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Arabia: THE REGION: History and cultural development: ARABIA SINCE THE 7TH CENTURY: The Umayyad and 'Abbasid periods.

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Arabia

The Umayyad and 'Abbasid periods.

Regional centres.

Once Mu'awiyah and the Umayyads had seized overlordship of the far-flung Islamic empire, which they ruled from Damascus, the Holy Cities remained only the spiritual capitals of Islam. The Umayyad caliphs appointed governors over the three crucial areas of the Hejaz, Yemen, and Oman; but in Iraq occasional powerful governors managed to control the Persian Gulf provinces, the gulf being an important maritime trade route, especially under the 'Abbasids. Occasionally Bahrain, Al-Hasa, and Najd also became regional centres of power within Arabia.

The brief unity that Islam had imposed on the Arabian Peninsula was irrevocably broken as the main Islamic sects took shape--the "orthodox" Sunnites and the "legitimist" Shi'ites (who were distinguished from the Sunnites principally by their tenet that the imam of the Muslim community must be descended from 'Ali by Muhammad's daughter Fatimah).

Umayyad forces defeated a Quraysh pretender, 'Abd Allah ibn az-Zubayr, who had been proclaimed caliph in the Hejaz. Medina was captured; Mecca was besieged, the haram bombarded, and the Ka'bah set on fire (the sacred Black Stone--an object of veneration probably appropriated from pre-Islamic religion--was split in three places). The harsh Umayyad general al-Hajjaj captured the city, and the pretender perished. The violation of the sacred enclaves by troops, including Arab Christians, was an act of sacrilege, but it broke any power remaining with the tribal "supporters" in Medina. The Prophet's original simple mosque in Medina, already enlarged by the early caliphs, was rebuilt by the Umayyad al-Walid (it has been much altered and restored since). The Umayyads spent lavishly on the Holy Cities and developed Hejaz irrigation.

The Umayyads collapsed before the 'Abbasids in 750, a fall to which rivalry between the tribes, aligned as northern and southern Arabs, contributed materially. The 'Abbasids claimed adherence of the Legitimists, since their ancestor, the Prophet's uncle, was of the Hashimite house. The 'Abbasids maintained a policy of strict adherence to religious observance, and they too devoted large sums to supporting and embellishing the Holy Cities, to which they sent annually a pilgrim caravan. Zubaydah, wife of the caliph Harun ar-Rashid, celebrated for her public works, is said to have ordered the construction of the qanat, a tunneled conduit that took water to Mecca. The threat of insurrection by Legitimist pretenders of the 'Alid branch of the Hashimite house--who denied 'Abbasid claims to the caliphate as they had with the Umayyads--was a constant danger to the 'Abbasid caliphs. The 'Alid family developed both Sunnite and Shi'ite branches, but the latter split into a multiplicity of sects, of which the most important are the "Twelvers" (Ithna 'Ashariyah, or Imamis), who recognized 12 imams, and the Isma'ilite "Seveners" (Isma'iliyah, or Isma'ilis, for Imam Isma'il ibn Ja'far), who acknowledged only seven.

Yemen.

To quell a rising in Yemen, the 'Abbasid caliph al-Ma`mun dispatched Ibn Ziyad, who refounded in 820 the southern city of Zabid and became overlord of Yemen, Najran, and Hadhramaut. About a century later, the Najahids--Ethiopian slaves or local Afro-Asians--supplanted the Ziyadids in Zabid; however, though independent, neither dynasty renounced vague 'Abbasid suzerainty. The Banu Ya'fur, lords north of San'a`, expelled the Ziyadid governor and ruled independently from 861 to 997. Najahid rule ended when 'Ali ibn Mahdi captured Zabid in 1159.

The Qarmatians.

A more serious loss to 'Abbasid power in Arabia was occasioned by the appearance of Isma'ilite propaganda in Yemen about 880, in eastern Arabia about 899, and even briefly in Oman. From Yemen, Isma'ilis reached North Africa, where the Fatimid movement arose and conquered Egypt and for a time seriously threatened the 'Abbasids in Baghdad. The Qarmatians (Qaramitah), an extremist offshoot of the Isma'ilis, founded a state in Al- Hasa, in northeastern Arabia. They set out to subvert Sunnite Islam. They were alleged to oppose many of the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, and they encouraged social equality for nomads, townspeople, and peasants. In 930 the Persian Gulf Qarmatians plundered Mecca, carrying off the Black Stone to Al-Hasa; they later returned it under Fatimid pressure. The Qarmatians were overthrown in 1077-78 by local Sunnite tribes, but Qarmatian influence persisted in Bahrain. From the 13th century, Twelver, or Imami, Shi'ism spread in Al-Hasa and Bahrain, while political power was held by the Shi'ite Sevener Jarwanid dynasty (1305 to about 1450).

In 1037 'Ali ibn Muhammad as-Sulayhi of Yemen proclaimed the Fatimid caliph al-Mustansir but set up a dynasty in San'a`. The Sulayhid dynasty ruled most of upper Yemen, warred with the pro-'Abbasid Najahids, and gained control of Aden.

Oman.

In the last decades of the 7th century the Ibadites (Ibadiyah), regarded as a moderate Kharijite sect, conquered southern Arabia, established a Kindite imam in Hadhramaut, occupied San'a`, and took Mecca and Medina, before the Umayyads drove them back to Hadhramaut. Oman had early become Kharijite; the first Ibadite imam, al- Julanda ibn Mas'ud, was elected at about the beginning of the 'Abbasid caliphate. After the Ibadite invasion of southern Arabia in 893, Oman wavered between independence and subjection to the 'Abbasids and their Buyid or Seljuq supporters. By the 12th century the Seljuq hold had become rather precarious and local imams existed. During periods when the Indian trade used the Persian Gulf, Omani ports flourished; however, revenues diminished wherever trade was switched to the Red Sea. From the mid-12th century until 1406 the Nabhanid dynasty controlled the interior of Oman, but Turkic Oguz (Ghuzz), Persians, and others variously possessed the coastal flank of the mountains.

The Zaydis and 'Alawis.

In Yemen lasting movements were being shaped by the close of the 9th century; the imam al-Hadi, a theocratic arbiter-ruler of traditional type, founded the 'Alid Zaydi dynasty in Sa'dah of northern Yemen. About the mid-12th century a Zaydi imam extended his rule northward to Khaybar and Yanbu' (Yenbo) and southward to Zabid.

In the mid-10th century a refugee from disturbances in Iraq, Ahmad ibn 'Isa al-Muhajir, arrived in Hadhramaut, then under Ibadite domination, and founded the 'Alawite ( 'Alawi) Sayyid house, which was instrumental in spreading the Shafi'ite (Shafi'i) school of Islamic law to India, Indonesia, and East Africa.

The Ayyubids and Rasulids.

The Ayyubids of Egypt, when they invaded Yemen in 1173, found it parceled out among several dynasties. Ayyubid objectives were probably part political, to find themselves a haven and destroy the Isma'ilites, and part economic, to control the India trade route. They remained in power until about 1229, generally controlling Aden, Hadhramaut, the Tihamah, and the districts south of San'a`. They introduced an administrative centralization apparently adapted from Syro-Egyptian organization.

With the Ayyubids arrived the emir 'Ali ibn Rasul, probably of Oguz origin, whose descendants, at first Ayyubid governors, grasped independence (c. 1229). The Rasulid period is the most brilliant era of Islamic history in Yemen. These monarchs embellished their capital, Ta'izz, and other cities with fine buildings; several kings had a literary bent and, besides belles lettres, wrote treatises of some originality on various subjects. A fiscal survey still surviving provides an account of the trade through Ash-Shihr, Aden, and the Tihamah ports, with budgets for maintaining castles, troops, and hostages kept as surety of good tribal conduct. Aden served as an important trade centre in a flourishing period of Arab and Jewish commercial enterprise. The Rasulids kept the southern coast under loose control up to Dhofar, even holding Hadhramaut to some extent and maintaining a squadron against pirates.

The sharifs of the Holy Cities.

At Mecca in the mid-10th century commenced the 1,000-year ascendancy of the 'Alid sharifian families. Mecca now became capital of the Hejaz, replacing Medina, the centre from which it had been ruled since the Prophet's days. The sharifs, though at times subject to such foreign overlords as the rulers of Egypt and of other parts of Arabia, exercised virtual independence. Throughout the 'Abbasid-Fatimid struggle, however, the sharifs took the opportunist line of supporting the side in ascendancy. When the Ayyubid Saladin, after deposing the Fatimids in 1171, brought back orthodoxy, the sharifs again recognized the 'Abbasids and Ayyubids, and from being Zaydis turned Sunnite Shafi'i.

In 1181 the French crusader knight Reynaud de Châtillon raided Arabia. He intended to attack Medina but, switching his plan, raided in 1182 the Red Sea ports as far south as Bab El-Mandeb; Saladin destroyed Reynaud's vessels and so ended the threat to Mecca.

By the early 13th century the sharifs had conquered the Hejaz, extending their power southward to Hali; but, when they sought support from Egypt, Syria, or Yemen, the Rasulids managed temporarily to dispute the overlordship of Mecca with the Egyptians.

After Baghdad fell to the Mongols in 1258, the pilgrim caravan from Iraq lost all political significance for the Hejaz. As Iraq declined, Egyptian influence increased and the sharifs became steadily more dependent on the Mamluks of Egypt.

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