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 elaborated 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 establishment of the Islamic Pilgrimage system had
important 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
PART 7. SOME WORLD SYSTEM CONSEQUENCES:
TRIBAL STRUCTURES
As has been already mentioned above Arabs elaborated a rather
effective adaptation to the 6th century crisis to a
considerable extent through the massive transformation of their
state and chiefdom structures into the tribal ones. This could
hardly be regarded as a "degeneration" because the newly
elaborated tribal structures turned out to be able to serve the
functional needs of rather complex stratified societies.
With the Islamic conquests these tribal structures and
tribal ethos (al-qabaliyyah) appear to have proliferated
through almost all of the territory of the new Islamic state
(which occupied, incidentally, most of the central area of the
World System).
Of course, it should be stressed that there is not so much of
al-qabaliyyah in Islam itself. Yet it seems necessary to take
into account the following moments.
To start with within the Russian Islamic Studies the Islamic
civilization was traditionally designated as the "Arab-Moslem"
one (which naturally often met strong objections on the part of
our Moslem colleagues from the former Soviet Central Asia).
However, I would stress that this designation is rather helpful
in some respects. The fact is that this civilization
(especially within the territory of the first Islamic Empire)
seems to contain important Arab non-Islamic elements (and
cannot be understood without taking them into account). And al-
qabaliyyah appears to be one of them.
It is important to mention that the Arabs were the dominant
ethnos within the Islamic Empire at least till the Abbasid
revolution in the middle of the 8th century AD; and the Arab
culture as a whole (including its non-Islamic components, like
al-qabaliyyah) acquired a rather high prestige and proliferated
within the borders of the Empire.
The proliferation of the tribal structures and tribal ethos
seems to have had both positive and negative consequences.
On the one hand, in the areas where most of the population
acquired the tribal organization it often permitted the
existence of complex systems of non-oppressed agriculturists
(which is very difficult to find otherwise in the preindustrial
world). One of the most evident cases is the North-East Yemen
Highlands of this millennium, where the tribal organization for
most time effectively prevented the exploitation of most
agriculturists (most plough agriculturists being armed
honourable tribesmen), at the meantime securing the existence
of an intense network of markets, towns, centres of learning
&c.
Notwithstanding all the attractiveness of such systems some
negative consequences of their proliferation should not be also
overlooked. Looking rather attractive from inside they often
looked entirely unattractive for their non-tribal neighbours,
who often had to deal with rather destructive side-effects of
their functioning. In general, the proliferation of the tribal
structures seem to have played a rather important role in the
inducing of the cyclical "Khaldunian" processes (for a model of
such processes in addition to Ibn Khalduns al-Muqaddimah itself
see e.g. Gellners "Moslem Society" [1982]) which contributed
significantly to the Middle Eastern "involution" in the 11-18th
cent., thus contributing to the loss by the former central part
of the World System of its central role.