~22 دقیقه مطالعه • بروزرسانی ۱۰ فروردین ۱۴۰۵
Conquest of Africa
While Khalid ibn al-Walid and other conquerors were subduing the East, Amr ibn al-As, about seven years after the death of the Prophet, marched from Gaza in Palestine into Egypt, captured Pelusium and Memphis, and advanced against Alexandria. Egypt possessed harbors and naval bases that the Arabs needed for sea power. Egypt supplied grain to Constantinople, and Arabia required grain. For centuries the Byzantine government had employed Arabs in its auxiliary forces, and these did not obstruct the Muslim advance. The Monophysite Christians of Egypt had suffered greatly under Byzantine persecution; therefore they welcomed the Muslims with joy, assisted them in the capture of Memphis, and guided them to Alexandria. When the city fell after a thirteen-month siege (21 AH / 641 AD), Amr wrote to Umar ibn al-Khattab: “It is difficult to describe the wealth, grandeur, and beauty of this city; I will only say that it contains 4,000 palaces, 400 baths, and 400 theaters.” Amr prevented the Arabs from plundering the city, imposed the jizya upon it, and, since he could not understand the causes of the religious differences among the Christian sects, did not allow the Monophysites to take revenge upon the other Christian groups. Contrary to the custom of conquerors from ancient times, he proclaimed freedom of worship for all the people of the city.
The Library of Alexandria and Further Conquests
Did Amr really burn the Library of Alexandria? This story first appears in the book of Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi (558-629 AH / 1162-1231 AD), one of the Muslim scholars. Later Ibn al-Ibri (624-685 AH / 1226-1286 AD), a Christian of Jewish origin from the eastern parts of Syria, who wrote a short universal history in Arabic under the name Abu al-Faraj, related the story with more detail. He said that a man of Alexandria named John Philoponus asked Amr to give him the copies in the library. Amr wrote to the Caliph asking permission, and according to the account Umar replied: “As for the books, if their contents agree with the Book of God we have no need of them, and if they disagree they are useless; burn them all.” This legendary tale summarizes the legendary reply as: “Burn them all, for all their contents are contained in one book, the Quran.” According to Ibn al-Ibri, Amr ordered the books to be distributed among the baths of the city to be used as fuel instead of wood, and for six months the scrolls of papyrus and parchment fed 4,000 furnaces (22 AH / 642 AD). Among the reasons for the weakness of this account are: 1) the greater part of the Library of Alexandria had already been burned by fanatical Christians during the time of Patriarch Theophilus in 392 AD; 2) the remaining library had continued to suffer neglect and pillage, and most of it had disappeared before 642 AD; 3) during the five centuries between the supposed event and its recording in Abd al-Latif al-Baghdadi’s book, no Christian historian mentioned it, whereas Sa‘id ibn al-Bitriq, the Christian historian who became Patriarch of Alexandria in 321 AH (933 AD), described the conquest of the city by the Arabs in great detail. For these reasons most historians reject the story and consider it a legend. The destruction of the Library of Alexandria, which occurred gradually, was one of the saddest events in world history, for, according to scholars, a complete collection of the works of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Polybius, Livy, Tacitus, and hundreds of other authors whose works have reached us only in mutilated and disordered form; the complete texts of the pre-Socratic philosophers of whom only fragments survive; and thousands of books on the history of Greece, Egypt, and Rome, natural sciences, literature, and philosophy—all existed in the Library of Alexandria.
Amr ruled with justice and devoted part of the heavy taxes to cleaning canals, repairing bridges, and restoring the waterway 130 kilometers long that in ancient times connected the Nile to the Red Sea, allowing ships to pass from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. This waterway silted up again in 104 AH (723 AD) and was abandoned. Amr founded a new capital for Egypt at the place where he had encamped in 21 AH (641 AD) and called it Fustat, meaning “tent”; later Cairo was founded adjacent to it. For two full centuries (21-254 AH / 661-868 AD) Fustat was the seat of those who governed Egypt on behalf of the caliphs of Damascus or Baghdad.
Expansion of Conquests and Independence of Provinces
It is a well-established fact that every conquest creates new frontiers that require further conquests for their protection. To safeguard the western borders of Egypt against Byzantine attack from Cyrene, the Muslims crossed the desert with 40,000 troops, advanced to Barqa, captured it, and reached the vicinity of Carthage. The Muslim commander planted his spear in the sand at a place 130 kilometers south of present-day Tunis and encamped there, founding Kairouan in 50 AH (670 AD), which became one of the greatest cities of Islam. The word “Kairouan” is a corruption of the Persian “caravan.” The Byzantine emperor, knowing that the fall of Carthage would establish Arab dominance over the Mediterranean and open the road to Spain, reinforced the city with troops and a fleet. The Berbers temporarily forgot their hatred of the Romans and cooperated with them in defending the city; resistance was prolonged, and Carthage did not fall to the Muslims until 79 AH (698 AD). Thereafter North Africa as far as the Atlantic coast came under Islamic influence, and the Berbers, almost willingly, submitted to the Muslims and soon accepted Islam. The Muslim African possessions were administratively divided into three provinces: Egypt, Ifriqiya, and the Maghreb (Morocco), with centers at Fustat, Kairouan, and Fez respectively.
These three provinces remained subject to the eastern caliphs for about a century, but the transfer of the caliphal capital to Baghdad increased the difficulties of communication and transport, and the African provinces gradually gained independence. The Idrisids established themselves in Fez (172-364 AH / 788-974 AD); the Aghlabids ruled in Kairouan (184-296 AH / 800-909 AD); and the Tulunids established themselves in Egypt (254-292 AH / 868-905 AD). Egypt, the granary of the ancient world, was no longer subject to foreign governors and began a small revival. Ahmad ibn Tulun (220-270 AH / 835-884 AD) conquered Syria and annexed it to Egypt, founding a new capital called al-Qata’i adjacent to Fustat. He patronized the sciences and arts, built palaces, baths, and hospitals, and laid the foundation of a mosque that still stands. His son Khumarawayh, during his rule (270-282 AH / 884-895 AD), turned to luxury instead of his father’s activity, decorated the walls of his palace with gold, and imposed heavy taxes on the people of Egypt to create a pool of mercury and spread an inflated skin bed upon it so that the trembling of the mercury would rock him to sleep. After the Tulunids a Turkish family founded by Ikhshid gained power in Egypt (323-358 AH / 935-969 AD). These governments had no deep roots in the blood and customs of the people and necessarily depended on military force; when, through excessive wealth, they fell into softness and neglected military affairs, they perished.
Islamic Civilization in Africa (641-1058 AD)
The emirs and caliphs of Cairo, Kairouan, and Fez competed with one another in encouraging architecture, painting, music, poetry, and philosophy; but the manuscripts from that period in North Africa remain hidden in libraries that Western scholars have only recently been able to access. Most artistic works have perished, and little remains of the signs of grandeur and prosperity of that era except the mosques. The Mosque of Sidi Uqba in Kairouan was built in 50 AH (670 AD) and has been rebuilt seven times since. Most of the present building dates from 224 AH (838 AD). The arcades of this mosque, which have round arches, rest on hundreds of Corinthian columns taken from the ruins of Carthage. Its minbar is a masterpiece of wood carving, and its mihrab is a unique example of the combination of porphyry and tile. The great square minaret of the mosque, considered the oldest minaret in the world, is an example of the Syrian style according to which all the minarets of the Islamic Maghreb were built. Thanks to this mosque, Kairouan became the fourth holiest city of Islam and one of the “four gates of Paradise”; the mosques of Fez, Marrakesh, Tunis, and Tripoli are scarcely less magnificent.
In Cairo there were many great mosques, and three hundred old mosques still stand in this beautiful capital, the most famous being the Mosque of Amr ibn al-As, founded in 21 AH (642 AD), rebuilt in the tenth century, of which only the Corinthian columns brought by the Arabs from Roman and Byzantine ruins remain. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun (265 AH / 878 AD) has preserved its original shape and main features. The vast courtyard is enclosed by a wall with multiple balconies; the pointed arches of the mosque are older than any of this style in Egypt. Of course the arches of the Nilometer, built on the island near Cairo to measure the Nile flood (251 AH / 865 AD), must be excepted. Perhaps this arch style reached Egypt from the Gothic style of Europe via Sicily and Normandy. In the zigurrat-shaped minaret of the mosque and on the dome above the tomb of Ibn Tulun, horseshoe arches were built—an example of Islamic architecture whose charm is unmatched by other artistic works. It is said that Ibn Tulun wanted to support the arches on three hundred columns, and when it became clear that this number of columns would have to be taken from Roman and Christian buildings, he ordered them to be built on thick brick pillars. Perhaps this arch style also derived from Gothic architecture. Another point about the architectural features of the mosque is that some of its windows were made with colored glass and others with stone lattices in the shape of flowers, stars, or geometric forms, and its exact date is not known.
Between the years 359 and 362 AH (970 and 972 AD) the Mosque of al-Azhar was founded by Jawhar al-Siqilli. He was a Christian-born slave who had become a Muslim, and the Fatimid army under his command conquered Egypt. Some of the main parts of the building still stand; there too are pointed arches resting on 380 columns of marble, granite, and porphyry. The Mosque of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah was built of stone and most of it still stands, but prayer is no longer performed there. From the beautiful stucco work of this mosque in the Arab style and the beautiful Kufic inscriptions on the inscriptions, one can realize what splendor it had in the Middle Ages. These mosques, which now appear like fortresses and were indeed fortresses, had raised reliefs, inscriptions, mosaics, and mihrabs decorated with ivory, marble, and wood, and were adorned with chandeliers that are now part of the artistic treasures of museums. The Mosque of Ibn Tulun alone had 18,000 chandeliers, most of them made of colored enameled glass.
The fine arts flourished in Islamic Africa, and the Muslims occupied themselves with them with their characteristic patience and precision. In the mosques of Kairouan there is lustrous tile. Nasir-i Khusraw, who saw Cairo in 442 AH (1050 AD), describing its pottery says: “So delicate and transparent that when the hand is placed on the outside, the inside can be seen.” Egyptian and Syrian glassware preserved all the delicacy of ancient times. In the museums of Venice, Florence, and the Louvre there are vessels of rock crystal from the Fatimid period. Wood carvers created delightful designs on the doors of mosques, minbars, mihrabs, and windows, delighting the hearts of beholders. The Muslims residing in Egypt learned the art of decorating boxes and chests and other objects, with inlays of ivory, ebony, and mother-of-pearl, from their Coptic subjects. There was great wealth in jewels; when the Turkish soldiers plundered the palace of al-Mustansir, they carried away thousands of pieces of gold furniture, including inkwells, chess pieces, vases, birds, and artificial trees set with precious jewels. The Muslims also learned the art of block-printing textiles from the Copts; it seems that this art reached Europe from Islamic Egypt through the Crusaders and influenced the invention of printing. European merchants considered the textiles of the Fatimid state superior to those of other countries and spoke with wonder of the fabrics of Cairo and Alexandria, whose pieces were so fine that they passed through the eye of a ring. Historians report Fatimid carpets and tents of velvet, atlas, Damascus silk, taffeta, and figured gold-brocade. Among them was a tent prepared for Yazuri, vizier of al-Mustansir; one hundred and fifty craftsmen worked on it for more than nine years, and its cost reached 30,000 dinars (142,000 dollars); it is said that the image of every known animal except man was depicted on it. Of the paintings of the Fatimid period nothing remains except pieces of stucco work in the Cairo Museum, and no miniatures from that era survive; yet, according to al-Maqrizi, who wrote a history of painting in the fifteenth century, the library of the Fatimid caliphs contained hundreds of illustrated books, including 2,400 Qurans.
The caliph’s library in Cairo had 100,000 books in the time of al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah and 200,000 in the time of al-Mustansir. According to historians, books were lent free of charge to reputable scholars. In 379 AH (988 AD) Ya‘qub ibn Killis, the vizier, persuaded Caliph al-Aziz to pay the cost of educating 35 students at al-Azhar, and thus the oldest university in the world came into existence. When this school grew and expanded, students of knowledge came to it from all parts of the Islamic world, just as the University of Paris a hundred years later became the resort of all students of Europe. From this time the caliphs, viziers, and wealthy people provided tuition fees for the free education of students until our own day, when the number of its students has reached 10,000 and the number of professors 300. One of the interesting sights for travelers is the scene of students gathered in the arcades of this thousand-year-old mosque, each group in a semicircle beside a pillar, sitting before one of the scholars. Famous scholars came from all parts of the Islamic world to al-Azhar to teach students grammar, rhetoric, mathematics, prosody, logic, theology, hadith, Quranic exegesis, and jurisprudence. Students paid nothing for the education they received, and professors received no salary. Because al-Azhar University relied on government support and the donations of the wealthy, it gradually became strict in religious matters; the scholars of al-Azhar were instrumental in the decline of literature, philosophy, and sciences during the Fatimid period; for this reason, during the rule of this dynasty, no great poet appeared.
Al-Hakim founded Dar al-Hikma in Cairo (395 AH / 1004 AD), whose basic aim was to spread the teachings of Ismaili Shiism, but astronomy and mathematics were also included in the curriculum. Al-Hakim also established an observatory and supported Ali ibn Yunus (d. 399 AH / 1009 AD), who in our view is the greatest Muslim astronomer, and after seventeen years of observation he compiled the great Zij of al-Hakim, which showed the movements of the planets and their periods and recorded the obliquity of the ecliptic, the precession of the equinoxes, and the solar parallax with greater precision than before.
The most famous of all scholars of Islamic Egypt was Hasan ibn al-Haytham, known to Europeans as Alhazen. He was born in Basra in 354 AH (965 AD) and soon became famous for his genius in geometry and mathematics. Al-Hakim, having heard that Ibn al-Haytham had drawn up a plan for regulating the Nile flood, summoned him to Cairo. But Ibn al-Haytham knew that his plan was impracticable and therefore hid from the Caliph, who was given to mad actions. Like all medieval thinkers, he was fascinated by Aristotle’s hypothesis that all human knowledge could be unified, and he wrote many commentaries and marginal notes on his works, none of which survive. What has made Ibn al-Haytham famous today is his Book of Optics; he is probably the greatest author of the entire Middle Ages who possessed a scientific method and outlook. Ibn al-Haytham studied the refraction of light when passing through transparent bodies such as air and water and came so close to inventing the magnifying glass that three hundred years later Roger Bacon, Witelo, and other European scholars relied on his researches in their attempts to invent the magnifying glass and the camera. Ibn al-Haytham rejected the theory of Euclid and Ptolemy that the act of vision results from a ray of light issuing from the eye and reaching the visible object, and said that the shape of the visible object reaches the eye and is transmitted by the transparent screen, i.e., the lens. He studied the effect of the earth’s atmosphere on the apparent enlargement of the sun and moon when they are near the horizon and proved that, as a result of the refraction of rays, the sun’s light reaches us until it has sunk nineteen degrees below the horizon, and on this basis he determined the height of the atmosphere at sixteen kilometers. He analyzed the relation between weight and density of air and expressed the effect of air density on the weight of bodies, and used complex formulas to investigate the effect of light on spherical or parabolic mirrors and burning lenses. During an eclipse he studied the image of half the sun projected through a hole in a window onto the opposite wall, and this is the first mention of the camera obscura on which all photographic techniques are based. It is no exaggeration to say anything about Ibn al-Haytham’s influence on European science. It is highly probable that without Ibn al-Haytham there would have been no Roger Bacon. Bacon himself, in his Opus Majus, in the section on optics, mentions Ibn al-Haytham at every stage or quotes something from him. Almost the entire sixth volume of this book is based on the researches of this natural philosopher of Cairo. Until the time of Kepler and Leonardo, European studies on light were based on Ibn al-Haytham’s researches.
The most important result of the Arab conquest in North Africa was that Christianity gradually, though not completely, disappeared from the region. The Berbers not only became Muslims but, with zealous defense of Islam, surpassed other Muslims. Undoubtedly economic factors were effective in this decisive result, for non-Muslims had to pay the jizya, whereas for a long time afterward anyone who became a Muslim was exempt from paying the jizya. When the Arab governor of Egypt in 127 AH (744 AD) announced this exemption, 24,000 Christians became Muslims. Probably the persecution of Christians, which was severe only in certain periods, drove many Egyptians to accept the religion of the ruling class, but in Egypt a Coptic minority remained steadfast in the Christian faith with great courage and preserved its churches, which are like fortresses, and secretly performed its religious rites there—which it still does. But the churches of Alexandria, Cyrene, Carthage, and Hippo, which had previously been filled with crowds, gradually became empty and disappeared, and the memory of Athanasius, Cyril, and Augustine faded, and the controversies of the Arians, Donatists, and Monophysites gave way to Sunni and Shiite Muslims. The Fatimids, to strengthen their power, turned the Ismailis into a large sect with organized rites, customs, and ranks, and employed followers of this sect for espionage and political intrigue. The customs of this sect reached Jerusalem and spread to Europe, influencing the regulations and rites of the Knights Templar, the Illuminati, and other secret societies that arose in the Western world. An American occasionally sees a zealous Muslim with zeal who takes pride in his secret creed, Moroccan finery, and Islamic mosque.
Islam in the Mediterranean Basin (649-1071 AD)
After the conquest of Syria and Egypt the leaders of Islam realized that without naval power they could not defend their coasts; it was not long before their warships gained mastery over Cyprus and Rhodes and defeated the Byzantine fleet (32 and 35 AH / 652 and 655 AD). Thereafter they captured Crete (194 AH / 809 AD), Sardinia (195 AH / 810 AD), Malta (257 AH / 870 AD), and other islands. In 212 AH (827 AD) the old conflict between Greece and Carthage for control of Sicily was renewed, and the Aghlabids of Kairouan repeatedly attacked to conquer the island, with much plunder and bloodshed. Palermo (216 AH / 831 AD), Messina (227 AH / 843 AD), Syracuse (265 AH / 878 AD), and Taormina (290 AH / 902 AD) were brought under their rule. When the Fatimid caliphs succeeded the Aghlabids (297 AH / 909 AD), the island of Sicily, like their other possessions, came under Fatimid rule. After the Fatimid capital was transferred to Cairo, Husayn al-Kalbi, who governed Sicily on their behalf, declared himself its emir and gained virtual independence, founding the Kalbid dynasty, during which Islamic civilization in Sicily reached its peak.
When the Muslims gained mastery over the Mediterranean their position became secure and they turned their eyes toward the cities of southern Italy. In those days piracy was considered an honorable custom, and Christians and Muslims raided the coastal regions of Islam and Christendom to capture infidels and sell them as slaves in the markets. Thus in the ninth century the Muslim navy, mostly from Tunisia and Sicily, attacked the ports of Italy. In 227 AH (841 AD) the Muslims captured Bari, the important Byzantine stronghold in southeastern Italy, and the following year, at the invitation of the Duke of Benevento (center of the powerful Lombard duchy) who sought their help against Salerno, they attacked southern Italy, laid waste fields and monasteries, and quickly returned. In 232 AH (846 AD) 1,000 Muslims landed at Ostia, advanced to the vicinity of Rome, plundered the outskirts of the city including the churches of St. Peter and St. Paul, and returned to their ships. Pope Leo IV, seeing the civil authorities incapable of defending Italy, took the task upon himself, concluded a pact among Rome, Amalfi, Naples, and Gaeta, and stretched a chain across the mouth of the Tiber so that the enemy could not pass. In 235 AH (849 AD) the Arabs made another attempt to gain control of the capital of Western Christendom and faced the united Italian fleet, which the Pope had blessed, and were defeated. Raphael painted the scene of the event in the Vatican Palace. In 352 AH (866 AD) Emperor Louis II of Germany marched against the Muslims of the south who had attacked the Italian peninsula and drove them back to Bari and Taranto; all the Arabs were expelled from the peninsula by 273 AH (884 AD).
Yet they did not cease attacking Italy, and central Italy remained in constant fear and anxiety for a long time. In 262 AH (876 AD) they attacked Campania, plundered it, and endangered Rome; the Pope was forced to promise an annual tribute of 25,000 mancus (25,000 dollars) so that they would refrain from attacking Rome. In 271 AH (884 AD) they burned the great monastery of Monte Cassino and destroyed it from its foundations. During other successive attacks they plundered the valley of the Anio River. Finally the forces of the Pope, the Byzantine emperor, Germany, and the cities of central and southern Italy united and defeated the Arabs on the banks of the Garigliano River (304 AH / 916 AD). Thus the era of Islamic conquests in Italy, which had lasted a hundred years, came to an end. Italy and perhaps Christendom passed through
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