishaq, under the title of al-Mu'tasim, succeeded
him without difficulty. Al-Mu'tasim was no intellectual but rather an
effective soldier and administrator. His reign marks the introduction into
Iraq of an alien, usually Turkish, military class, which was to dominate
the political life of the country for centuries to come. From this time
Iraqi Arabs were rarely employed in military positions, though they
continued to be influential in the civil administration.
The recruitment of this new military class
provoked resentment among the Baghdadis, who felt that they were being
excluded from power. This resentment led al-Mu'tasim to found a new
capital at Samarra', the last major urban foundation in
Iraq until the 20th century. He chose a site on the Tigris about 100 miles
north of Baghdad. Here he laid out a city with palaces and mosques, broad
straight streets, and a regular pattern of housing. The ruins of this
city, which was expanded by his successor al-Mutawwakil
(847-861), can still be seen on the ground and, more strikingly, in aerial
photographs, in which the whole plan can be made out. Samarra' became a
vast city, but it had none of the natural advantages of Baghdad:
communication by river and canal with the Euphrates and southern Iraq was
much more difficult, and despite massive investment the water supply was
always inadequate. Samarra' survived only while it was the capital of the
Caliphate, from 836 to 892. When the caliphs returned to Baghdad, it
showed no independent urban vitality and soon shrank to a small provincial
town, which is why its remains can still be seen when all traces of early
'Abbasid Baghdad have disappeared.
For nearly 30 years the new regime worked
well, and Iraq was for the last time the centre of a large empire. Tax
revenues from other areas enriched Samarra', and Baghdad continued to
prosper under the rule of the Tahirid family. Basra
remained a great entrepÔt on the Persian Gulf. The employment of Turkish
soldiers without any ties to the local community gave rise to political
instability, however. In 861 the caliph al-Mutawwakil was
assassinated in his palace in Samarra' by disaffected troops, and there
began a nine-year anarchy in which the Turkish soldiers made and deposed
caliphs virtually at will. In 865 open civil war raged between Samarra'
and Baghdad, resulting in another destructive siege of Baghdad. The
anarchy played itself out, and in 870 stability was restored with the
caliph al-Mu'tamid in Samarra' as titular ruler and his
dynamic military brother al-Muwaffaq exercising real
power in Baghdad, but the anarchy had done real and lasting damage to
Iraq. Almost all the provinces of the empire, both the Iranian
lands in the east and Syria and Egypt to
the west, had broken away and become independent. Worse, a major social
revolt had broken out in southern Iraq itself. In the prosperous years of
early Islamic Iraq, large numbers of slaves had been imported from East
Africa to be used in grueling agricultural work in the marshes of southern
Iraq. In 869 they rose in rebellion, led by an Arab who claimed to be a
descendant of 'Ali. This rebellion was extremely serious for the 'Abbasid
government: it laid to waste large areas of agricultural land, and the
great trading port of Basra was taken and sacked in 871, the rebels
burning mosques and houses and massacring the inhabitants with
indiscriminate ferocity. Although Basra was soon recaptured, it is
unlikely that it ever fully recovered, and trade shifted down the gulf to
cities such as Siraf (modern Taheri) in southern Iran.
The crushing of this revolt involved long and hard amphibious campaigns in
the marshes, led by al-Muwaffaq and his son Abu'
l-'Abbas (later the caliph al-Mu'tathid) from
879 until the rebel stronghold at Mukhtarah was finally
taken in 883.
The reigns of al-Mu'tathid
(892-902) and his son al-Muktafi (902-908) saw Iraq
united under 'Abbasid control. Once more Baghdad was the
capital, although the caliphs had largely abandoned the Round City of al-Mansur
on the west bank, and the centre of government now lay on the east bank in
the area that has remained the centre of the city ever since. It was a
period of great cultural activity, and Baghdad was home to many
intellectuals, including the great historian at-Tabari,
whose vast work chronicled the early history of the Muslim state; however,
it was no longer the capital of a great empire. During the reign of the
boy caliph al-Muqtadir (908-932), the political situation
deteriorated rapidly. The weakness of the caliph gave rise to endless
intrigues among parties of viziers and to a growing tendency for the
military to take matters into its own hands. Increasingly the government
in Baghdad lost control of the revenues and lands of Iraq. In 935 the
final crisis occurred when the caliph ar-Rai was obliged
to hand over all real secular power to an ambitious general, Ibn
Ra'iq.
The political catastrophe of the 'Abbasid
Caliphate was accompanied by economic collapse. It is probable that the
vicious circle of decline started with the civil war after Harun's
death in 809, and there can be no doubt that it was exacerbated by the
demands of the Turkish military for payment.
Administrators increasingly resorted to short-term expedients such as tax
farming, which encouraged extortion and oppression, and the granting of
iqtas to the military. In theory, iqta's
were grants of the right to collect and use tax revenues; they could not
be inherited or sold. The purpose of an iqta' was that
the soldiers themselves would collect what they could directly from lands
assigned to them. Both these remedies put a premium on short-term
exploitation of land rather than long-term investment. Except in the
north, most Iraqi agriculture was dependent on investment in and upkeep of
complex irrigation works, and these new fiscal systems proved disastrous.
In 935, the same year in which ar-Rai handed over power
to the military leader Ibn Ra'iq, the greatest of the
ancient irrigation works of central Iraq, the Nahrawan canal,
was breached to impede an advancing army. The damage was never repaired,
large areas went out of cultivation, and villages were abandoned. The
destruction of the canal is symbolic of the end of the irrigation culture
that had brought great wealth to ancient Mesopotamia and
that had underpinned Sasanian and early Islamic government.
Zinj rebellion (869-883 AD)
(ad 869-883), a black-slave revolt against the 'Abbasid caliphal
empire. A number of Basran landowners had brought several thousand East
African blacks (Zinj) into southern Iraq to drain the salt marshes east of
Basra. The landowners subjected the Zanj, who generally
spoke no Arabic, to heavy slave labour and provided them with only minimal
subsistence. In September 869, 'Ali ibn Muhammad, a
Persian claiming descent from 'Ali, the fourth caliph,
and Fatimah, Muhammad's daughter, gained
the support of several slave-work crews--which could number from 500 to
5,000 men--by pointing out the injustice of their social position and
promising them freedom and wealth. 'Ali's offers became even more
attractive with his subsequent adoption of a Kharijite religious stance:
anyone, even a black slave, could be elected caliph, and all non-Kharijites
were infidels threatened by a holy war.
Zanj forces grew rapidly in size and power, absorbing the well-trained
black contingents that defected from the defeated caliphal armies, along
with some disaffected local peasantry. In October 869 they defeated a
Basran force, and soon afterward a Zinj capital, al-Mukhtarah
(Arabic: the Chosen), was built on an inaccessible dry spot in
the salt flats, surrounded by canals. The rebels gained control of
southern Iraq by capturing al-Ubullah (June 870), a
seaport on the Persian Gulf, and cutting communications to Basra, then
seized Ahwaz in southwestern Iran. The caliphal armies,
now entrusted to al-Muwaffaq, a brother of the new
caliph, al-Mu'tamid (reigned 870-892), still could not
cope with the rebels. The Zinj sacked Basra in September
871, and subsequently defeated al-Muwaffaq himself in
April 872.
Between 872 and 879, while al-Muwaffaq was occupied in
eastern Iran with the expansion of the Saffarids, an
independent Persian dynasty, the Zinj seized Wasit (878)
and established themselves in Khuzistan, Iran. In 879,
however, al-Muwaffaq organized a major offensive against
the black slaves. Within a year, the second Zinj city, al-Mani'ah
(The Impregnable), was taken. The rebels were next expelled from
Khuzistan, and, in the spring of 881, al-Muwaffaq
laid siege to al-Mukhtarah from a special city built on
the other side of the Tigris River. Two years later, in August 883,
reinforced by Egyptian troops, al-Muwaffaq finally
crushed the rebellion, conquering the city and returning to Baghdad with
'Ali's head.
The Buyid period (945-1055 AD)
After a decade of chaos, when Ibn Ra'iq and other
military leaders struggled for power, an element of stability was regained
in 945 when Baghdad was taken by the Buyid
chief, Mu'izz ad-Dawlah. The Buyids were leaders of the
Daylamite people from the area southwest of the Caspian
Sea. These hardy mountaineers had taken advantage of the prevailing
anarchy to take over much of western Iran in 934, and they now moved into
Iraq. Mu'izz ad-Dawlah established himself in Baghdad,
but his regime never ruled over all of Iraq. In the capital itself there
was always tension between the Daylamites and the
Turks who had traditionally been the main military force. When
the Buyids made known their adherence to the
Shi'ite branch of Islam, there was further, often violent,
tension between their supporters and the Sunnites, who
were in the majority. Baghdad began to disintegrate into a number of small
communities, each either Sunnite or Shi'ite and each with its own walls to
protect it from its neighbors. Large areas, including much of the Round
City of al-Mansur, fell into ruin. Further problems were
caused by the loss of control of Al-Jazirah in the north
of Iraq, for it was from this area that Baghdad had traditionally received
its grain supplies. The city was too populous to be fed from its own
hinterland, and, when political conflict interrupted the grain supplies
from Al-Jazirah, famine was added to the other miseries
of the people. In one area, however, the Buyids retained
the old forms: rather than make a clean break, they allowed the 'Abbasid
caliphs to remain in comfortable but secluded captivity in their palace in
Baghdad. Those who forgot where real power lay, however, were soon
brutally reminded.
From the beginning of the 10th century, Iraq was usually divided
politically, and the Buyids in Baghdad
seldom controlled the whole area as their 'Abbasid predecessors had done.
The area around Basra in the south was frequently in the
hands of rival Buyid princes, and the north increasingly
went its own way. The economic decline and the ruin of irrigation systems
that had affected central and southern Iraq do not seem to have been as
marked in Al-Jazirah, where agriculture was largely dry
farming, based on rainfall; the area was consequently less potentially
wealthy than the south but also less vulnerable to political upset.
Mosul had been the most important city in Al-Jazirah
since the Islamic conquest, and it now became an important regional
capital. The area was dominated by the Hamdani family.
Originally leaders of the Taghlib Bedouin tribe of
Al-Jazirah, members of this family had taken service in
the 'Abbasid armies. In 935 their leader, Nasir
ad-Dawlah, was acknowledged as ruler of Mosul in
exchange for a money tribute and the provision of grain for
Baghdad and Samarra', though neither money nor
grain was paid on a regular basis. The Hamdanids
strengthened their position by recruiting Turkish
soldiers for their army and by establishing good relations with the
leaders of the Kurdish tribes in the hills to the north.
In 967 Nasir ad-Dawlah was succeeded by his son
Abu Taghlib, but in 977 the greatest of the
Buyids of Iraq, 'Aud ad-Dawlah, took
Mosul and drove the Hamdanids out. This triumph
did not unite Iraq for long; after 'Aud ad-Dawlah died in
983, his more feeble successors allowed northern Iraq to slip from their
hands. Increasingly power in the north was assumed by the sheikhs of the
Banu 'Uqayl, the largest Bedouin tribe in Al-Jazirah.
By the early 11th century the 'Uqaylid leader
Qirwash dominated Mosul and Al-Jazirah.
Unlike the Hamdanids and the Buyids, the
'Uqayli sheikhs lived in desert encampments rather than
in cities, and they relied on their tribesmen rather than on
Turkish or Daylamite soldiers. By 1010
Qirwash's power extended as far south as Al-Kufah,
though Baghdad itself never came under Bedouin control,
and he tried to arrange an alliance with the Fatimid
caliphs of Egypt. From then on his power began to
decline, and in the early 1040s the Banu 'Uqayl found
themselves threatened by a new enemy, the Oguz Turkish
tribes invading from Iran. In 1044, northwest of Mosul,
these Turks and the Bedouin Arabs fought a major battle, in which the
Turks were soundly defeated. Although little reported by historians, it is
probable that this battle ensured that the people of the plains of
northern Iraq remained Arabic-speaking, unlike the inhabitants of the
steppelands of Anatolia to the north, who spoke Turkish.
In the south, too, the Bedouin became increasingly powerful. On the
desert frontier in the Al-Kufah area the Banu
Mazyad, the leading sheikhs of the Asad tribe,
established a small state that reached its apogee during the long reign of
Dubays (1018-1081). During this time their main camp
(Arabic: hillah) became an important town and, under the name Al-Hillah,
replaced early Islamic Al-Kufah as the largest urban
centre in the area.
Baghdad and the surrounding area from the lower Tigris
south to the Persian Gulf remained more or less under Buyid
rule. In 978 Baghdad was taken by the Buyid
ruler of Fars (southwest Iran), 'Aud ad-Dawlah.
In the five years before his death in 983, he made a serious attempt to
rebuild the administration, to control the Bedouin, and to reunite
Mosul with southern Iraq. In addition to being a patron of
learning, he made efforts to restore damaged irrigation systems. Such
determination was unfortunately rare, and after his death his lands were
divided. The later Buyids had great difficulty in
governing even Baghdad and the immediately surrounding
area. Poverty compounded their problems; Jalal ad-Dawlah
(reigned 1025-1044) was obliged to send away his servants and release his
horses because he could no longer afford to feed them.
Baghdad presented a picture of devastation in this
period. Brigands maintained themselves by kidnapping and extortion, and
disputes between the Sunnites and the Shi'ites
became increasingly violent. The Shi'ites, though less numerous, were
sometimes encouraged by Buyid princes who wished to win
their support. This prompted the Sunnites to look to the 'Abbasid caliphs
for leadership. The caliph al-Qadir (991-1031) assumed
the religious leadership of the Sunnites and published a manifesto, the
Risala al-Qadiriyya (1029), in which the main tenets of
Sunnite belief were outlined. He did not, however, attain any significant
political power.
Despite this disorder and political chaos, Baghdad
remained an intellectual centre. The lack of firm political authority
meant that free debate and exchange of ideas could take place in a way
that was not possible under more authoritarian regimes. This anarchic but
culturally productive era in the history of Iraq came to an end in
December 1055 when the Seljuq Turkish leader
Toghrl Beg entered the city with his forces and rapidly
established a secure government over most of Iraq. The country had seen
many changes since the 7th century. Much of the ethnic and religious
diversity of late Sasanian Iraq had disappeared. Apart
from the Turkish military and the Kurds
of the mountainous areas, most people now spoke Arabic.
There were still Christian communities, especially in the
northern areas around Tikrit and Mosul,
but the majority of the population was now Muslim. Within
the Muslim community, however, there were serious divisions between
Sunnites and Shi'ites. Iraq had also lost its position as the richest area
of the Middle East. There are no figures, but it would probably be right
to assume that the population had declined significantly, and it is clear
that many able and enterprising people sought to escape the chaos by
migrating to Egypt. Iraq had lost its imperial role
forever.
The Seljuqs (1055-1152)
The Sunnite Seljuq leader Toghrl Beg
entered Baghdad in December 1055, arresting and
imprisoning the Buyid prince al-Malik ar-Rahim
(1048-55). Without meeting the 'Abbasid caliph, he proceeded against the
'Uqaylids in Mosul, taking the city in
1057 and retaining the 'Uqaylid ruler as governor there
on behalf of the Seljuqs. On his return to
Baghdad in 1058, Toghrl was finally received by
the caliph al-Qa'im (1031-75), who granted him the title
"king of the East and West."
On Dec. 27, 1058, with Toghrl busy elsewhere, the
Buyid slave general Arslan al-Muzaffar al-Basasiri
and the 'Uqaylid ruler Quraysh ibn Badran
(1052-61) occupied Baghdad, recognizing al-Mustansir,
the Shi'ite Fatimid caliph of Egypt and
Syria, and sending him the insignia of rule as trophies.
Al-Basasiri expelled al-Qa'im and, with
the help of the Mazyadid Dubays I (1018-81), quickly
extended his control over Wasit and Basra.
Both the Fatimids and the Mazyadids
withdrew their support, however, and al-Basasiri was
killed by Seljuq forces in 1060. Toghrl
reinstated al-Qa'im as caliph, who then gave him
additional honours, including the title sultan (Arabic:
sultan, "authority"), found on coins minted in the names of both the
caliph and the sultan. The Seljuqs now tried to rid Iraq
of all Shi'ite influences. Exchanging Shi'ite Buyid emirs
for Sunnite Seljuq sultans, while perhaps ideologically
appropriate, made little practical difference for the 'Abbasid caliphs,
who remained captives in the hands of military strongmen. Though
Baghdad continued as the seat of the caliphate, the
Seljuq sultans ultimately established their capital at
Esfahan in Persian Iraq. The relations between caliph and sultan
were formalized by the great theologian al-Ghazali (d.
1111) as follows :-
(( Government in these days is a consequence solely of military
power, and whosoever he may be to whom the holder of military power gives
his allegiance, that person is Caliph. And whosoever exercises independent
authority, so long as he shows allegiance to the Caliph in the matter of
his prerogatives [of sovereignty], the same is a sultan, whose commands
and judgments are valid in the several parts of the earth. ))
These and other politico-religious doctrines were universalized through
the spread of a system of educational institutions (madrasahs), associated
with the powerful Seljuq minister Nizam al-Mulk
(d. 1092), an Iranian from Khorasan. The institutions
were called Nizamiyahs in his honour. The most famous of
them, the Baghdad Nizamiyah, was founded in 1067.
Nizam al-Mulk argued for the creation of a strong central
political authority, focused on the sultan and modeled on the polities of
the pre-Islamic Sasanians of Iran and of certain
early Islamic rulers. Under the successors of Toghrl,
especially Alp-Arslan and Malik-Shah,
the so-called Great Seljuq empire did attain a certain
degree of centralization, and the sultans and princes went on to conquer
eastern and central Anatolia in the name of Islam and to
eject the Shi'ite Fatimids from Syria.
In the second half of the 11th and the first half of the 12th century,
the Seljuq Turks gradually established more or less
direct rule over all of Arabian Iraq. The 'Uqaylids of
Upper Iraq were finally overthrown by Taj ad-Dawlah Tutush
(1077-1095) of the Syrian branch of the Seljuq
family. Upper Iraq now came under the rule of Seljuq
princes and their governors, who were often of servile origin. One of
these governors, 'Imad ad-Din Zangi, with the decline of
the power of his Seljuq masters, founded an independent dynasty, the
Zangids. A branch of the Zangid dynasty
ruled Mosul from 1127 to 1222. At the time of the
Mongol invasions, Mosul was in the hands of the
slave general Badr ad-Din Lu'lu' (1222-59). In Lower Iraq
the Mazyadids were able to extend their influence; in the
early 1100s they took the towns of Hit, Wasit,
Basra, and Tikrit. In 1108, however,
their king, Sadaqah, was defeated and killed by the
Seljuq sultan Muhammad Tapar (1105-18), and the dynasty
never regained its former importance. The Mazyadids were
finally dispossessed by the Seljuqs in the second half of
the 12th century, and their capital, Al-Hillah, was
occupied by caliphal forces.
The later 'Abbasids period (1152-1258)
With the death of Muhammad Tapar, the Great
Seljuq state was in effect partitioned between Muhammad's brother
Sanjar, headquartered at Marw in
Khorasan, and his son Mahmud II (1118-31),
centred on Hamadan in Persian Iraq. These Iraq Seljuq
sultans tried unsuccessfully to maintain their control over the 'Abbasid
caliph in Baghdad, but in 1135 the caliph al-Mustarshid
(1118-35) personally led an army against the sultan Mas'ud,
although he was defeated and later assassinated. Al-Mustarshid's
brother, al-Muqtafi (1136-60), was appointed by Sultan
Mas'ud to succeed him as caliph. After Mas'ud's
death, al-Muqtafi was able to establish a "caliphal"
state based on Baghdad by conquering Al-Hillah,
Al-Kufah, Wasit, and Tikrit.
By far the most important figure in the revival of independent caliphal
authority in Arabian Iraq and the surrounding area--after more than 200
years of "secular" military domination, first under the Buyids
and then the Seljuqs--was the caliph an-Nasir
(1180-1225). For nearly half a century, he tried to rally the Islamic
world under the banner of 'Abbasid universalism, not only politically, by
emphasizing the necessity for the support of caliphal causes, but also
morally, by attempting to reconcile the Sunnites and the Shi'ites. In
addition, he tried to gain control of various voluntary associations such
as the mystico-religious (Sufi) brotherhoods and the
craft-associated (futuwah) organizations. He also began
the dangerous precedent of allying himself with powers in Khorasan
and Central Asia against the traditional caliphal adversaries in Persian
Iraq. Through this policy, he was able to rid himself of the last Iraq
Seljuq sultan, Toghrl III (1176-94), who
was killed by the Khwarezm-Shah 'Ala' ad-Din Tekish
(1172-1200), the ruler of the province lying along the lower course of the
Amu Darya (ancient Oxus River) in Central Asia.
When Tekish insisted on greater formal recognition
from the caliph a few years later, an-Nasir refused, and
inconclusive fighting broke out between the two. The conflict came to a
head under Tekish's son, the Khwarezm-Shah 'Ala'
ad-Din Muhammad (1200-20), who demanded that the caliph renounce
the temporal power built up by the later 'Abbasids after the decline of
the Iraq Seljuqs. When negotiations broke down,
Muhammad declared an-Nasir deposed, proclaimed
an eastern Iranian notable as anticaliph, and marched on Baghdad.
In 1217 Muhammad seized most of western Iran, but, just
as he was about to fall on an-Nasir's capital, his army
was decimated by a blizzard in the Zagros Mountains. These events afforded
an-Nasir and his successors only a brief respite from
dangers arising in the east.
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