3/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS
Now I have to explain my understanding of one of the main deep
causes of the 6th century AD World System crisis mentioned
neither by Foss (incidentally, I am really sorry he is leaving
us now) nor by Gills - I am afraid Barry Gills will be a bit
disappointed as he seems to be looking not quite in the same
direction (though the model he implies seems to be relevant
with respect to some other crises and at least partly relevant
for the 6th century crisis too).
In any case there seems to be a sort of consensus on the point
that the main causes of the Arabian 6th cent. crisis should be
looked for outside Arabia - and I quite agree with this.
PART 3. SOME NEGLECTED CAUSES OF THE CRISIS
The answer to the Arabian puzzle which I would like to discuss
now was offered to me by one of the leading Russian specialists
in the environmental history, Dr. Dmitriy Prusakov (Oriental
Institute, Moscow) who also supplied me with all the necassary
literature. It appears that the 6th century AD evidenced the
peak of the seismic activity in the Mediterranian region. Of
course, on the spot of it it is not quite self-evident what it
has to do with the 6th century AD Arabian crisis. Of course,
the earthquackes affected in some way the evolution of the 6th
- erly 7th cent. AD Arabian societies, leaving even some trace
in al-Qura:n - cf. e.g. the beginning of the famous Earthquake
su:rah (Idha: zulzilati l-ard*u zilza:la-ha: wa-rafa`ati l-
ard*u athqa:la-ha wa-qa:la l-insa:nu ma: la-ha When the earth
is shaken with an earthquake, and the earth lifts its loads,
and the man asks: `What has happened to it? &c). Stookey and
Gryaznevich have already proposed to connect the final decline
of the pre-Islamic South Arabian civilization with the seismic
activity - indeed it may well have produced the final deadly
blow for the most ancient civilization centres of the edges of
the internal Yemeni desert, which were already on the brink of
final collapse by the 6th century AD and which depended heavily
on relatively large-scale irrigation structures that could be
significantly affected by the earthquakes. But this does not
seem to be the case with the kingdoms and chiefdoms of the
Arabian North which could not be apparently affected by the
earthquakes to a critical extent. Thus, the most significant
outcome of the seismic activity seems to be volcano eruptions
rather than earthquakes. Again, it is not self-evident how,
say, the volcano eruptions on the Lipar Islands near Italy
could affect the evolution of the Arabian communities. Again,
what is significant here is not the direct effect - though some
of the South Arabian sites were destroyed just in this way
(though not necessarily in the 6th century). What is really
important is the ashes which are thrown to the atmosphere in
great quantities during such eruptions. And this could affect
significantly really hude areas. E.g. volcanic dust would halt
some of the sun rays and accumulate the humidity, causing
various disbalances in the ecological systems, which could
result in the outbursts of the numbers of the epedemic disease
bearing animals, and the causal link between the seismic
activity and the epidimics was noticed long ago.
However, the most significant factor seems to be the
accumulation of the atmosphere humidity by the volcanic dust
causing severe draughts in the parts of the world rather
distant from the active volcanos themselves - and there are
documented cases when, say, the volcano eruptions on the Lipar
Islands near Italy caused severe draught in Mesopotamia
(naturally, North Arabia could not have been affected in such
cases either).
Hence, the peak of the seismic activity in the Mediterranean
region produced such an array of primary, secondary, and
tertiary factors (earthquakes and volcano eruptions themselves,
epidemics, draughts, barbarian invasions caused by the socio-
ecological crises on the barbarian peripheries) which could
pose a deadly threat for the survival of most of affected
civilizations of the time. I myself have come to terms with the
sudden death of the 1500 year old pre-Islamic South Arabian
civilization when I realized that this happened simultaneously
with the severe crisis in the Byzantian Empire which put it on
the brink of an almost complete collapse (the early 7th - early
6th century comparison would produce for Byzantine results
rather similar to the ones obtained above for the Arabian North
and South in any case). And what was an almost deadly blow for
strong Byzantine appeared to have been just a deadly blow for
the weaker South Arabian civilization as well as to the most
Arabian kingdoms.
This is not a mere speculation, especially fot the Arabian
North. Indeed, as was mentioned above the second half of the
6th century history of South Arabia is documented very badly
(especially, in comparison with the earlier periods). But this
is not true for the Arabian North. It is not that by the early
7th - early 6th century comparison we can deduce that most
North and Central Arabian kingdoms has desintegrated without
knowing what happened in between. No, it is possible not only
to deduce this desintegration, but also to get to know in some
detail how this desintegration proceeded. Indeed, we have at
our disposal e.g. the wonderful pre-Islamic Arab historical
tradition, the so called Ayya:m al-`Arab The Days of the
Arabs. And one of the typical Days can be rendered as
follows: there was some Arabian strongman (a head of a kingdom,
or a chiefdom) who behaved sometimes in a bad and arrogant
manner. Such a behavior could consist of, say, shooting an
arrow (just for fun) at a she-camel of some poor women
(incidentally, an action which once precipitated 40 year long
violent hostilities), but, very noticeably, it could be
manifested in attempts to collect taxes in a lean year
(usually caused by a draught). A typical reaction to royal
misbehavior would be that some tough bedouin guys would go to
such a chief and just kill him, which would provoke the revenge
attempts on the part of the murdered chiefs relatives, thus
producing one more Arab Day which could last for years filled
with series of violent actions on both sides. However, at the
end we find original chiefdoms or kingdoms desintegrated with
free true tribes on their places.
A few words should be added with respect to the very
interesting adaptation of the Arabs to the 6th century AD socio-
ecological crisis which had very important consequences for the
evolution of the World System as a whole. I hope to do this in
my next posting.
(Dr) Andrey Korotayev, Senior Research Fellow
Oriental Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences
(Sector of Theoretical Problems of Oriental History)
12 Rozhdesrvenka, Moscow 103753, RUSSIA
Fax: (7) (095) 975 2396; E-MAIL: andrei@rsuh.ru