The Great Arab Conquests (8 page)
Read The Great Arab Conquests Online
Authors: Hugh Kennedy
The Arab conquests of the Middle East are among the epoch-making changes in human history. The sources we have for understanding these tumultuous events are hemmed in by many limitations. We cannot always, perhaps ever, find answers to the questions we most want to ask, yet by treating the evidence with respect, and working with it, we can come to a fuller understanding of what was happening.
1
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CONQUEST
The Muslim conquests of the Middle East originated in Arabia, and most of those who fought in the first phases of the conquest came from the Arabian peninsula or the Syrian desert that lies to the north. At no time either before or after the Muslim conquests did the inhabitants of these areas conquer huge empires beyond the vague and shifting frontiers of their homeland. For the first and only time, the coming of Islam mobilized the military energies and hardiness of the peoples of the Arabian peninsula to invade the world that surrounded them. What sort of place was it that produced these warriors, and what sort of men were they that they could create this massive revolution in human history?
The Arabian peninsula is vast. A straight line from the south-east point of Arabia at Ra’s al-Hadd in Oman to Aleppo at the north-west corner of the Syrian desert is over 2,500 kilometres long. Relying on animal transport, a journey along this route would take well over a hundred days of continuous travel. Coordination of men and armies over so vast a distance was not easy, and it was only the particular circumstances of the early Islamic conquests that made it possible.
Much of Arabia is desert, but all deserts are not the same. If the Inuit have a thousand words for different sorts of snow, the nomads of Arabia must have almost that number for different sorts of sand, gravel and stones. Some desert, like the famous Empty Quarter of central southern Arabia, is made up of sand dunes, a landscape where no one can live and only the hardiest, or most foolish, pass through. But most of the desert is not quite like that. The surface is more often gravel than sand, desolate but easy to traverse. To the outsider, most desert landscapes look formidably bleak. The land is often flat or marked by hills - low, rolling and anonymous - with the few plants in the wadis (dry river beds) thorny and unappealing to most of us. This landscape looks very different to the Bedouin who inhabit it. For them, the rolling hills all have their names and identities - almost their own personalities. The gullies of the wadis, whether flat or stony, each offer different possibilities. The desert landscapes of Arabia were well known to their inhabitants and, we can almost say, cherished. The poets of ancient Arabia delighted in naming the hills and valleys where their tribes had camped, fought and loved. For them, the desert was a land of opportunity, and a land of danger.
The Arabic-speaking nomads of the desert are conventionally known in English as Bedouin and this is the terminology I shall use. Arabs are recorded in the desert from Assyrian times in the early first millennium BC on. They were a permanent feature of the desert landscapes, but for the settled people of the Fertile Crescent, on whose writings we rely for information, they were very much the ‘Other’ - noises off, sometimes intruding on to the settled lands to pillage and rob, but always to return, or be driven back, to their desert fastnesses. The Arabs had little political history and in ancient times their chiefs lived and died without leaving any traces for posterity, save in the memories of their fellow tribesmen and followers. In the third century AD we begin to find Arabs making a more definite impression on the records. It was during this period that Queen Zenobia, from her base in the great oasis trading city of Palmyra, deep in the Syrian desert, created a kingdom that encompassed much of the Middle East. It took a major campaign by the Roman emperor Aurelian in 272 to bring this area under Roman control again. Zenobia’s empire was transitory but, for the first time, Arabic speakers had demonstrated their ability to conquer and, briefly, control the cities of the Fertile Crescent.
In the rocky landscapes south-east of Damascus, where the black basalt rocks of the fertile Hawrān give way to the gravel and sand of the Syrian desert, stood the Roman fort at Nemara. Nemara was one of the remotest outposts of the Roman world; far away from the porticoes and fountains of Damascus, it was a lonely outpost, almost lost in the scorching empty desert that stretched all the way to Iraq. Outside the walls of the fort lay a simple grave with an inscribed tombstone. It was written in the old Nabataean script of Petra, but the language is recognizably Arabic. It commemorated one Imru’l-Qays, son of Amr, king of all the Arabs, and extolled his conquests as far away as the lands of Himyar in Yemen. It also tells us that he died ‘in prosperity’ in AD 328. The tombstone is extremely interesting: a lone document of the period, it shows the development of the idea of the Arabs as a group with their own separate identity, distinct from Romans, Nabataeans and others. We do not know whether Imru’l-Qays died of old age, in his tent, or on a hostile raid against Syria, on a peaceful trading mission to the Roman world or, as some Arab sources suggest, as a convert to Christianity. His resting place symbolizes both the separate identity of the early Arabs and their close interactions with the Romans and Persians who ruled the settled lands that bordered their desert homes.
In the sixth century AD, this nascent Arab self-awareness developed further. At this time the Fertile Crescent was dominated by two great empires, the Byzantines in Syria and Palestine and the Sasanian Persians in Iraq. Both of these great powers had problems with managing the nomad Arabs along the desert frontiers of their domains. The Romans had, with typical Roman efficiency, erected forts and built roads so that their troops could guard the frontier, the
limes
, and keep the rich cities and agricultural land of the interior safe from the depredations of the nomads. This system was hard to maintain; it was difficult to keep men to garrison remote forts like Nemara and it was above all expensive. If we knew more about the Sasanian Persians, we would probably find that they were encountering similar problem themselves.
limes
, and keep the rich cities and agricultural land of the interior safe from the depredations of the nomads. This system was hard to maintain; it was difficult to keep men to garrison remote forts like Nemara and it was above all expensive. If we knew more about the Sasanian Persians, we would probably find that they were encountering similar problem themselves.
During the course of the sixth century, both great powers tried to find alternative ways of managing the desert frontier, and they turned to client kingdoms. In effect they used Arabs to manage Arabs. On the frontiers of Syria the Byzantines worked through a powerful dynasty known to history as the Ghassānids. The Ghassānid chiefs were given the Greek administrative title of phylarch and were paid subsidies to keep the Bedouin friendly. Through a mixture of payment, diplomacy and kinship alliances, the Ghassānids managed the desert frontier, acting as the interface between the Byzantine government and the nomads. They also became Christians, albeit of the Monophysite sect, which was increasingly regarded as heretical by the authorities in Constantinople. The Ghassānid chiefs lived an attractive semi-nomadic lifestyle. In the spring, when the desert margins are vivid green with new herbage, they would camp at Jābiya in the Golan Heights and the tribal chiefs would come to visit, to pay their respects and, no doubt, to receive their cash. At other times they would hold court near the great shrine of the warrior St Sergius, at Rusāfa in the northern Syrian desert.
1
They did not settle in the Roman town but built a stone audience hall about a mile to the north. They would pitch their tents around this and Arabs would come on pilgrimage to the shrine of the saint and visit the Ghassānid phylarch.
1
They did not settle in the Roman town but built a stone audience hall about a mile to the north. They would pitch their tents around this and Arabs would come on pilgrimage to the shrine of the saint and visit the Ghassānid phylarch.
A thousand miles away across the Syrian desert to the east, the Lakhmids, managers of the desert margins for the Sasanian kings, also held court. The Lakhmids seem to have been more settled than the Ghassānids and their capital at Hīra, just where the desert meets the richly cultivated lands along the lower Euphrates, was a real Arab town. Like the Ghassānids, the Lakhmids were Christians. They were also great patrons of the earliest Arabic literature. Poets and story-tellers flocked to their court, and it was probably here that the Arabic script, soon to be used for recording the Koran and the deeds of the early conquerors, was perfected. A strong Arab identity was emerging, not yet ready to conquer great empires, but possessing a common language and, increasingly, a common culture.
Many Arabs lived as Bedouin in tribes, following a nomadic lifestyle and living quite literally in a state of anarchy, of non-government. These nomads depended on their flocks, above all on sheep and camels. The different sorts of animals led to different patterns of subsistence. Camel-rearing was the life-support system of the nomads of the inner desert. Camels can survive for two weeks or more without water, and this gave the Bedouin the capacity to move far away from the settled lands and take advantage of scattered grazing and remote water sources in areas where none of the armies of the imperial powers could hope to pursue them. Ovocaprids, sheep and goats, are much less self-sufficient. They need to be watered every day, cannot survive on the rough, sparse herbage that can sustain camels and need to be taken to market when the time comes for them to be sold and slaughtered. Sheep nomads lived within striking distance of the settled lands and had a much closer interaction with the settled people than the camel nomads of the inner desert. The camel nomads were more completely independent. Almost immune from attack in their desert fastnesses, they were the real warrior aristocracy of the Arabs.
Tribes, rather than states or empires, were the dominant political forces in the desert, and sometimes reading accounts of the early years of Islam and the great conquests, it is easy to get the impression that tribal loyalties and tribal rivalries were as important in motivating the Arabs to fight and conquer as the new religion of Islam or the desire for booty. But in reality, tribal loyalties were more complex and varied than at first appears. The Arabs pictured themselves as living in tribes. Each tribesman believed that all the members of the tribe were descended from a common ancestor and called themselves after him, so the tribe of Tamīm would call themselves, and be called by others, the Banū Tamīm. In reality this self-image was a bit misleading because large tribes like the Tamīm never met together and had no single chief or common decision-making process. The crucial choices about where to camp, where to find grazing and how to avoid the enemy were made in much smaller tenting groups, even by individual families. Furthermore membership in tribes was not entirely determined by biological descent. Men could and did move tribe to attach themselves to new groups. A successful leader might find that his tribe had increased in number quite dramatically while a failed chief would find his men slipping away. Because they thought in biological links, however, men would not say that they changed tribe but rather that they must have been in some way part of that kin all along.
Indeed, without kin a man and his family could not survive in the desert. This was an almost unimaginably harsh environment. Beasts might die, grazing fail, wells dry up and enemies pounce. There was no police force, not even a corrupt and inefficient one, no ruler to whom the victim could appeal: only the bonds of kinship, real or fictional, could protect a man, offer help in times of need, offer protection or the threat of vengeance in time of attack. A man without kin was lost. In some ways the early Muslim leadership set out to destroy or at least reduce the loyalty to tribe. The Muslim community, the
umma
, was to be a new sort of tribe, based not on descent but on commitment to the new religion, the acceptance that Allāh was the one true God and that Muhammad was his prophet. The
umma
would offer the protection and security that people had previously been given by their tribe. In reality it was not easy to dismantle the tribal loyalties that had served men so well for so long. In the early years of the conquests, men fought in tribal groups and gathered round their tribal banners on the field of battle. During these wars, members of the tribe of, say, Tamīm must have fought alongside fellow tribesmen whom they had never met and possibly had never heard of before. When they were settled in the new military cities in Basra and Kūfa in Iraq or Fustāt in Egypt, they were placed in tribal groups. When it came to the struggle for resources, for salaries and booty, tribal rivalries acquired a fierce and brutal intensity which they had seldom had in the more open and scattered society of the desert. Far from being diminished by the new religion of Islam, tribal solidarities were in some ways reinforced by the events of the conquest. It would be wrong, however, to overestimate the role played by tribes. In reality tribal loyalties were crucially important to some people at some times, literally a matter of life and death, but at other times they were disregarded, ignored and even forgotten.
umma
, was to be a new sort of tribe, based not on descent but on commitment to the new religion, the acceptance that Allāh was the one true God and that Muhammad was his prophet. The
umma
would offer the protection and security that people had previously been given by their tribe. In reality it was not easy to dismantle the tribal loyalties that had served men so well for so long. In the early years of the conquests, men fought in tribal groups and gathered round their tribal banners on the field of battle. During these wars, members of the tribe of, say, Tamīm must have fought alongside fellow tribesmen whom they had never met and possibly had never heard of before. When they were settled in the new military cities in Basra and Kūfa in Iraq or Fustāt in Egypt, they were placed in tribal groups. When it came to the struggle for resources, for salaries and booty, tribal rivalries acquired a fierce and brutal intensity which they had seldom had in the more open and scattered society of the desert. Far from being diminished by the new religion of Islam, tribal solidarities were in some ways reinforced by the events of the conquest. It would be wrong, however, to overestimate the role played by tribes. In reality tribal loyalties were crucially important to some people at some times, literally a matter of life and death, but at other times they were disregarded, ignored and even forgotten.
Tribes were led by chiefs, normally called
sharīf
(pl.
ashrf
) in early Muslim times. Leadership within the tribe was both elective and hereditary. Each tribe or sub-tribe would have a ruling kin, brothers and cousins from whom the chief would normally be chosen. While there was no formal election, tribesmen would offer their loyalties to the most able, or the luckiest, member of the ruling kin. Chiefs were certainly chosen for their ability as war leaders, but bravery and skill in battle were far from being the only qualities required. A chief needed to be a skilled negotiator, to resolve quarrels between his followers before they got out of hand, and to deal with members of other tribes and even the imperial authorities. Chiefs also had to have intelligence - the sort of intelligence which meant that they knew where the fickle desert rain had recently fallen, and where they could find the small but succulent patches of grazing that would mean their followers and their flocks could eat and drink well. To do this, a successful chief needed to keep an open tent. The famed hospitality of the Bedouin was an important part of a complex survival strategy: guests would certainly be fed and entertained but in exchange they would be expected to provide information about grazing, warfare and disputes, prices and trading opportunities. Without these informal communication networks, news of the coming of Islam could never have spread through the vast, nearly empty expanses of desert Arabia, and the armies that were to conquer the great empires could never have been assembled.
sharīf
(pl.
ashrf
) in early Muslim times. Leadership within the tribe was both elective and hereditary. Each tribe or sub-tribe would have a ruling kin, brothers and cousins from whom the chief would normally be chosen. While there was no formal election, tribesmen would offer their loyalties to the most able, or the luckiest, member of the ruling kin. Chiefs were certainly chosen for their ability as war leaders, but bravery and skill in battle were far from being the only qualities required. A chief needed to be a skilled negotiator, to resolve quarrels between his followers before they got out of hand, and to deal with members of other tribes and even the imperial authorities. Chiefs also had to have intelligence - the sort of intelligence which meant that they knew where the fickle desert rain had recently fallen, and where they could find the small but succulent patches of grazing that would mean their followers and their flocks could eat and drink well. To do this, a successful chief needed to keep an open tent. The famed hospitality of the Bedouin was an important part of a complex survival strategy: guests would certainly be fed and entertained but in exchange they would be expected to provide information about grazing, warfare and disputes, prices and trading opportunities. Without these informal communication networks, news of the coming of Islam could never have spread through the vast, nearly empty expanses of desert Arabia, and the armies that were to conquer the great empires could never have been assembled.
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