6/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD
WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS
PART 6. SOME WORLD SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES:
PILGRIMAGE STRUCTURES
>From what has been mentioned in the previous message it must be
rather clear that to my mind the Arab adaptation to the 6th
century AD crisis influenced the World System development
mainly through one of its more or less logical outcomes, the
formation of Islam.
Indeed, it seems possible to show that the Islamic civilization
incorporated many of the important patterns, structures, values
and attitudes eloborated by the Arabs during this adaptation.
One of the most obvious points here is the pilgrimage system of
a typically Arabian type. Of course, the Arabian pilgrimage
practices did not arise in the 6th century AD. They are much
older being attested already in the first Arabian written
documents of the beginning of the 1st millennium BC (e.g. in
the earliest Sabaean epigraphy). However, it was in the 6th
century AD when the most effective intersocietal communication
network based largely on the enhanced pilgrimage practices was
elaborated in Western Arabia, the network which served as a
rather potent substitute for the rigid super-tribal political
structures principally destructed by the Arabs during their
adaptation to the 6th century crisis.
Islam was embraced and spread by the people who grew up within
the setting of the Western Arabian intersocietal network were
the pilgrimage practices played an essential structure-
constituting role. Of course, the pilgrimage (al-h*ajj) was
prescribed by al-Qura:n, but not all such prescriptions and
prohibitions were applied by the Arabs to the same extent (note
e.g. the prohibition of wine [a rather popular drink in pre-
Islamic Arabia] which was not applied quite fully as evidenced
by the huge corpus of the Arab wine poetry [khamriyya:t]).
The pilgrimage prescription was applied quite consistently and
effectively, to a considerable extent because the necessity of
the pilgrimage was self-evident for the Arabs.
For a specialist in pre-Islamic Arabia the proliferation of the
Islamic civilization appears (to a considerable degree) as a
spread (in a rather modified form) of many important ancient
Arabian structures following some patterns which could be
traced in Arabia for about 1500 years before Islam. Perhaps, a
bit surprisingly some of these patterns look more like South
(rather than North) Arabian.
The South Arabian religious-political areas were created
firstly by the political expansion of their South Arabian
states, which was accompanied by the expansion of the
conquerors' religion within the borders of the respective
political entity, and the formation of the religious-political
area, acquiring after that its own existence, relatively
independent from the fate of its kingdom-creator (on evolution
and functioning of an ancient South Arabian cultural-political
area see e.g. two books of mine
- ANCIENT YEMEN. Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995 and
PRE-ISLAMIC YEMEN. Wiesbaden: Otto
Harrassowitz Verlag, 1996).
The Western Arabian religious-political area appears to have
been mainly created by the proliferation of the religious
authority of the respective sanctuaries (which could of course
have some connection with the political activities of their
guardians, however this political activity was entirely
different from the mainly violent expansion of the South
Arabian states).
The expansion of the religious authority of the sanctuaries led
to the spread of the correlating political culture. Hence,
in the process of the formation of the South Arabian religious
political areas "the politics went in front of religion",
whereas in Western Arabia the religion appears to have "gone in
front of the politics".
Surprisingly, we can observe the South Arabian pattern with
respect to the evolution of the religious-political area with
the centre in Western Arabia in the Islamic Age. This religious
political area is just what is usually called the
"Islamic Civilization". Indeed, its evolution presents just the
familiar South Arabian scheme of the development of a
religious political area: the political (mainly military)
expansion creates an "empire" - the religion of conquerors
spreads within this Empire - after the disintegration of the
Empire religious political area remains and expands beyond
its borders; the population of the area shares common
religious norms and common norms of political culture; a
very important role in the integration of the religious-
political area is played by the pilgrimage to the central
sanctuary.
Anyhow, the establishement of the Islamic Pilgrimage system had
imporatant consequences for the World System evolution.
It should be taken into consideration that the pre-Islamic West
Arabian pilgrimage system (on the basis of which the Islamic
one was formed) was very well adapted to serve as an
integrating mechanism for an intersocietal communication
network lacking the political unity. It might not be a mere
coincidence that the Islamic one turned out to have rather
similar properties. Of course, for the first 150 years of Islam
the Moslem pilgrimage area was more or less identical with the
territory controlled by the united Islamic polity. However,
after the disintegration of the latter, this system turned out
to work precisely as its pre-Islamic Arabian counterparts,
serving as an important integrating mechanism for an
intersocietal communication network not united politically.
Hence, one might suppose that one of the World System
consequences of the Arab adaptation to the 6th century crisis
was the formation of an important mechanism securing the
integration of a huge intersocietal network covering some most
important central areas of the WS (and many peripheral areas as
well), a mechanism which secured the unity of some significant
patterns, values and practices throughout all this territory,
guaranteeing the annual meeting of the representatives of all
the societies covered by the respective network in one place,
the exchange of information between them, the constant re-
integration of the network &c &c
Again, I have not managed to finish the series of my messages
today, having spelled out only one of the World System
consequences I wanted to discuss. I have to speak about at
least one other next time (and to finish my series with this).
Yours,
(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