Dear WSNers,
Actually, I started my series of postings on the 6th century AD
World System crisis c2 months ago. Hence, by the moment the
situation might be reminiscent of a well-known Greek story when
the Spartiates claimed that they forgot the beginning of the
speech by the moment when the speaker came to its end. Let
alone the new subscribers who must be completely puzzled with
what all this fuss is about. Hence, I have decided to
recapitulate my postings in one text.
FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CRISIS
Daniel Foss and Barry Gills have drawn recently our attention
to the 6th century AD World System crisis and the role of
epidemics in it. I agree with Daniel that the role of epidemics
seems to have been extremely important here, but I am afraid
that this is rather a secondary (notwithstanding all its
importance) factor, though I would look for at least one of its
primary causes not quite in the same direction as Barry does.
Naturally, I would start with South Arabia.
Part 1. SOUTH ARABIAN PUZZLE
I was for many years a bit puzzled by a strangely quick
collapse of the South Arabian Empire of the "Kings of Saba and
dhu:-Rayda:n and Hadramawt and Yamanat and Their Arabs in the
Highland and the Coastal Plain" in the second half of the 6th
century AD.
Yes, at the beginning of this century South Arabia experienced
a series of rather turbulent events: dhu:-Nuwa:s coup, violent
persecutions of the Christians, Ethiopian invasions and
conquest, rebellion (successful) of the Ethiopian soldiers
deployed in Yemen, their leader (Abraha) getting the royal
power &c. Then, however, under Abrahas rule the Empire seems to
have stabilized and achieved reasonable florescence by the end
of the 40s: Abraha managed to organize the successful repairs
of the famous Ma:rib Dam (`Rmn), campaigns to Central and
Northern Arabia &c.
And then in the second half of the century the Empire simply
collapses without any apparent reason. The study of this
collapse is further complicated by the fact that the
catastrophe appears to have been so profound that the written
texts seem to have stopped to be produced in South Arabia -
since the 7th decade of the 6th century (this decade including)
we have no authentic dated South Arabian texts up to the
Islamic Age - which stands in a sharp contrast with a
comparatively well documented first 5 decades of the Century.
The collapse seems to have been so profound that when in the
70s Khusraw [I] Parwe:z reluctantly sent (as a sort of
punishment) a few hundred convicted criminals to conquer Yemen
(considering this such an adventure that it would be wiser not
to risk with the proper troops), they (the convicted criminals)
did manage to conquer it.
Part 2. NORTH ARABIAN PUZZLE
Of course, it is evident that what happened in the 6th
century Yemen was not an isolated event. Already if we look at
Arabia as a whole we shall get a bit different perspective.
To begin with, in the Soviet islamology up to the 1980s
the dominant theory of the origins of Islam connected it with
the crisis and degeneration of the clan-tribal system in the
6th - early 7th century Arabia, the state and class formation.
A bit strange theory, I am afraid, as the very well-known facts
show quite clearly that the actual processes were simply
contrary to the ones described above. The clan-tribal systems
in Pre-Islamic Arabia were strengthening and consolidating,
whereas these were precisely the state structures which
degenerated and disintegrated in the first century before al-
Hijrah. Indeed at the beginning of the 6th century we see a few
kingdoms controlling most of the Arabian territory: the already
mentioned huge Taba:bi`ah Kingdom in Yemen (dominant not only
over the whole Arabian South but also considerable parts of
Central Arabia), the second Kindite Kingdom (the vassal of the
first one) in Central Arabia, the Lakhmid Kingdom (dependent on
the Sassanid Empire) in the Arabian North-West (controlling
also a considerable part of Northern and Central Arabia), and
the Ghassanid Kingdom (dependent on the Byzantine Empire) in
the North-West.
What is more, even in the territories outside the direct
control of the above-mentioned kingdoms we normally find what
should be more correctly described as chiefdoms rather than
true tribes. Their heads often explicitly call themselves
amla:k (sg. malik) "kings".
The situation at the beginning of the next century (say,
at the time of the beginning of Muh*ammads Prophecy) differs
dramatically. ALL the above-mentioned great Arabian kingdoms
had disappeared together with most smaller ones. There was
almost no "kings" left in Arabia; and where there were
chiefdoms a century before now we see true free tribes.
This seems to support Gills rather than Foss. To quote
Daniel Foss again:
"It seems to me that you have presented, in South Arabia,
an excellent example of the social impact of the Plague
of Justinian. This, you recall, broke out in
Constantinople and Antioch in 542. South Arabia was the
only part of the peninsula with a dense peasant
population and significant urban life."
South Arabia was no doubt affected by the Plague
of Justinian (I hope to mention some details in my following
postings). But as we could see very similar processes appear to
have taken place in the nomadic communities of the Arabian
Desert, i.e. in the areas and among the populations which
unlike the Arabian South are one of the best protected from the
spread of the epidemics (one may recall some early Muslim
rulers who would move to the Desert at the time of the
epidemics spending the dangerous time in a sort of bedouin
camp).
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 necessary
literature. It appears that the 6th century AD evidenced the
peak of the seismic activity in the Mediterranean region. Of
course, on the spot of it is not quite self-evident what it has
to do with the 6th century AD Arabian crisis. Of course, the
earthquakes affected in some way the evolution of the 6th -
early 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 huge 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 epidemic disease
bearing animals, and the causal link between the seismic
activity and the epidemics 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 volcanoes 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 Byzantine 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 for 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 disintegrated without
knowing what happened in between. No, it is possible not only
to deduce this disintegration, but also to get to know in some
detail how this disintegration 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 behaviour 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"
misbehaviour 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 disintegrated with
free true tribes on their places.
PART 4. THE ARAB ADAPTATION TO THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM
CRISIS
Actually, what was described at the end of my previous message
may well be described as an important component of this rather
effective adaptation. This was simply that most socio-political
systems of the Arabs (or, for the extreme methodological
individualists, the Arabs themselves - anyhow, it could be well
described in both ways) reacted rather adequately to the socio-
ecological crisis by getting rid of the rigid supra-tribal
political structures (i.e. all those kings, chiefs and their
retainers) which started posing a real threat to their very
survival. Indeed, it is rather difficult to imagine anything
more nasty than the royal messengers coming to you in a "lean
year" (which may well have been preceded by one or two similar
years) and demanding from you to pay royal taxes when you
yourself have nothing to eat and to feed your children.
However, the Arabs did not only destroyed most of those rigid
political supra-communal structures alienating the tribal
sovereignty, but also developed their alternatives - soft
structures not posing any threat to the sovereignty of tribes.
Most noticeable of them seems to be the development of the
system of sacred enclaves, regular pilgrimages to them and
accompanying this regular pilgrim fairs (mawa:sim).
The result was the development of rather effective
intersocietal networks, of which the best known is the Western
Arabian religious-political area (the functioning and evolution
of which, incidentally, left a noticeable trace on the history
of the World System as a whole).
It seems to have been formed as a result of the
expansion of the zones of influence of the respective
sanctuaries, their interweaving into one more or less
integrated religious-political area.
This of course was primarily a religious area, yet it
had evident political dimensions too. It was in the
pilgrimage-fairs (mawa:sim) at the above
mentioned
sanctuaries "that traditional tribal society established
its manifold contacts, the exchange of the religious and
use-value. Furthermore, the various legal problems
(armistice, debts, benefits, payment of blood-money,
bailing out of prisoners, finding of clients, looking for
disappeared persons, questions of heritage, etc.) of the
participants were also settled there. This exchange of
and cults common to several tribes, that is, regular social
contact in general, played no negligible role in the
extension of particular tribal consciousness" (Simon 1989,
90; also see especially Wellhausen 1927, 88-91).
As a result we can observe the formation of a certain political
area more or less correlating with the religious one, an area
where certain norms of not only religious, but also political
culture were shared, where the people would avoid killing
travellers in ashhur h*urum, the holy months (and would
consider the same parts of the year as the holy months),
where the
representatives of various tribes would go to the same places
to settle their conflicts, and would observe the same rules of
political mediation &c. The most remarkable fact is the almost
complete absence of significant intertribal warfare in "the
area of the four sanctuaries" between the time of its final
formation (i.e. h*arb al-Fija:r in the last decade of the 6-
th century AD) and the start of the clashes with the
Muslims. Actually at this time we can observe in the "Area
of Four Sanctuaries" (In the early 7th century AD it covered
not only Western
Arabia, but also considerable parts of the other Arabian
regions)cultural-political entity, which in the absence of
any significant political centralization secured the
existence of a huge cultural network within which a very
intensive (and very productive) exchange of information, energy
and matter took place.
(Being polycentric the Western Arabian area seems to have
had
a considerably heterogeneous structure including a few
interweaving subsystems centred on the respective sanctuaries.
The best known is the hums amphyctiony centred on the Meccan
sanctuary.)
[Incidentally, this type of cultural-political entities
seems to be ignored (without any reasonable justification) by
practically all the "classical" theories of social evolution
(e.g. Claessen, Skalnik 1978; Claessen et al. 1985; Fried 1967;
Hallpike 1986; Lenski 1987; Parsons 1977; Sanderson 1990;
Service 1971 [1962]) and does not seem to fit in all these
essentially unilineal evolutionist schemes, especially in their
most popular "band - tribe - chiefdom - state" version (with
all its modifications). Indeed, all the Western Arabian
polities of the early 7th century appear to have had a rather
"primitive" socio-political structures (which seems to be valid
even with respect to the Meccan community [see e.g. Dostal
1991]) and, according, to such schemes could be only classified
as "autonomous communities", "tribes", at most as "chiefdoms"
(though most Arabian "chiefdoms" seem to have disintegrated in
the second half of the 6th century AD). However, they were
parts of a much wider cultural-political entity whose overall
level of social complexity may well be compared with the one of
an average "early state"; though lacking the political
centralization this entity fails to find its place in the above
mentioned schemes (this appears to be true with respect to any
processes of socio-cultural growth which are not accompanied by
the growing political centralization, or especially going in
hand with the political decentralization).].
In general, the Arabs appear to have developed a rather
effective adaptation to the 6th century World System crisis.
The soft intersocietal networks they created even permitted
them to assume the role of the guardians of the important WS
links in the WS Southern area a role which the Great Powers of
the late 6th - early 7th century were already unable to perform
(the point which Foss and I discussed on the WSN this summer).
In Re: 2/FOSS, GILLS AND THE 6TH CENTURY AD WORLD SYSTEM CR of
Tue, 1 Oct 1996 14:49:31 Barry Gills asks me:
>I presume you are saying that
>the general world economic crisis "levelled" the states and
>chiefdoms
>of the Arabian peninsula in its wake- setting back state
>forms to
>less complex formations?
There is something in this statement that I cannot say and
accept. The states and chiefdoms of the Central Arabia were not
"levelled to less complex formations" in the course of the 6th
century crisis but rather developed into a more complex, subtle
and effective system. I would definitely avoid describing these
processes as anything like "decline", "degeneration" or
"regress".
PART 5. ORIGINS OF ISLAM: SOCIO-ECOLOGICAL AND SOCIO-POLITICAL
CONTEXT
Though some pre-Islamic Arabian tribes managed to find a rather
effective adaptation to the crisis along the lines described in
the previous message, this adaptation does not appear to have
been quite perfect everywhere. After the destruction of the
political structures of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms not
all the Arabian communities entirely succeeded in working out
effective substitutes for them. They seem to have succeeded
e.g. in the Meccan area (and that is why there was no
sufficient space for Muh*ammads Prophetic activity there), but
they do not seem to have been so successful in, say, Yathrib,
where a few tribes could not sort out their relations in the
absence of any effective super-tribal authority.
Such a problem was not new in Arabia. And at the beginning of
the 6th century the answer was quite clear - to send messengers
to the Sassanids, or the Tubba` in Z*afa:r, and to ask them to
appoint a king over those tribes.
However, such a practice appear to have become unacceptable by
the 7th century. The decades of fighting which led to the
destruction of the most of the Arabian kingdoms and chiefdoms
seem to have also led to the elaboration of some definite "anti-
royal" freedom-loving tribal ethos codified in the tribal
historical traditions and poetry - see e.g. al-mu`allaqah of
`Amr b. Kulthu:m, or such lines as "It is not forbidden to us
to kill the kings!" (Al-Mufad*d*aliyya:t. al-Qa:hirah, 1964, N
42, 20), "How many of the most glorious kings we have killed!"
(al-Qa:li:. Kita:b al=ama:li:. Bu:la:q, 1324h, 42). The
reflections of this ethos seem to be present even in al-Qura:n
- see XXVII/34: Al-mulu:k idha: dakhalu: qaryatan afsadu:-ha wa-
ja`alu: a`izzata ahli-ha adhillatan wa-ka-dha:lika yaf`alu:n
("The kings, when they enter a town, they corrupt it; they make
the most glorious of its folk the most base, they do it this
way" - an ad hoc translation of mine"). The second Caliph,
`Umar, would even say: "It was disgusting for the Arabs that
one of them reigned over others... There have never been royal
power over any Arab!" (T*abari:. Annales. I. Lugduni Batavorum,
1879, 2011-2012) - a striking contrast with the situation a
century before when most Arabs were subject (in one, or another
way) to the kings.
Anyway, at the beginning of the 7th century a tribe which would
recognize themselves as subjects of some terrestrial super-
tribal political authority, a "king", risked to lose its
honour. However, this seems not to be applicable to the
authority of another type, the "celestial" one.
Note, e.g. the words of a famous Arab poet al-H*ut*ayah said
during the revolts of the Arab tribes after the death of the
Prophet during the reign of the first Caliph, Abu:-Bakr:
"We obeyed the Gods messenger, when he was among us.
We are the servants of the God, not the servants of Abu: Bakr!
I wonder if he will leave us to Bakr as inheritance."
(Note: "Abu: Bakr" literally means "the father of Bakr").
Hence, the impression is that whereas for many Arab tribes
becoming subjects of some terrestrial king was entirely
unacceptable, was tantamount to an enormous loss of honour, the
recognition of some "celestial" authority (naturally through
its representative) was more or less acceptable.
Another group of facts should be also taken into consideration
here. The pre-Islamic Arabia knew rather well the figure of
"prophet" (ka:hin). An average Arab seems to have known quite
well how a "prophet" looked like, what the prophetic trans was
&c. However, all the pre-7th century Arab prophets (kahanah)
were the ones of the pagan deities. Hence, their authority was
not the best possible ones, as the recognition of their
authority would mean the recognition of the authority of the
respective pagan deity, whereas all the cults of such deities
would be normally connected with a specific tribe, whose
protector this deity was - hence, such a recognition would
imply the recognition of the authority of the respective tribe
as well (as is amply evidenced e.g. by the South Arabian
epigraphy).
Hence, the best possible figure here would be rather some
Monotheist prophet. However, the prophets of the established
Monotheist Faiths would not be entirely suitable as well, as
the recognition of their authority would imply the dependence
on some extra-Arabian powers, or in the case of Judaism would
put in an advantage position the Arab Jewish tribes.
At the meantime there seems to have been a more or less
independent Monotheist Arabian ("Rahmanist") tradition (this
hypothesis is still under attack [Rippin &c], however I do not
think it has been either finally proved, or rejected, and can
be still regarded as a working hypothesis). However, its North
Arabian adherents (h*unafa:) do not appear to have given any
prophets before the 7th century. Yet, in the early 7th century
both traditions (the Arabian tradition of prophecy and the
Arabian Monotheist "Rah*manist" tradition) seem to have merged,
producing what M.Piotrovskiy calls "the Arabian prophetic
movement". It should be taken into consideration that in
addition to Muh*ammad there were at least 5 other Monotheist
prophets (pseudo-prophets, of course, from the Moslem point of
view) in Arabia at the time of Muh*ammad. Beside one Judaic
prophet in Yathrib and the para-Christian prophetess, Saja:h*,
3 other (al-Musaylimah, al-Aswad and T*ulayh*a b. Khuwaylid)
seem to have belonged to the Arabian "Rah*manist" tradition.
Note that both al-Musaylimah and al-Aswad called the God al-
Rah*ma:n, just as was done by Muh*ammad, but also e.g. by the
authors of numerous pre-Islamic Monotheist inscriptions of
South Arabia (incidentally, most of them could be identified
for sure neither as Jewish, nor as Christian).
The Monotheist "Rahmanist" prophets appear to have represented
a super-tribal authority just of the type many Arab tribes were
looking for at this very time. Note, that all the Rahmanist
prophets achieved considerable political success in their areas
(al-Musaylimah in Yama:mah, T*ulayh*a in Central Arabia, al-
Aswad in Yemen, though the political success of Saja:h* in the
Arabian extreme North-West also appears relevant in this
respect) - their success could not be compared with the one of
Muh*ammad, but their political success was considerable,
anyway, and they seem to show, any way, that in the early 7th
century such a success could be achieved by a prophet rather
than a king.
In general, my impression is that the origins of Islam could be
well considered as a rather logical outcome of the Arabian
processes of adaptation to the 6th century crisis.