Fire Worshippers

Seizing on what seemed to be a unique opportunity to aggrandize his person and recover usurped “Arabistan” for its “Arab Nation", Iraq’s Ṣaddām Ḥusayn attacked Iran back in September 1980, thus inaugurating an 8-year-long conflict that was to claim hundreds of thousands of lives and untold billions of dollars with disastrous geopolitical consequences destined to haunt the hapless inhabitants of the Persian Gulf for generations.

Saddam’s gamble was predicated on two assumptions: the first was that the US would not object to his designs, and the second that Iran, an international outcast weakened by revolutionary purges and civil strife, would be a pushover. It was to be “Saddam’s Qādisīyyā,” as the Iraqi strongman aimed to duplicate the exploit of Saʿd ibn abi Qaqqāṣ.

Ḥusayn was right on the money as far as the US reaction was concerned. Indeed, not only did the US indulge the ambitions of the Iraqi leader, but the Reagan administration also, before long, extended covert as well as overt support to the embattled Iraqis. Ḥusayn’s second assumption, however, proved utterly unfounded as Iran—its isolation and internal turmoil notwithstanding—proved far more resilient than expected and would have beaten Iraq absent outside intervention. The latter possibility should have been expected—or at least considered—given Iran’s advantage in geography and demography; those factors eluded Mr. Ḥusayn at the time.

Religion has been used and abused in warfare from time immemorial, including in the Iraq-Iran War of 1980-1988. This “first” Persian Gulf War took place during my formative youth when my knowledge of differences and similarities between the numerous Islamic sects was minimal to nonexistent. Part of the earliest “religious education” I received was via Jordanian TV, so let this post acknowledge my indebtedness and serve as a tribute to Amman's media.

The plucky little Jordanian king threw his lot with Ṣaddām Ḥusayn and instructed his obsequious media to relay the Iraqi army's "victories" against the "Persians” on a daily basis. The Jordanian TV transmitted what passed for news, emphasizing the heroic deeds of the guardians of the “eastern gate of the Arab Nation.” Statistics were provided regularly, of course: “the Persian enemy lost 100 slain soldiers, while the Iraqi army lost 3 martyrs.”

Jordanian TV outdid itself by presenting a TV series entitled “Hārūn ar-Rašīd.” The legendary Abbasid despot would certainly provide a fascinating subject for any historian or movie maker, but this series focused on one particular aspect of Hārūn’s reign: his relationship with the fabulously rich Barmakids, Yaḥīā, al-Faḍl, and Jaʿfar.

The Barmakids were a wealthy Persian family that grew influential serving the early Abbasids. H̱ālid begat Yaḥīā, who begat al-Faḍl and Jaʿfar, the most illustrious of the lot. His mother nursed Hārūn, whom he served as vizier for many years, enriching himself and his ilk in the process. Eventually Hārūn quarreled with the Barmakids, seized their property, jailed some of them, and inflicted a savage death on Jaʿfar, his friend and confidant of many years. Jaʿfar was beheaded, and his corpse was split in half; his ghastly remains were publicly displayed in different parts of Baghdad.

Explanations vary as to what motivated Hārūn’s barbarous treatment of his loyal advisers. Some suggested an affair between Jaʿfar and Hārūn’s sister, al-ʿAbbāsā, while others simply justified the murder on the ground that the Barmakids were becoming too powerful and Hārūn preempted a coup that would have claimed his throne, possibly his life. A more outlandish interpretation was proffered by the history books of the Syrian Arab Republic, namely that there was a far-reaching Persian conspiracy against the Arabs and the Abbasids (in reality the Abbasid empire was practically Persian from its inception). But back to the Jordanian TV, for its narrative was the most preposterous of them all.

Not only did the TV version emphasize the Arab-Persian divide, but it also went a step further by adding a religious dimension. The Barmakids were not Muslims at all. They were Majūs and fire worshippers. They professed loyalty to Hārūn during the day and worshipped fire at night in their cave-like dwellings. Forget about Jaʿfar of the Arabian Nights and his soirées of drunkenness with his Hārūn, the Commander of the Faithful; forget the fact that it was Persian men and Persian arms that brought the Abbasids to power to begin with and maintained them on their throne for generations.

The ugly sectarian narrative lives on. Recently the “fire-worshipping Majūs Persians” earned another denigrating epithet, “Safavids.” The latter description applies more or less to the Šīʿā, perhaps more so to the Twelvers, and implies that they are heretics, wicked, and treacherous. They do not necessarily “worship fire,” but they are no less wretched and would surely earn hellfire sooner or later.

Who were the Majūs? Zoroastrianism is an old dualistic Iranian religion the adherents of which indeed worshipped in fire temples—fire serving as a symbol—and was no less developed than Abrahamic religions. As for the Safavids, they were an Iranian dynasty that ruled for 200+ years, starting with Shah Ismāʿīl in the early 16th century until they were deposed by Nādir Shah in the 18th.

Iran’s history stretches for thousands of years, and its culture is as proud as any. The cities of Persepolis, Susa, Tehran, Tabriz, and Shiraz are or were no less glorious than Memphis, Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus, and Baghdad. To be a Zoroastrian (some survive as Parsees) is no vice, and Safavid heritage should be a subject of pride, as would testify the treasures of art and architecture still on display in Isfahan. As for Šīʿā Islam, it is no more or less legitimate than Sunni Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. It is about time we put all those antiquated disputes to rest.

The Fall of Andalusia

January 25, 750 C.E. The fate of the Umayyad Dynasty was sealed on the banks of the Great Zāb as the victorious Abbasids chased survivors of the hitherto invincible rulers of Damascus, exterminating them to a man but for one notable exception.

ʿAbdel-Raḥmān I (ad-Dāẖil, or Ṣaqr Qurayš) managed to escape the massacre. He ended up in the Iberian Peninsula in 755 C.E., where he proceeded to conquer a kingdom for himself and his descendants, thereby duplicating—and surpassing—the exploits of the Barcids all the way back in the 3rd century B.C.E.

Whatever their shortcomings, the Umayyads were Syrians, loved Syria, and promoted its welfare. They ruled an immense empire and were constantly combating foreign foes while suppressing "domestic" rebellions in Ḥiǧāz, Iraq, H̱urāsān, and elsewhere. They constructed the Great Mosque of Damascus and the beautiful Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, among other architectural marvels. Syria has never forgotten its caliphate and has unsurprisingly cherished the distant Spanish branch of its beloved rulers and, by extension, the entire Eldorado that was Andalusia. The Arab conquerors of Spain would have their names bestowed on Syrian schools and Damascene quarters; even the national Tobacco Company would market brands named after Alhambra and Granada.

Reality is, however, less romantic. Whatever was the origin of those “Arab Conquistadors,” it was a matter of time before they would acquire the identity of their adopted land. It took me less than eight years from my arrival to the USA in 1985 to become a US citizen in word as well as in deed, whereas my kids are literally Native Americans. One could, of course, argue that the situation was dramatically different in the Dark Ages, as the concept of “nation” was nonexistent, but I would nevertheless maintain that the accumulation of years and miles is bound to have the ultimate say on creating a new identity, all the more so in an age when the means of communication were precarious and travel was downright dangerous. Conclusion? The “Arabs” of Spain were as Spaniards as anyone else, if not in the first generation, then certainly in the numerous generations that spanned hundreds of years since the original conquest; alas, neither East nor West seems to have seriously entertained what should be as elementary as ABC.

So what should we call those 8th-century newcomers to Spain? Were they Syrians? The answer would most certainly be no, though to be sure some of them were. They were not Arabs either, for quite a few of them, including Ṭāriq ibn Zīād, were Berbers from North Africa. They were not “Saracens,” since many came from “al-Maġrib.” Closer to reality would be that they were Muslims, but one should keep in mind that when Catholicism reclaimed Spain, its adherents evicted (or exterminated)—in addition to Iberian Muslims—not only the Jews but also the Moriscos (that is, the Spanish Muslims who converted to Christianity in the vain hope of earning toleration). Very well, let’s call them—by default—the way Catholic Spain did: the Moors, a term loosely—and contemptuously—employed to describe “others” who looked darker, adopted (or were suspected to adopt) a different faith, and whose ancestors came from “somewhere else in the Southeast.”

History as taught in modern Syrian schools maintains that the Arabs presence in Andalusia lasted almost eight centuries, starting when Ṭāriq crossed Gibraltar in 711 C.E. and ending with the fall of Granada in 1492. While there is some truth in this narrative, it is so imprecise as to be misleading.

For Andalusia, for all practical purposes, did not fall towards the end of the 15th century, but rather in the middle of the 13th. Abu al-Baqāʿ ar-Randī, whose beautiful ode poignantly mourned the fall of his beloved Utopia, died in 1285, more than 200 years before the fall of Granada. The protracted conflict that pitted Europeans versus Moors began shortly after Ṭāriq brought the Visigothic Kingdom to an end and his successors raided Southern Gaul before they were repulsed at Poitiers by Charles Martel. Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, continued the struggle, and it seems neither he nor the Abbasid Hārūn ar-Rašīd had scruples about joining efforts against their common Umayyad enemy in Spain, their religious differences notwithstanding.

For more than two centuries, the Moorish presence in Spain was not just secure but prosperous and bountiful. The Umayyad Caliphate rivaled its Abbasid and Fatimid counterparts in wealth and prestige, while the European North languished in the Dark Ages throughout the 9th and 10th centuries. The end of the beginning was when the Córdoba Umayyads followed their Damascene ancestors into oblivion early in the 11th century to be replaced by the “Mulūk aṭ-Ṭawāʾf,” petty principalities warring among themselves and often enlisting the aid of their “Spanish” enemies against each other. To be sure, the Moorish cities hosted a brilliant civilization despite their political decline, bound sooner or later to translate into economic decline even were we to exclude outside predators.

Toledo fell in 1085, never to be recovered. The Andalusian Moors reacted by calling on their North African brethren, who mounted a credible counterattack, first under the Almoravids (who defeated Alfonso VI) and secondly under the Almohads (followers of Ibn Tumart). The struggle lasted about 150 years before the Moors were decisively defeated in 1212 at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. One great city after another fell to the Reconquista: Córdoba in 1236, Seville in 1248, etc. By 1252 only the Kingdom of Granada remained, protected by its mountainous terrain and a heavy tribute paid by its king to his Castilian overlord. Granada went so far as to help Castile conquer Seville along with other Moorish strongholds.

Granada was thus capable of enjoying a long Indian summer during which Moorish culture and architecture flowered as seldom before. Refugees from the Spanish Reconquista flocked into the tiny kingdom that thrived on the trade of the Western Mediterranean, at least till the geographic discoveries of the 15th century started to bypass that sea altogether. Insulated from reality in their gardens and palaces, the hedonistic Naṣrid rulers seemed to have forgotten that Andalusia was virtually no more. To them, ar-Randī was a distant memory, if they remembered him at all. 

Old habits die hard. Muhammad XII “Boabdil,” the last king of Granada, was incapable of comprehending—let alone facing—the imminent danger that the united Kingdoms of Aragon and Castile represented. The Naṣrids continued the Moorish tradition of internecine fighting inaugurated in the eleventh century by “Mulūk aṭ-Ṭawāʾf,” including a Faustian deal every now and then, with their covetous Northern neighbors. Granada finally succumbed to the inevitable and surrendered to the triumphant Crusaders on January 2nd, 1492. The curtain descended on this tragedy with the immortal words of Boabdil’s mother, reproaching him for weeping like a woman for a lost kingdom he could not defend as a man.

Post-mortem analysis is easy. Perhaps Andalusia was bound to fall in a fanatical age when victors offered no quarter. It also is true that the “Spaniards” quarreled among each other just as Muslims did and were no less ready to call on outside help when push came to shove. The fall of Constantinople—first to the Crusaders in 1204 and secondly to the Ottomans in 1453—clearly illustrates the universality of this phenomenon, namely seeking the help of your natural enemies for the sake of temporary gains at the expense of your kinsfolk. 

Corrupted from within and devoured from without, Andalusia imploded by the middle of the 13th century, and its surviving remnant finally crumbled in 1492. Let’s keep beloved Syria in our thoughts.