Muslim Victory at Tours PtVII: The Culture of the Caliphate

Date: 5 Apr 2003 11:39:54 -0800
Newsgroups: soc.history.what-if
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I apologize for not posting for a while; I've been very busy.
Offer the following as penance to the readers of SHWI.
Umayyad Culture
Part of the problem the early Caliph’s had was to distance
themselves from the styles of the Abbasids in Samarra, while being
emphatically Muslim.
At the same time, there are important theological issues that must be
addressed. For example: Is there a pre-destined path? If everything is
already planned out by Allah, then it follows that the Umayyads were
destined to become decadent and fall from their seat as the Caliph of
all Muslims. Free will isn’t much better; if there is free
will, then the Umayyad Caliphs of Damascus acted on their own in such
a way as to lose their position; but on the other hand, then the
Umayyad Caliphs of Rome, notably Al-Hakam, had heroically regained
their position through the conquests of Rome and Constantinople.
Thus, the Caliphs of Rome tend to favor the sect known as
Mu’tazila, which holds that God does not have a human form, and
thus all descriptions of him with such are actually allegorical, gain
the support of the Caliph’s patronage, especially after the
Abbasids expel them.
This leads to a paradox, though. The Koran states that one cannot
render an image of a living thing, because that would be copying what
Allah made. Yet the Caliphs seek to avoid dualism, and separate Allah
from his creation; according to them, there is no resemblance between
God and his creation[1].
This goes a bit farther, however. In 897, Ibn-Sumayl, a mufti, argued
that the Koran only existed in once place; God spoke his word by
creating it; his word was created prior to the creation of the world.
However, his word was transferred to human understanding when it was
composed in words and letters by the Prophet Mohammed. The only true
Koran is the Preserved Tablet; as it is not transferable, all other
Korans are copies. Thus, the Koran can be written in any language [2].
The Mu’tazila, be they Abbasid or Umayyad, have a heavy Greek
philosophical bent. There is also an idea of repenting; one who
commits a serious sin, if they do not repent, is almost an unbeliever. The Mu’tazila use Greek logic and philosophy to analyze
theological problems, such as Ibn-Sumayl’s paper on the
definition of logic. Sumayl, writing in Malaga, argued that it is
important to distinguish between the metaphysical world of God and the
physical world; as a Mu’tazilite, he argues that
“Plurality should not be assumed without necessity”, or
that the simplest explanation tends to be the true one. Thus, it is
far more likely that Allah does not have a physical manifestation,
because it is far simpler if he is pure essence and does not have
physical attributes, because then one would need explain why Allah
would have physical attributes if he is omnipotent [3].
Of course, not everyone holds with this dry interpretation of Islam.
In the Alps, an imam, John of Arles (I don’t see why everyone
would adopt Arabic names across Europe when this wasn’t the case
when Islam spread outside of Arabic areas) began the movement named
after him. His movement exhibits many of the features of Islamic
mystics; secret training, rituals to heighten awareness, or Communion
with God, and a communal order [4].
John of course, was not born in the Alps. According to legend, when
returning from a hajj, he received a vision from God, and swore to
return home and do as the Vision commanded him. Giving away all
material possessions, quoting the Hadith: “My servant does not
cease to approach Me with acts of devotion, until I become the foot
with which he walks, the hand with which he grasps, and the eye with
which he sees." This of course gets him in a great deal of trouble
with the local authorities, for this sounds suspiciously like the
words of a prophet; and he ends up fleeing, with his followers. The
First Order is founded in 902. The communities, which also function as madressas, pride themselves
on austerity and self-discipline, including ritual fasting. Retreats
are founded throughout the Alps, and by 1000 AD, there are numerous
orders throughout the Abode of Islam.
The Qiyan
Love, may God honor you, is a serious illness, one
Whose treatment must be in proportion to the
Affliction. It’s a delicious disease, a welcome malady.
Those who are free of it want not to be immune, and
Those who are stricken want not to be cured.
Sa’adiah ben Joseph, 887; A treatise on the Art and Practice of
Love [5]
Of course, theological heresies are but a small part of the developing
culture of Firanj. Another important development, and one may that
reflect the political chaos that is beginning to emerge, is the
development of a new, radically different, form of music.
The ring song (in Arabic, Muwashshaha, or Sash) is completely
different from traditional Arabic poetry. The ring son broke all rules
of poetry; where in Arabic poetry a single rhyme reached all verses,
in a ring song, The rhyme patterns were within the stanzas, but also
served to link each separate one. The stanzas themselves are new; in
traditional poetry, there was a seamlessness between the lyrics.
The ring songs, however, each stanza was ringed by a simple little
refrain to be repeated. (This is essentially a chorus). This was
dramatically different form traditional poetry, and actually leads to
fist fights when they presented between those of the old and new
schools. More importantly is that the songs are sung in Mozarabic, the
hybrid of Latin and Arabic spoke in the Caliphate [6].
Traditionally, the songs include a male voice singing the main stanza,
and a female voice singing the chorus. An example would be a song in
which the male sings of love, and compares her to flowers, and the
female alternates between telling him to go away or to shut up and
make love to her.
Equally important is who sings the songs. While there are
traditionally male singers and composers, by 915 there are increasing
number of female singers, known as Qiyan. As one might expect, after
years of singing the songs, a good number of the singers become poets
as well, notably Niebla of Tortosa. Indeed, according to later legend,
she was captured at one point by a Northman pirate while in Francia.
The pirate, Gunnar, asked her why he should spare her. She reportedly
enthralled him with his singing, over a period of 40 days, and at the
end of that period, he took her as a wife and converted to Islam. Of
course it is equally likely that when she disappeared while traveling
from Bordeaux north she was waylaid by brigands, but there are records
of chief in Skania with a wife named Niebla from around this time.
[1] I had a lot of fun with the entire religion section, after much
thought, as you can tell.
[2] This is pretty drastic, but, IMO, not too farfetched. Bear in mind
that among the Mu’tazila there was a debate over whether The
Korans were copies, or whether the pre-existing Koran is with a member
of the True Faith by reading, reciting, or hearing it.
[3] 10 points extra credit to whoever figures out who Ibn-Sumayl is
based off of, or, rather, either of his two sources.
[4] Obviously, some Christian ideas are seeping into Islam, but note
that this is a good deal similar to the Sufis.
[5] I know enough not to mess with perfection. This is taken from Ring
of the Dove, written by Ibn Hazm. Definitely the best example of this.
I moved it forward a little over a hundred years, on the basis that
the political decay which resulted in the flourishing of Mozarab
poetry would take place when the Caliph begins losing political
authority; after all, poems like this had been written since the
850’s.
[6] This is not to say that there are no dialects; as in OTL, the
Muslims on the Eastern coast say oc for yes.