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Unite and conquer
Published 12 July 2007
The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In
Hugh Kennedy Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 464pp, £25
It is the great mystery of history. How did a bunch of Bedouins manage to conquer half the world in little over 50 years? When the Prophet Muhammad died in 632, Arabic was the language of tribesmen living in Arabia and the desert margins of Syria and Iraq. By 750, it was the language of administration and sophistication in Iraq, Egypt, Iran, North Africa and as far afield as Spain and Pakistan. Just how was this astonishing feat accomplished?
The only way to resolve this mystery is to sift critically through Muslim histories of the conquests - for there are no other primary sources. These histories began as the oral accounts of eyewitnesses, which were eventually written down largely in the form of anecdotes. It was only when paper arrived in the ninth century, and history became a profession, that these accounts were first critically sifted and edited. As such, Muslim histories of their conquests tend to be multi-layered compendiums of a number of different authors, even if they carry a single byline. All this has led western historians to look at Islamic sources with suspicion; some have rejected them totally.
But Hugh Kennedy takes a different approach. He argues that these histories should be accepted not as totally accurate accounts of what happened, but as seventh- and eighth-century social memory. They are the foundation myth of Muslim societies. They explain how Islam was spread, and justify the defeat and replacement of earlier empires and kingdoms. Kennedy relies heavily on two primary sources in particular: History of the Prophets and Kings by al-Tabari and The Conquests of the Lands by al-Baladhuri.
The end product is a swashbuckling narrative of daring and highly motivated men moving with great velocity across harsh and inhospitable land to subdue empires and kingdoms. But it is also a tale of how the Muslims were able to maintain their own identity and culture and to create an environment that encouraged many of the conquered people to embrace Islam. Furthermore, it is an account of how memory is formed, cherished and used to establish a community.
There was nothing very special about the Muslim armies. They had no superior weapons or technological advantage over their enemies. The soldiers were mostly Bedouins, who learned to ride, fence and use a bow from an early age, and brought their own weapons to the army. They were used to travelling hard and sleeping rough. The Bedouin were led by an urban elite with experience of trade, travel and the politics of negotiation. Their main virtue was self-control. This rural-urban partnership, Kennedy asserts, was the key to the success of the early Arab conquests. The armies tended to be small, between 6,000 and 12,000, never exceeding 20,000, men, which meant they could move swiftly. Their other assets were good leadership, total dedication to their cause and high morale.
The Muslim armies did have a particular characteristic. Even though they defined their identity in terms of Islam, rather than their Arabness, they were deeply imbued with tribalism. Tribes, rather than empires or kingdoms, were the main political force in the desert. Islam replaced the tribe with the notion of "ummah", the community of believers. Theoretically, the protection and security previously provided by the tribe was now offered by the ummah. But in reality, Kennedy argues, dismantling tribal loyalties proved difficult; after all, they had served the Arabs so well for so long. Thus, in the early years of the conquest, Muslim armies fought in tribal groups and gathered around their tribal banners. And when, after the conquests, they settled in conquered cities such as Basra and Kufa, they often located themselves in tribal groupings. So, paradoxically, for Islam the conquests reinforced tribal loyalties and rivalries rather than diminishing them.
The process of conquest came in a number of different forms. At one end of the spectrum was the standard violent sacking and pillaging of a city, such as Istakhr in Fars and Paykland in Transoxiana. While Muslim armies were not given to rape, or killing women and children, or destroying flora and fauna, they were not averse to pillaging. However, the booty had to be distributed transparently, fairly and justly among all the participants.
On the whole, though, the conquests were a more peaceful affair. The people of a town or a country under siege would agree on the imposition of terms, which normally involved a tax and a promise not to aid the enemies of Muslims. At the other end of the spectrum, conquests involved nothing more than a letter asking the inhabitants of a city to accept Muslim protection. The mountainous regions of Iran, North Africa and Spain were "conquered", Kennedy tells us, without a single Arab ever visiting them.
The Muslim conquests are not amazing simply for the speed with which they happened. Even more remarkable, argues Kennedy, is the permanence of the effect they had on the language, culture and religion of the conquered people. The Muslim conquerors did not put pressure on those they conquered to convert to Islam. On the whole, they were happy to let the subject people carry on with their lives. They settled among them, marrying freely and treating all with equality and fairness. "Conversion to Islam was a gradual, almost entirely peaceful result of the fact that more and more people wanted to identify with and participate in the dominant culture of their time," writes Kennedy.
By treating his sources with the critical respect that they deserve, the author manages to extract dazzling encounters, dramatic incidents and heart-racing action. The Great Arab Conquests is history at its most vivid and enthralling. Kennedy puts a sophisticated analysis of social process in place of the usually hoary old stereotypes. It is a truly magnificent achievement.
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