Benson Bobrick - The Caliph’s Splendor: Islam and the West in the Golden Age of Baghdad

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To my agent, Russell Galen

and

My longtime editor, Bob Bender

Twin pillars of support for my writing over the years.

ca. 1700 B.C.

Approximate time of the patriarch Abraham and his son Ishmael, whom Jews and Arabs alike regard as the progenitors of their race

ca. 853 B.C.

An Assyrian inscription marks the first material record of the Arabs in history

70 A.D.

Roman capture of Jerusalem

330 A.D.

Foundation of Constantinople

527628 A.D.

Intermittent war between the Persians and the Byzantines

ca. 570 A.D.

Birth of Muhammad

622 A.D.

The Hegira, the flight of Muhammad from Mecca to Medina, marking the beginning of the Islamic era

630 A.D.

Muhammad and his followers take Mecca

632 A.D.

Death of Muhammad. Abu Bakr chosen as first caliph.

633647 A.D.

Arabs conquer Syria, Iraq, Persia, North Africa, and Egypt

661 A.D.

Ali, the fourth caliph, assassinated at Kufa; Umayyad Caliphate begins

680 A.D.

Massacre at Karbala

691694 A.D.

Construction of the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem

710 A.D.

Westernmost India becomes the eastern frontier of Islam

711 A.D.

Muslims cross the Strait of Gibraltar into Spain

732 A.D.

The Arab invasion of France is checked by Charles Martel at Poitiers

742 A.D.

Charlemagne born at Aachen

750 A.D.

Foundation of the Abbasid Caliphate. Accession of Saffah.

754 A.D.

Accession of Mansur

756 A.D.

Independent Emirate of Cordova established

762 A.D.

Foundation of Baghdad

763 A.D.

Birth of Harun al-Rashid

775 A.D.

Accession of Mahdi

778 A.D.

Charlemagne leads expedition into Spain

780 A.D.

Death of Byzantine Emperor Leo IV. Constantine VI, still a child, nominally succeeds. His mother Irene takes charge as regent.

785 A.D.

Accession of Hadi

786 A.D.

Accession of Harun al-Rashid

797 A.D.

Constantine VI deposed. Irene becomes empress.

800 A.D.

Charlemagne crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome

802 A.D.

Irene deposed. Nicephorus crowned.

803 A.D.

Fall of the Barmaks

809 A.D.

Death of Harun al-Rashid. Accession of Amin. Civil war.

813 A.D.

Death of Amin. Accession of Mamun.

814 A.D.

Death of Charlemagne

827 A.D.

Muslim conquest of Sicily begins

833 A.D.

Death of Mamun

929 A.D.

Ahd al-Rahman III of Spain adopts title of Caliph

1000 A.D.

Mahmud of Ghazna invades northern India

1061 A.D.

Normans take Messina in Sicily

1085 A.D.

Christians take Toledo, Spain

1099 A.D.

Crusaders occupy Jerusalem

1187 A.D.

Saladin defeats the Crusaders and recaptures Jerusalem

1258 A.D.

Baghdad overwhelmed and destroyed by the Mongols. End of the Caliphate.

We can compare our course across the world to the progress of the sun across the heavens.

Masudi, The Meadows of Gold

O n the twenty-first of March 630, the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius entered Jerusalem by its Golden Gate at the head of his legions to set up the True Cross of Christ, which he had just recaptured from the Persians in one of his great Persian wars. Dressed in humble garb, he dismounted not far from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and went the rest of the way on foot. Thousands of weeping Christians, overcome with elation, parted before him and carpets scented with aromatic herbs were strewn across his path. An indescribable joy, wrote one Byzantine court poet, seized the entire Universe. Yet even as it was taking place, in one of the strangest coincidences of history, word came that an imperial outpost beyond the Jordan River had just been assailed by a small Arab band. The emperor paid little heed. Within a few years, however, Palestine and many other provinces would be torn forever from Roman rule, the Persian Empire shattered, and a new faith and people would arise to control the worlds stage. In 636, just six years after Heraclius shrugged off this first Arab attack, his own vast legions would be crushed by the forces of Omar, second caliph from the Prophet, on the banks of the Yarmuk River in Syria.

Ever since that day, the forces of the Near and Middle East have had a deep, silent disdain for the thunderings of Christian power.

THE RISE OF ISLAM IS OFTEN DEPICTED AS HAVING TAKEN place in a primitive community of desert Arabs, who tended their flocks when not raiding caravans or engaged in tribal feuds. After their conversion to Islam, these tribes banded together and, upon the death of their Prophet (so the story goes), folded up their tents and swarmed out of the desert to spread his new doctrine to the world. Almost overnight they began to demonstrate a marked degree of culture and became an invincible military machine.

That strange picture, still popular in the West, is at once both too pathetic and high-flown. Islam had its cradle in an area where advanced civilizationsEgyptian, Babylonian, Persian, and Byzantinehad thrived since ancient times. Arabia lay on their outskirts, but in succession or combination all had irrigated its psychic soil. Cuneiform tablets record large Arab armies complete with infantry, cavalry, and chariots as early as 853 B.C. And the oral tradition of Arabic poetry is resplendent with heroic lays that tell of mighty battles, the dreams of love, and the oases of paradise. Empires rose and fell, and by the seventh century A.D., those large Arab armies and the kingdoms they served had long since dispersed. But the region remained in dynamic transition, where the vibrant streams of faith and culture converged.

The Prophet Muhammad sprang from its soil.

Born ca. A.D. 570 at Mecca in Arabia on the shores of the Red Sea, Muhammad was the son of a merchant and belonged to the elite Arab tribe of the Koraish. Orphaned early, he was raised by in-laws, married a wealthy merchants widow (much older than himself), had four daughters and two sons, and embarked, in the footsteps of his father, on a business career.