From the far reaches of North Africa to the far east, beyond the Oxus River, the Abbasid caliphate had to maintain a difficult pulse with the new powers. How did they deal with your arrival? How did they defend their own dynasty? How did they survive even against stronger rivals? We will see in the next lines that, in their weakness, they had to resort to all kinds of diplomatic tricks to manage their waning power. In his hands, we will see how sometimes a letter, a dress and expensive gifts became terrible weapons.
In the middle of the 8th century, the Abbasid revolt, one of the most complex, amazing and brilliant conspiracies in history, had based its success on the discontent of the conquered populations with its clientelist position vis-à-vis the ruling Arab class (see "The Decline of the Umayyad Caliphate" in Ancient and Medieval #46:The spread of Islam. The Umayyad Caliphate ). In the case of the Iranian territories, this was especially uncomfortable. Some members of the Iranian nobility they could trace their origins back to the main Achaemenid families, from the Parthian or Sassanian empire. They had maintained their cultural identity for a thousand years. The Persian kings had dominated immense territories, united lands separated by the sea, defeated emperors... The Arab domain for them was a rare discontinuity, despite the fact that their religion had been deeply assimilated. The new faith did not overshadow its past, nor was it considered shameful or impious (unlike pre-Islamic idol worship for the Arabs themselves). On the contrary, it was even sung by the great Iranian poets like Firdowsi in his “Shanameh”. Although the Arab conquest was brilliant, Islamization was much slower and even in the 9th century there were many regions that had not embraced the new faith.
The success of the Abbasids legitimized, at least tacitly, the independence ambitions of that nobility that had been displaced and subjected to the Arabs. The first caliphs of the dynasty, however, were able to maintain power and control over Dar-el-Islam, leaving the aspirations of those who had supported them against the Umayyads unsatisfied. Dissatisfied, but not mowed. It was after the death of the great Harun ar-Rachid, who divided the caliphate between his three sons, that a fratricidal war began that gave a new opportunity to the discontented. It was his son Al-Mamun, who had received the eastern territories from his father, who relied on the Khorasanis to form his army and defeat his brothers. It is in this context that the first Iranian Islamic dynasty appears, rewarded by the new caliph. The Tahirid house, founded by Tahir Ibn Hussain, was officially appointed to rule Khurasan in 814; an independent government, but loyal to the caliph, in the hands of a Persian family.
Khurasan was the extreme east of the caliphate; a border land, open to the steppe and subject to frequent Turkish invasions. The solution of Al-Mamun he paid his debt and protected the steppe frontiers. But presumably the Tahirids, who always remained loyal to the caliphate in the face of Shia revolts and other insurrections, were also tempted by the caliphal's visible weakness. Thus, Al-Mamun had to face his first challenge.
The news reached her through his espionage network. Tahir intended to do something unimaginable, so he gave instructions for such an eventuality. In 822, during the Friday sermon , before the faithful who filled the mosque, ibn Hussain pronounced the khutba omitting the name of the caliph in the list of prayers to God.
If the universe could be created by a word, there once was a world that was destroyed by the absence of one. That omission was the unequivocal sign of Tahir's aspirations; aspirations that the caliph could not allow. Instructed by his viziers, the Abbasid agents acted and Tahir died of poison that same night.
After his death, the Tahirids were mysteriously respected by Al-Mamun and continued to rule, always supporting the caliphate. Who knows if among Tahir's killers there weren't members of his own family.
This adherence to Baghdad It provoked discontent among certain elites, discontent that Yakub ibn-Layth, founder of the Safarid dynasty, governor of Sistan (in present-day Afghanistan), used to rebel and advance unstoppably westward. He defeated the Tahirids, but did not cross the Oxus, and this allowed the Samanid star to rise on the other side, shining brighter than ever on Emir Ismail. He was an efficient, cunning and capable ruler, so much so as to outshine "Not God, but the shadow of God on Earth". For this reason, Caliph Al-Mutadid negotiated with the Safarid Amir ibn-Layth (successor of Yakub):the defeat of Ismail in exchange for the annexation of Transoxiana to his dominions and a letter with the appointment of governor in his name. of him.
In 900, Ismail defeated Amir. Crying over his dead horse, she found him after the battle, and following the old custom, he spared her life, betting on winning her as an ally. Terrible was the anger of the caliph; he sent a new letter, this time to Ismail, acknowledging him as ruler in his name and claiming Amir as a prisoner. Ismail had to send him to Baghdad, where he died forgotten in a cell two years later. The caliphal appointments were accompanied by luxurious gifts:dresses, luxury shoes and other objects, but they must have seemed bitter to Ismail, while in gratitude to the caliph.
The Ziyarids they ruled the province of Tabaristan, and the Samanids planned to annex it. The caliph exploited these ambitions. He again resorted to trading his privileges to legitimize rulers:he pitched the Ziyarids against the Samanids. Ismail put his general Ibn Harun at the head of his army, which crushed the Ziyarids and conquered Tabaristan. But again, the caliph sent the messages from him; whispers in the ear of Ibn Harun to betray Ismail in exchange for legitimizing a new dynasty, that of his own name. That betrayal forced the emir to personally go to battle. Again he was victorious and Ibn Harun paid for his betrayal with his life.
Resilience and decline of the Abbasid caliphate
These examples show well the subtle power of the caliphate. When he could not prevent his former territories from becoming independent, he chose to manipulate these new dynasties who aspired to rule, who longed for the sacred legitimacy of the caliphal appointment. In exchange, they executed the strategies dictated by the caliphs who, without officially opposing anyone, divided their rivals to weaken them all and thus maintain the illusion of ruling Dar-el-Islam.
This strategy was ultimately thwarted by the Buyids, who took Baghdad in 945 and placed the caliph under their "protection" rather than eliminate him. They had thus found the solution to the problem:the total separation between earthly power and religious power. Ali ibn Buya of Dailam was proclaimed Emir of Emirs , with a new name, Imad ad-Daula. He forced the caliph to delegate, by official appointment, his political authority to him. The caliphate was thus enclosed in a golden cage, occupied with religious matters, and unable to decide, without the approval of the Buyid emirs, the appointment of new rulers. Only when the Dailami lineage weakened in the mid-11th century did the caliphs dare to treat them with disdain, to unilaterally appoint Togrul Bei of the Seljuks as Second Emir, and to hand over Baghdad to him along with the last of the Buyids, hoping to recover his power. Hope that was soon cut short.
At the head of a crumbling empire, with waning effective power, the caliphs traded on their ability tolegitimize new and thriving local dynasties , supporting them or abandoning them, according to their interests, to keep them busy fighting each other. This was so for almost a century and a half after the death of Haroun ar-Rachid, until the advent of the Buyids in 945, who took the caliphate under their direct supervision and protection, keeping it nominally at the forefront of Islam, but seizing the caliph's power. power of the new appointments, which annulled any capacity for earthly influence.
Bibliography
- RUDHRAWARI, A.S; BIN MUHASIN, H. Continuation of Experience of the nations, Ed. Oxford Basil Blackwell Broad Street, 1921.
- VAMBERI, Arminius, History of Bokhara, ed.Henry S. King&Co. 1873
- AL-TABARI, M. Experience of the nations, various fragments, located on the internet.