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More than Greek civilization, the Roman empire is the ideal
upon which Western civilization has modeled itself. If you look at the Capitol
in Washington you can see how extensively the founders of the United States
followed the Roman model in fashioning a new nation. Many Roman principles are
embodied in modern institutions.
As a result, people wonder why the Roman empire fell. The
answer might, after all, reveal a weakness in the Roman tradition that was
passed on to modern Western civilization and which could eventually lead to the
end of the centuries in which Western civilization has been able to expand and
to dominate the globe. Much our of high standard of living has been a result of
our ability to take what we wanted from the rest of the world, and the loss of
that ability would mean that our lives would become significantly less
comfortable and luxurious.
So, "Why did the Roman empire fall?" Every now and
then, one sees an article reporting the latest theory - all the Romans caught
malaria and were sick most of the time; they were poisoned by the lead in the
glaze of their cooking pots and went crazy; their
conversion to Christianity focused their attention on the next world rather than
the present one; and so on. This question does not have a single answer.
You book suggests that it is not so much a question of why it
fell but what had kept it standing for so long. Did it answer that question for
us? Let me suggest a 2- part answer:
1 The Roman empire consisted basically of the unity of the
Mediterranean Sea.
The Romans, inhabitants of a small town in the Italian peninsula, in the western
basin of the Mediterranean, first conquered the west, and then the eastern basin
of this almost land-locked body of water.
The regions that were united were so different that they would not have come
together if they had not been brought together by force, and they would not have
stayed together if the rulers had not developed institutions that held them
together.
We think of an empire as a state that is strong enough to subdue its weaker
neighbors and to to keep them subjected by force. It is not the ability to
conquer lands that makes an empire but the institutions necessary to consolidate
and rule those lands that are important.
The empires that shape history can be characterized by their institutions
since these institutions often live long after the state that developed them has
vanished.
So the second part of the answer is
2 the Institutions that Rome developed
in ruling its empire.
Consider the differences between the western portion of the empire, centered on
the Italian Peninsula, and the eastern portion, which included lands that had
been deeply influenced by Greek culture.
Comparison of the
Eastern and Western Portions of the Roman Empire
1
Greek dialects included Aeolic, Arcadian, Attic, Cyprian, Doric, and Ionic.
Because of the importance of Athens, the Athenian dialect, Attic, became
dominant. From Attic developed an idiom, called koine, means
“common to all the people”.
After Alexander the Great, the koine was an international
language used in the former Hellenistic states and Africa for centuries. Most of
the New Testament was written in the koine, which gained a wide audience for
Christianity. Byzantine Greek, based on the koine, was the language of the
Byzantine Roman Empire, which lasted from A.D. 395 until it fell to the Turks in
1453.
The regions of the Roman empire were so different that they had to be united
by force, and the imperial government kept them by establishing and maintaining
common institutions. Interestingly enough, all of the Ancient empires (Han
Chinese, Persian, Mauryan India) used basically the same unifying
institutions:
common language, currency, system of weights and measures,
networks of roads and canals, standing army, centralized authority and a
professional civil servants.
There were several unifying factors and institutions in the Roman empire.
Most of the population of the Roman empire lived close to the Mediterranean.
the imperial government promoted and protected sea-trade and naval
communications between the various parts of the empire. Sea-transport was much
faster and cheaper than over-land carriage. The Romans cleared the sea lanes of
pirates, built lighthouses and constructed large, sheltered harbors for the
great commercial cities maintained by that trade. They called Mediterranean Mare
nostrum, "Our Sea."
Outlying parts of the empire were connected to the sea by the rivers that
flowed into it. The Romans dredged ship channels and barge canals and built
river ports at places like London, Paris, Cologne, Vienna, Belgrade - and they
had river fleets to maintain security and order on these watery highways.
The network of water routes was knit together by a system of roads, bridges
and aquaducts, some of which we still use today. People are often awed by the
effort that must have been expended in building such highways without the aid of
modern machinery, but construction is more dependent on organization than
advanced technology. And the Romans were generally good at organization.
Military
The large standing army was concentrated on the frontier and defended the
interior of the empire against foreign invasions. Maintaining a standing army is
expensive, especially since the army would be in combat only 10 percent of the
time at most. So Roman administrators put the army to work when they were not at
war. Some units operated brick or tile factories, lead and iron smelters, or
other enterprises. It was the army that created the transportation and
communication networks -- roads, bridges, beacons, canals, ports, aqueducts -
and other public works throughout the empire.
The large standing army was concentrated on the frontier and defended the
interior of the empire against foreign invasions. Maintaining a standing army is
expensive, especially since the army would be in combat only 10 percent of the
time at most. So Roman administrators put the army to work when they were not at
war. Some units operated brick or tile factories, lead and iron smelters, or
other enterprises like building roads and aqueducts.
The roads allowed military units to move quickly from place to place. This
increased the efficiency of the army so that it was possible to reduce its size
and expense, without diminishing its effectiveness. The network of land routes
that helped to unify the empire was a byproduct of this "policy of cost
containment."
Troops were often headquartered in the same garrison town almost permanently
and often drew their recruits from the local population. The standard enlistment
was for twenty-five years. Since many recruits came from poor and isolated
regions far from the centers of Roman life, the army literally taught them from
the bottom up. They learned to dress properly, to speak Latin, to practice
personal hygiene, as well as learning at least one trade.
The army was a unifying institution. The recruits learned of the greatness of
Rome and of the majesty of its institutions. The Roman year was marked off by
major rituals such as the midwinter festival of the "Birth of the
Unconquered Sun," (the title of Pontifex Maximus or head priest who was
also the emperor). They also honored Roma, a goddess who was the
exemplification of Rome, and had rituals to insure the peace of the imperial
family, its security, the loyalty that bound the army to the service of the
emperor, and so on
When Rome itself fell in disorder or when the imperial administration had
fallen into the depths of corruption or ineffectiveness, the army's reverence
for the ideal of Rome remained undiminished even though they might acclaim their
general as emperor and march on Rome to clear up the mess there.
The army turned the frontier towns into little Romes, or at least close to
what the soldiers believed the essence of Rome to be.
The Roman frontiers in the West were not intended so much to keep people out,
as to control their passage. There was a great deal of trade moving through the
frontier zones and several groups of Germanic peoples settled just on the other
side of the frontier in places where they could enjoy secure relations with the
Romans. This gave the Germanic peoples along the frontier a familiarity with
Roman ways and they came to copy them.
If needed, the Roman armies could fight the enemies of Rome but, in many
cases, it proved simpler and more effective to win them over and enlist them as
allies of the Roman state. This happened with the Romanized Germans.
Wherever it was sent or wherever it was settled, the Roman army provided
local inhabitants an outstanding example of Romanitas, the sense of
belonging to a great civilization
Government
The highest levels of Roman government were embodied in the absolute rule of
an emperor who, in the state-sponsored emperor cult was considered to be
a god. The emperor's will was carried out by a trained bureaucracy.
Most people, when they think of the Roman empire, think of the emperors and
their advisors. Certainly that was where Roman historians focused their
attention.
In the day to day life of the average Roman citizen, though, the
emperor was a distant figure often known only as a face stamped upon new coins.
Most Roman citizens lived their lives in their local civitas, a local
unit of government something like the American county. The civitas consisted of
two parts - the city in which the political, commercial and cultural life of the
district was concentrated and the pagus, the countryside of landowners -
rich and poor - who were depended on the urban center.
Most of these civitates
copied Rome and built an impressive law court, or basilica,
an amphitheater for plays, a racetrack, public bath, markets, and whatever
other civic amenities the rich land-owners of the pagus could afford to provide
the city.
Local government and local life throughout the empire was centered on
these communities, and a Roman could move from the frontiers of Scotland to the
mountains of Syria and still feel pretty much at home.
Government provided
Well-developed written laws
Uniform currency
Uniform system of weights and measures
Culture
The Romans established Latin as the common and official language of the
empire, but also adopted Greek culture and, in a form called Graeco-Roman,
spread a common literature, architecture, art, etc., throughout the empire.
Economy
An economic balance was maintained between the wealthy and productive East
and the relatively poor and backward West. The East was taxed heavily, and the
money transferred to the West, which used the money to purchase goods from the
East.
Religion
The Romans were very tolerant of all religions. They freely adopted and
adapted the gods and goddesses of the people they conquered, a process called syncretism.
They promoted a degree of commonality by establishing and promoting emperor
worship, which acted much the same as patriotic rituals -- saluting the flag,
the formulaic pledge of allegiance, standing when singing the national anthem,
reverence for the cloth of the flag -- which are intended to promote feelings of
national unity among citizens.
Intangibles
Pax romana (Roman peace): The Romans brought an unprecedented degree
of peace and security to the lands of their empire, and their citizens and
subjects fully appreciated that these blessings were dependent on the continued
unity of the empire.
Romanitas (the sense of being roman) was a deeply-held sentiment and
outlived the empire for centuries.
But institutions required attention and constant effort to maintain. A
weakness in the Roman imperial system led to internal wars and civil strife that
eventually made it impossible for the imperial government to support these
institutions and policies as it once had.
The Annals of Tacitus provide
an excellent insight into the management of Roman affairs and were written by a
man who had a role in that management
The Romans were unwilling to give up their reverence for Rome's long
tradition of republican government even when such a form of government could no
longer effectively manage Roman affairs.
Augustus Caesar converted the Republic into an empire in about 14 BC by
concentrating the major offices of the Republic in his own person and
maintaining the fiction that he was preserving and maintaining the Republic. But
he was unable to establish a stable system of imperial succession, and struggles
for power eventually drain the empire of its strength.
69 AD A civil war broke out as several of the
frontier legions each separately attempted to raise an emperor to replace Nero,
which led to,the Era of the Thirty Tyrants, civil wars and the barracks emperors.
In 283, the imperial system of frontier defense broke down and German
bands raided throughout the western portions of the empire. In 283,
Diocletian became emperor and began sweeping reforms in the imperial system.
For all intents and purposes, the Roman empire established by Augustus
Caesar, what people generally think of when they talk of "the glory that
was Rome" had come to an end by the 280's.
After the reforms introduced by Diocletian and his successor, Constantine,
the Roman empire would be a far different place than it had once been. As we
shall see, it was, in fact, well upon its way to assuming many of the
characteristics of Medieval Europe.
So one possible answer to the question of when the Roman empire fell is
"sometime around AD 284."
Why did it fall? The imperial system had proven unable to maintain internal
peace and order, and Rome could no longer maintain those institutions and
policies upon which the unity, security, and prosperity of the Mediterranean
lands depended.
What followed the fall of the Roman empire? Another Roman empire.
The Reforms of Diocletian (284-305 d. 311)
1. Political
a. He divided the empire into two independent parts, leaving an impoverished
and vulnerable western empire. Note that the Western empire had by far the
longer frontier to defend, and a much smaller tax base with which to pay for its
defense.
b. Established the Augustus-Caesar policy of succession. Under this system,
there were two emperors (Augusti), each of whom appointed a Caesar
to defend the frontiers. When an emperor died, his Caesar was supposed to
succeed him, take over his administration, and appoint a Caesar to defend the
frontiers and eventually succeed to the emperorship. This was an attempt to
create a stable form of succession -- which had been the weakness of the
original empire -- but it failed.
c. Made the provinces smaller and appointed both a civil and military
governor over each. This increased government interference at local
level and took affairs out of the hands of the middle classes of the provinces.
Once they no longer had an important role in the governing of the empire, the
imperial administration taxed the urban middle classes to the point of
destroying them, at least in the western empire.
d. Adopted Persian court ceremony to make the emperor sacrosanct and removed
from the people. This changed the sense of public spirit within the
empire. In the first empire, the emperor had been extremely powerful and --
after his death -- sometimes worshipped as a god. During his lifetime, however,
his status -- in theory at least -- was that of the foremost of the citizens of
Rome.
After Diocletian's reforms, the emperor became the "lord" of the
empire. The later emperors rarely governed in person, but acted through
appointed officials. They were isolated from the actual state of affairs in
their realms and were often controlled by palace
officials.
2. Economic
a. Ended debasement of the coinage and re-established a gold standard. Unfortunately,
there was not enough gold in circulation to produce enough coins to support the
economy of the empire, and the monetary reform caused an economic depression.
Consider this basic economic formula: prices= [(credit+money) x velocity of
exchange] / supply. This means that, all other things being equal, if you
decrease the amount of money in circulation, the price of goods goes down.
Looked at in another way, the value of the money in circulation increases.
b. Reformed taxation
1. Reduced taxes to two: a property and a head (poll) tax. This simplified
matters, and was a combination of a progressive tax on the wealthy (the property
tax) and a flat tax upon all (the head tax). Unfortunately, both taxes had to be
quite heavy.
2. Ended practice of tax farming where the government auctions off the right to collect the taxes from a given district to
a collection company. The tax collection
companies pay less than they expect to be able to collect, of course, and they
try to collect as much as possible. This leads to abuses. The collectors are not
responsible to the people but are trying to make as great a profit as possible,
and the government generally ignores their abuses. The more profit the tax
collectors make, the higher price they are willing to pay for the right to
collect taxes.
c. Exempted senatorial class from taxation. The descendants of anyone who had
served in the Roman Senate (a body that was restricted to the noble and wealthy)
continued to hold hereditary senatorial status. Immune from taxation and many
other expenses, the senatorial class held vast estates and were the richest
class in Roman society. This meant that the full weight of the property tax fell
on the small farmers and middle-class businessmen and artisans. The farmers who
could not pay their taxes could be enslaved (along with their wives and
children) and to avoid this gave their lands and their persons to local members of
the senatorial class. In this way, they avoided taxes but lost their freedom,
becoming tenant-farmers (coloni).
Considering how important historians consider the differences between the
slavery characteristic of the Ancient World and the serfdom prevalent in
Medieval Europe, You might what to take a look at A Brief
Essay on Serfdom and Slavery
d. Made the urban middle class (curiales) responsible for collecting
taxes. If their collections fell short of the government assessment, they were
required to pay the difference out of their own pocket, or face sale of their
property and possible personal enslavement. Many curiales tried to flee to the
countryside and become coloni, but this was forbidden by law. The provincial
middle class, particularly in the western empire, was financially ruined, and
the center of economic and administrative life shifted from the cities to the villas
of the countryside.
3. Military
a. Abandoned frontier defense in favor of a defense in depth in which the
troops stationed along the frontier were expected only to slow down an invader's
advance until the field army could be brought up to oppose it. This meant, of
course, that the security of the lands near the Roman frontiers was abandoned in
the name of economy.
b. Downgraded the frontier legions, once the first-line troops of the Roman
army to the status of militia and garrison soldiers. Their armaments and
training were neglected, and their discipline and spirit decreased.
c. Hired "barbarian" mercenaries to man a mobile field army and
stationed them in the interior. This was a short-range economy. The role of the
army in building and maintaining the transportation system and in spreading the
roman ideal among both provincials and "barbarians" was ended, and the
transportation and communications systems of the empire began to decay.
4. Social
a. Combated flight of middle class curiales by making their status hereditary. Each
person was required to remain in his trade and to secure someone to replace him
in that trade when he died. This ended social mobility and opportunity within
the empire, and a good deal of the initiative of the people disappeared.
b. These reforms caused a loss of morale and public spirit. Diocletian
attacked that problem by blaming the empire's problems on the Christians and
launched a short-lived program of persecution against them.
The Reforms of Constantine (307-337)
Constantine generally continued Diocletian's policies, except that
1. In the period 313-330, he made Christianity a favored
religion. By 396, it had become the state religion of the Roman empire,
both eastern and western.
2. He restored prosperity in the East
a. He increased gold currency by seizing the endowments of pagan temples and
turning them into coinage.
b. He ended policy of balancing the eastern and western economies by unequal
taxation. This ensured the recovery and survival of the eastern empire, which
endured until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks in 1453
The corollary of this is that the West was left to its own inadequate
resources and began to decline in power.
3. He shifted the center of the empire to the East, building the city of
Constantinople, the "New Rome." This caused the best talent and
wealthiest families to leave Rome for the East.
By 400, the capital had been
moved out of Rome and, by 404, it was located in Ravenna, a town in northern
Italy, protected by a great marsh and with a fortified harbor that allowed the
arrival of reinforcements by sea in case the city was attacked.
When Rome was
sacked by Alaric and the Visigoths in 410, it was no longer an imperial capital.
The highest-ranking government official in the city was the bishop.
In 455,
Attila threatened to plunder the city, and the bishop negotiated with him,
arranging to pay him a large sum in return for his sparing the city. By this
time, then, the bishop of Rome -- the pope -- was the actual ruler of the city
and the lands surrounding it.
The reforms of the 3rd and 4th centuries left the empire -- particularly its
western portion -- looking much like a medieval society.
1. The Christian church was the official religion and no others were
permitted
2. The church was an agency of the imperial government, administering all
social services and under the control of the government
3. The emperor was semi-divine and claimed that his power was granted to him
by God
4. Military power was in the hands of Germans.
5. Town life had decayed, and commerce was dwindling because of the lack of a
middle class.
6. With the decay of cities, formal education, particularly a knowledge of
the Greek language, vanished in the western empire except among clerics and
wealthy aristocrats
7. Roads and bridges were decaying, sea traffic was endangered by pirates,
and communications were difficult.
8. Power in the countryside was in the hands of great landowners living in
fortified villas and surrounded by a peasantry dependent upon them for
protection, law and order, and economic aid and had sold themselves as coloni
to avoid becoming actual slaves
9. The state was no longer able to protect its frontiers or maintain civil
order, and the Pax Romana had vanished.
Conclusion
Nevertheless, taxes were collected to maintain an imperial government that no
longer served the needs of the people. The Roman government in the West had
become superfluous.
In addition, the Western Empire no longer had the money or
manufactured goods to trade with the German kingdoms that had grown up along its
frontiers. The Germans had become accustomed to the use of Roman goods and the
profits of trade with the Romans. When those goods ceased to be available and
their profits disappeared, the Germans crossed the imperial frontiers in search
of them. More on that later
Christianity first arose historically as a reform movement within
Judaism. The apostle Paul forced it open to non-Jews and gave it the Greek
orientation that allowed it to flourish in the eastern Mediterranean.
How did it became the official religion of the Roman
empire and an agency of the Roman imperial government?
Roman religion did not provide a moral base or message of hope.
The Romans had an elaborate religious system with many groups and types
of deities.
The Pantheon: the renamed gods and goddesses of Greek mythology.
The Titans - defeated allies of the old gods -- friends of
humanity -- Prometheus, the fire-bringer was a titan.
The heroes -- humans who achieved divine status -- Hercules was the
most famous example. Note that the gap between god and human was not so
great as to be insurmountable.
Local deities -- each region, city, town, and village had its own
tutelary gods, and their were gods who protected field boundaries,
storehouses, and every other imaginable thing of value.
Nature spirits -- each tree, stream, hill, and other natural feature
had its in-dwelling spirit. Dryads in trees, hydrads in
springs and streams, oreads in hills and mountains.
lares and penates -- the early Romans were ancestor
worshippers, and each family and family home had its "household gods."
Genii -- in addition, each individual had his or her own
"genius," a tutelary deity transformed by the early Christians into the
"guardian angel."
Magic and superstition -- people needed to believe that they had
protecting spirits, because they were very superstitious and that they
were always in danger of "bad luck" on Fridays, the 13th of the month,
after having broken a mirror, when their stars were not in a good
alignment, and so forth. They also believed in witches, vampires, the
evil eye, and other malevolent forces.
There were alternate
systems of belief for those dissatisfied with the chaotic traditional
religious forms:
Greek philosophical systems (Skepticism, Epicureanism, Stoicism that
offered moral bases but no hope. Some of these systems,
particularly Stoicism with its belief in universal brotherhood and justice
exerted an important influence on developing Christianity.
Mystery cults
and Eastern religions (Isis, Mithraism, Orpheus, Zoroastrianism,
Neo-Pythagorean and Gnosis schools and Christianity, along with many
others) offered
hope, a moral basis for human action, and engaging rituals like a
purifying bath, or the eating and drinking of the symbolic body and blood
of the cult's founder.
All of these belief systems were vying with one another for converts and
supporters.
Christianity's advantages:
It had the Jewish legal code and tradition of morality
It had the ability to adopt and adapt. Christian was flexible enough to
borrow many of its
traditions from other religions:
Christmas was taken from the Roman midwinter festival of the
"Birth of the Unconquered Sun and similar rituals in other religions.
Easter
from the Germanic (Norse) goddess of fertility and springtime, Eostre,
whose symbols were the egg and the hare and whose major ritual was
celebrated on the spring equinox. The name of
Ostara's (Eostra's) festival was transferred to the celebration of
Christ's resurrection when Anglo-Saxon and German heathens converted to
Christianity. Thus, unlike other European cultures, English and German
Christians still attach the name of a heathen goddess to their most
sacred holiday: Easter or Ostern. In other European languages the
holiday's name is based on the Hebrew word "pasah," to pass
over, thus reflecting the Christian holiday's Biblical connection with
the Jewish Passover.
The Madonna from the cult of Isis whose
temples had statues of the divine mother and child, priests in linen and
silk robes with shaven heads, candles, incense, altars, etc.
The cult of Cybele had another divine mother (Queen of Heaven) and son,
hymns to her, statues, and a "Holy Week".
The Last Judgment
occurred in the cult of Isis and Osirus, Mithraism, Zoroastrianism,
Stoicism
Hell was an idea introduced from Mithraism and Zoroastrianism
Lucifer
from a demonization of the nature cults - exemplified in the shepherd's
god, Pan, and the fishermen's god, Neptune, who were later combined into the
Christian image of the devil and given Prometheus' name of Lucifer - "the
fire-bringer")
The terms sacrament and pagan - Tacitus and Juvenal indicate that in their time
"pagan" began to be applied to those - generally the rustics
- who were not called up for military service and did not take the
military oath (sacramentum) were called pagans. The Christians deemed
themselves the soldiers of Christ and borrowed the word
"sacrament," they called those who did not take their
oath "pagans."
Communion meals, baptism, the concept of
resurrection, the idea of a savior, monotheism, the idea of a
multi-faceted god, i.e. the trinity, angels, saints, the belief that the
end was near were all found in other, older religions.
The early Christians were extreme bigots - completely intolerant of all
other religions.
Filled with zeal and
commanded to evangelize, expansion at other religion's expense was built into Christianity.
Christianity appealed to the downtrodden masses. Women, low-skilled
workers, prostitutes, the uneducated, slaves, fishermen, tax collectors,
and so forth were the companions and "beloved" of Jesus, and a growing
class of the oppressed and despised saw Christianity as the only faith
that viewed them without contempt - as "the salt of the Earth - and that
offered them the hope a better life --- sometime.
Christianity attracted only the committed, since becoming a Christian
put one at odds with the state, the sect's members were
periodically persecuted for undermining the Roman state. Those of weak faith
did not stay long. See Pliny
and Trajan on Christians.
Most importantly, Christianity succeeded because it became the state
religion of Rome and all non-believers were persecuted.
THE EARLY CHRISTIAN COMMUNITIES
The Organization of Christianity, AD 33-313
After the Romans destroyed Jerusalem in 70 AD and the Jewish rebellions in
89 and again in 113 AD, Jews were scattered throughout
the empire in what is called the Diaspora. As a Jewish reform
movement, early Christianity first spread through the Jewish communities
in the cities of the empire. The Jews made their way at the less
attractive industries such as tanning, leather tent making, "bottling"
olive oil and similar things, shoe and sandal-making, and the like. They
lived in crowded and smelly industrial sections of the city, and that is
where the first Christian communities arose.
The early Christians were quite intolerant. They believed that their
God was the only God and that their Savior was the only savior. "Except
through me you shall not see my Father," as they believed Jesus had said.
More than that, they also believed that Jesus had commanded them to spread
the faith by converting others. As a consequence, Christians were not
willing to let others follow their own faiths, but condemned the beliefs
of others and tried to convert them to their own belief. This was quite
contrary to Roman imperial policy, which attempted to respect all other
religions and even to integrate them into official state religious
observances. The Christians refused to accept this attitude and so were
continually flouting imperial authority. The faith was illegal, and its
members often persecuted by the government.
In order to steer as clear as possible of the government, Christians formed
inner city groups (ecclesiae) with their own internal governments
under spiritual and secular overseers (episkopos > piscop > biscop
> bishop), aided by the heads of households. The bishops stayed in
touch with each other through letters (epistles), secret meetings
(councils), and by keeping the records of the faith in secret books
(bible means simply "book"). The members developed secret signs and
symbols by which to recognize each other, the cross in various forms, the
outline of a fish, variations on the Roman numeral three, and so forth.
Christianity grew slowly, and even began to penetrate the urban middle
class and some elements of the army.
THE LEGALIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY
Its Recognition AD 313
In a crucial battle to gain control of the Roman empire, Constantine
used a Christian symbol as his banner and so gained the support of the
Christians among the warriors drawn up to fight at the Milvian Bridge,
Constantine won the battle and rewarded his supporters by decreeing that
Christianity would henceforth be tolerated.
Constantine soon saw that it would be to the empire's advantage if it
could harness the zeal of the Christians and turn it to support of the
imperial government. After centuries in hiding, however, the Christians
had developed various local forms of worship and belief. Constantine set
about imposing some structure upon the faith and turning it from a
movement into an institution.
One could argue Jesus may have founded
the Christian Faith, but that Constantine founded the Christian Church.
In 325, Constantine called a council of all bishops for them to agree
on a basic formula of the Christian faith. The result was the Nicene
Creed. He then required them to regularize the practice of their
faith according to this formulation. In 330, he established the eastern
Roman capital at Constantinople, a new city without the pagan traditions of
Rome. In the same year, he ordered the Christian leaders to decide which
of their secret books were to be accepted as representing the true faith.
The result of their work was the canon, the Bible in essentially
its present form.
He passed laws limiting the rights of non-catholic Christians (heretics
that didn't recognize the authority of his church) and
Jews.
For example, Jews were forbidden to build synagogues, own slaves, marry
Christians, make converts, hold office. Punishments ranged from slavery to
death. See the Medieval
Sourcebook for examples.
Legend has it that Constantine was baptized on
his deathbed. As soon as Constantine was dead the bishops produced a decree
ostensibly signed by that Emperor, imposing punishment on all who sacrifice to
the gods. This document is generally acknowledged to be a forgery, but it became
law and opened the era of serious persecution.
Over the next 50 years the
laws against the old religion became stricter. All Non Catholic Christians were
now subject to being sold into slavery, murdered, tortured, their businesses and
property seized, forbidden state jobs, etc. The same was true for Zoroastrians
and the followers of Mithra. See the Medieval
Sourcebook and the Theodosian Code
for examples.
Even under Constantine the Roman state had started to loot pagan
temples for their wealth.
The extinction of paganism, to which the great majority of the educated
Romans clung until that time, since the conduct of the new Emperors
generally was as repugnant to them as that of the Christians, was
facilitated by the paganization of Christianity.
This is when the Church gets its Holy Week and Birthday of Christ
celebrations, its paraphernalia of worship, its cult of Mary and of saints
(minor gods), and so many other new features - just when similar festivals
and paraphernalia had to be abandoned by suppressed rivals. The pagans now
found the new religion more attractive. In this same time period the
school-system foundered, and the Romans, who had been 90 % literate, became at
least 90 % illiterate.
CONCLUSION
The common picture of Christianity as a persecuted sect was true only
of the early empire, the Principate. In the late empire, the Dominate -
sometimes called by historians "Late Antiquity" - Christianity was the
state religion and an official government agency. The medieval Church was
simply a continuation of a part of the Roman government, and its political
aspect had been made a part of its structure by Constantine and his
successors.
1. If one wishes to consider German-Roman relations on a broad scale,
there were actually four German "invasions" of the
empire.
A. Trade
By about A.D. 70, the Romans had fixed their frontiers along the Rhine
and Danube rivers, and manufacture had sprung up there to supply the
garrisons. A steady trade with the Germans grew up and continued
throughout the imperial period. The Roman silver solidus became the
standard currency for both frontier Romans and the Germans beyond the
frontier, and each group influenced the other in various and significant
ways.
B. Military Recruiting
Part of Diocletian and Constantine's reforms beginning in 285 was the
deemphasis of the frontier legions and the formation of mobile armies of
hired troops, primarily Germans, stationed in the interior. More
economical than the frontier defense system, by decreasing Roman presence
in the frontier districts this policy weakened Roman influences beyond
imperial frontiers in the West and strengthened Germanic influences in the
interior of the empire.
C. Imperially-Sponsored Immigration
From about 350 onwards, the western empire suffered from a shortage of
manpower, largely because of a diminishing native population coupled with
the inability to wage successful wars in order to capture prisoners to
enslave. The government sponsored various types of immigration to
compensate for this shortage and, under these policies, many Germans
entered the empire on a permanent basis.
1. Laeti
(pronounced LAY-tee) Foreigners were allowed in on an individual or
family basis and assigned empty lands. They were expected to perform
military service when called upon to do so. Note that the practice of
offering a grant of land in exchange for military service would become a
basic characteristic of medieval Europe.
2. Numeri
(pronounced NOO-mehr-ee) Foreign warrior contingents hired by the
Romans, the numeri were allowed to fight with their own weapons under
their own leaders and to retain their own language and customs. Note the
use of Germanic war- bands.
(pronounced fehd-uhr-AH-tee) The administration attempted to avoid any
potentially dangerous concentration of any specific group of Germans
within the empire within the empire by giving members of immigrant groups
grants of land scattered throughout the empire. In time, this policy was
abandoned and entire tribes were allowed to cross the frontier and occupy
lands along the Roman side of the border. Allowed to retain their own
political organization and other customs, and generally free from taxes,
they were expected to defend their section of the border and to provide
recruits for the Roman army. Note that the practice of territorial
immunity foreshadowed yet another characteristic of the military practices
of the Middle Ages.
Visigoths defeat Roman army in the east at the battle of Adrianople (378), and
the emperor killed.
2. The "Barbarian Conquest"
Alaric and the Visigoths
entered Italy and sacked Rome in 410. Map Sack Rome
Vandals captured the Roman fleet base at
Carthage together with a large part of the Western Roman fleet. By 455,
they were strong enough to launch an amphibious operation to capture and
sack Rome.
Odovacar, deposed the boy emperor, Romulus
Augustulus, and sent
the diadem, purple robes, and red slippers - the symbols of imperial
authority -- to the eastern emperor with the comment that the Roman Empire
in the West had ceased to exist (476).
The Eastern Roman emperor sent the Ostrogoths and their king Theodoric
against Odovacar. In 489, Theodoric contrived to have
Odovacar killed and himself installed as king of Italy.
4. The Situation in 500
Germanic kingdoms in the West --
Franks in France, Visigoths in Spain, Vandals in North Africa, Ostrogoths
in Italy, and the new-comer Burgundians in Switzerland. All were
Christian, but Arian
Christians, considered heretics by their native subjects.
Each German "king" asked for and received a
certificate of delegated powers from the Eastern emperor.
The reign of Justinian was an
extremely significant period. It marked the final end of the Roman empire;
the establishment of the new, Byzantine
Empire; the beginning of Western
Europe's unique position within the civilizations of the Old World; and
made possible the spread of Islam and the rise of the Franks.
Although
this lecture concentrates on the role played by the Gothic Wars in
Justinian's reign, there is a great deal more to be known about this
remarkable man and about Theodora, his even more remarkable wife.
Procopius, a prominent historian of Justinian's time has left a Secret
History of those days, a book which is rather scandalous and may even
be true
1. The
empire was united under the Eastern emperor in theory, Justinian tried to
make it so in fact. His armies invaded the Vandal, Ostrogothic, and
Visigothic kingdoms in turn, and, in a series of bitter wars (540-554),
reconquered much of the Mediterranean lands of the West.
At the time, it
seemed as if he had very little choice in the matter. In theory at least,
the Germanic kings ruled as viceroys of the Eastern emperors. There was a problem in that the Germans were Arians, practicing and
preaching a form of Christianity considered heretical by the established
Roman Church. The Vandals were the most zealous of the Arians and were
quick to seize orthodox churches in order to convert them into Arian
places of worship. The Vandals were so few in number that they resorted to
terror in order to keep their subjects in order. The Vandalic kingdom
became a police state in which orthodox Christians were striped of
property, rights, and even freedom and life. When a delegation of orthodox
Christians from Africa appealed to Justinian to fulfill his role as
defender of the faith, he decided that the time had come to resolve the
peculiar situation and bring the West back under real Roman control.
But the Westerners did not want a return of Roman taxation, Roman
justice, and imperial interference in their affairs. Consequently, even
the Roman inhabitants of some areas joined their German overlords in
attempting to fight back the eastern armies determined to restore a
situation that many people simply did not want to see restored. The
Easterners did not want to waste money defending these western conquests
and were impoverished by the cost of these wars.
One should note, however
that even when he was sending tribute in gold to the Persians and spending
immense sums in the Gothic Wars, Justinian still had enough money to
embark on an unprecedented building program.
Justinian's dreams of
conquest have long ago been forgotten by most people. What he is
remembered for it the magnificent Church of the Holy
Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) that still
dominates the skyline of Istanbul, the former Constantinople, and his
project of collecting and codifying the scattered laws, imperial edicts,
decisions of the early Roman Senate, and opinions of learned jurists and
organizing them into a written law code.
Centuries later, this code, The Corpus
Iuris Civilis was "rediscovered" in the West and sparked the
growth of a legal profession that established the bases for many of the
modern world's systems of justice and law.
When
Justinian died in 565 and new invaders entered the west, the eastern
empire did very little to stop them. Neither westerners nor easterners had
any further interest in restoring the empire.
2. Although committed to the idea of a Roman empire, Justinian
recognized that his realms were basically Greek and that the imperial
administration would be more effective, if the fact were recognized. Once
the government stopped forcing the use of the Latin language and Roman
institutions upon its people, the Eastern empire rapidly became more
Eastern in its customs and outlook.
3. In the course of the sixth century, the other classical
civilizations recovered from the barbarians the lands they had lost in the
fifth. The Sui dynasty of China reunited North and South China by 589, the
Persians recovered the Iranian plateau by 557; and by 606, Harsha
established a new Indian empire. Only in the Mediterranean did the wars of
reconquest fail. Western Europe was the only part of a classical empire to
fall permanently under barbarian control. The continuity of imperial
institutions was broken only in Western Europe. It was the only area to
begin an independent development.
4. During his Western wars, Justinian had bought peace with the
Persians through regular payments of gold. This sort of policy is almost
always a mistake, and Justinian's adoption of it was a disaster. While the
Byzantines poured out money, men and materiel in their Western wars, the
Persians sat back and allowed Byzantine bullion to swell their treasury.
The Eastern empire's economy began
to falter. The government had to become more and more aggressive in
collecting taxes from a economically exhausted people, and the oppressed
taxpayers - who saw no benefits coming from the emperor's Western
conquests - became deeply resentful.
The Persians recognized that the
Eastern empire had been badly weakened by the Gothic Wars, and attacked
the empire soon after Justinian's death in 565, before the empire had had
a chance to recover from its exertions. The Persians managed to devastate
and/or occupy much of the Byzantine empire until the emperor Heraclius
turned the tide of battle against them. In a brilliant action, he took
what troops he could gather and, leaving the Persians besieging
Constantinople, he went by sea to Syria and marched overland to capture
the virtually undefended Persian capitals of Persepolis and Ctesiphon. By
632, the Byzantines were triumphant, but both the Persian and Byzantine
peoples and economies were exhausted and were quite unready to fight the
confident and dedicated Moslem armies who soon appeared on their
frontiers.
Heraclius' subjects had been oppressed by both religious and political
regimentation as well as a ruinous burden of taxes. Many welcomed the
tolerant Muslims, with their light taxes, as liberators and quickly
converted to Islam.
5. Justinian's reconquests in the west were not permanent, but his
destruction or weakening of the most sophisticated and highly-romanized of
the Germanic invaders was. The Ostrogothic and Vandal states were
eliminated and the power of the Visigothic kingdom greatly diminished. The
only culturally advanced German tribe left untouched were the Burgundians,
and they were too few in number to exercise any real power.
Justinian's abortive "Reconquest" had left the Franks as the most
powerful force in the West. This left the direction of Western affairs in
the hands of those people least able to maintain Roman traditions. Only
the Frankish alliance with the Church of Rome preserved some measure of
continuity with Europe's classical past.
6. Conclusion
We often view history as a series of "achievements," and think that
great men and women control the course of events. In the case of
Justinian, the view may be partly true.
The results of his decisions were
crucial in the development of Western Europe. One might well argue that
the Middle Ages would never have happened had it not been for Justinian.
But it was not because of his "achievements," but because of his failures
that history turned out the way that it did.
His ill- conceived western
venture led to a clear split between the Westerners and the Eastern
Romans;
his abandonment of the Latin language as the language of
government and administrations made that division permanent,
he
failed to reunite the Roman empire as the leaders of the other classical
civilizations had done for their empires.
He weakened the Eastern empire
and strengthened the Persians, setting a stage for a devastating war that
weakened the Eastern empire to such an extent that it could not
effectively resist the spread of Islam.
Finally, he overthrew those
Western Germanic governments that were committed to attempting to preserve
as much of the Roman imperial civilization as possible. And this led,
indirectly, to the rise of the medieval Church.
BISMA'LLAH AR-RA'CHMAN WA' AR-RA'CHIM
It means "In the Name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Most
Merciful."
Muslims hold education and learning in high
esteem. Like the Jewish faith, Islam encourages the faithful to learn to
read. Instructors in Islamic lands customarily begin each lecture with
the bismallah, an invocation that appears at the beginning of these
lecture notes. Learning is an act of piety - of religious devotion to God. Therefore
lessons start with a religious invocation.
Time Period: 600 AD -
1550 AD
Major
Ethnic Groups: Arabs, Persians, Turks, Mongols
became Moslems
Franks and other German Tribes, Byzantines
were Christian
Useful definitions:
Allah: [Arabic = the God]
Islam: [Arabic = "yoke"
or "submission" (to the will of God)]: the
religion revealed to Muhammad
Muhammad: [Arabic = praised]
Allah's last prophet - the prophet of Islam.
Other important Islamic prophets and persons include Adam, Noah,
Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus and a number of extra-biblical
prophets, such as Hud, Salih, Shuayb, all three of whom were pre Koranic
preachers in Arabia advocating monotheism. The chief angels are Gabriel
and Michael; devils are the evil jinn.
Muslim: a follower of
Islam
Arabic: usually refers to the Arabic language. Most
Muslims are not Arabs, although most Arabs are Muslims.
The largest Moslem country in the world is Indonesia. Arabs account
for less 1/5th of the world's Islamic population.
Koran: the book of the revelations given to Mohammed by God
Mecca: a city in the Arabian Peninsula. It is the center of Islam.
It contains the Kaaba, Islam's most holy shrine.
Kaaba: [Arabic = cube], the central, cubic, stone structure, within the Great Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia.
Hajj [Arabic = pilgrimage]
Caliph: [Arabic = successor (to the Prophet)] the spiritual head and ruler of the Islamic
state.
Caliphate: the states run by Caliphs.
Umayyad in Damascus, Syria 661–750
Abbasid
in Baghdad, Persia 749 to 1258 (ended by Mongol invasion)
Emirate of Córdoba
in Spain 756–1031 conquered by Castile 1236
Fatimid in Africa, Syria, and Egypt 893-1171 fl.953-975
Ottoman in
Turkey 1453 - 1924
House of Saud in Arabia 1923
Sunni: [Arabic = the people of the custom of the Prophet], the largest
division of Islam.
Shiite: [Arabic shiat Ali = the party of Ali], the second largest
branch of Islam.
Shiites currently account for 10–15% of all Muslims, especially
active in Iran. Shiite Islam originated as a political movement
supporting Ali (cousin and son-in-law of Muhammad, the Prophet of Islam)
as the rightful leader of the Islamic state.
Shari'a:the religious law of Islam.
As Islam makes no distinction between religion and life, Islamic law covers not
only ritual but every aspect of life.
RRQuestion1 What did the word "Arab" come to mean after Islam spread?
Map of Islam
An inhabitant of the Arabian Peninsula named for the Bedouin Arabs
A: It was an agricultural center of the Arabian periphery
B: It was the center of Bedouin worship.
C: Major caravan center.
Political events made it even more important
Who was Mohammed?Muhammad (570-632)
RRQuestion2
How long after
Mohammed's death were the stories of his life before the "Call"
written down?
It was not until a century after his death that details of Mohammed's
early life were written down
Born to a poor branch of the Khoraish, and orphaned
at an early age, Muhammad was raised by his uncle, who got him a job with
a caravan company. He eventually married
Khadija, owner of the company, and settled down to a
dignified life of study -- although he could not read -- contemplation,
and poetry.
Around age 40 a vision of the angel Gabriel
appeared to him, telling him that he had a mission from god. God had
written a book -- the Qu'ran -- at the beginning of time
that contained all wisdom.
The first
message was THERE IS NO GOD BUT GOD, AND MUHAMMAD IS THE PROPHET OF
GOD.
Muhammad slowly gathered a group of followers. Threatened with death at
Mecca, in 622, he
and his followers fled north to the caravan city of Medina. Their escape from Mecca
was the hijra (the flight), regarded by Muslims as the
beginning of Islam and the first year of the Muslim calendar.
Muhammad soon became master of Medina, and after a long struggle,
convinced the Meccans to accept Islam. Muhammad then destroyed all of the
idols kept there and honored the city of Mecca as the center of the
faith.
RRQuestion4 What are the
obligations of a Moslem according to the Koran's strict code of moral
behavior?
Muhammad revealed the
obligations of Islam:
There are five Pillars of the Faith.
1) the Profession the public statement of faith that there
is but one God and that Muhammad is His prophet
2) daily prayer - one
must wash and pray 5 times a day
3) the
obligation of giving alms to widows, orphans, the poor, and needy
4) to
try to make the pilgrimage to Mecca at least once in one's life
5) to
keep the fast of the month of Ramadan.
There are three
additional duties:
1) to wage holy war (jihad) against those
who persecute the faithful
2) to observe some dietary restrictions, such
as not eating pork or drinking alcoholic beverages to excess (which most
Muslims have converted into an absolute prohibition)
3) trying to
learn to read the Qu'ran in the Arabic language in which Muhammad spoke it
and in which followers wrote down his words.
Aside: What is the real meaning of the term jihad?
RRQuestion 6 What is the Sunna?
When Muhammad died in 632, many of his followers were panicked although
he had prepared them for this eventuality in his last
sermon His chief disciples brought order, however, and in time created
an institutionalized faith, although without an organized priesthood or
connection between church and state.
A fundamental feature of this institutionalization was the compilation
of the Qu'ran. The Qu'ran consists of a number of revelations
originally spoken by Muhammad and called suras (chapters).
Sunna
are the spoken and acted example of the Prophet. Collected and written down,
they are known as the
hadith and are believed to be revelations given by Muhammad that were
not written down when they were spoken but which have been passed down by word of mouth from the
person who actually heard them spoken.
RR Question5 Why did Islam Spread so quickly?
Within 100 years of Muhammad's death (by 732), Islam had spread from Spain to Sumatra, and Muslim ships
dominated by the Mediterranean Sea and Indian Ocean.
a. The Persian and Byzantine empires were exhausted and could not
resist Muslim attacks.
b. Many people in the lands of both the Byzantine and Persian empires
favored monotheism and found the Byzantine trinity and Persian dualism
distasteful. They not only converted
to Islam, but helped to spread it further.
c. The Muslims swept away the burdensome taxation and top-heavy
government in those lands that accepted them.
d. Islam was simple to understand, and its observances were clear and
unequivocal. It did not call for asceticism and condemned excesses of all
kinds.
e. Conversion was a simple and straightforward matter.
f. The Muslims practiced at least a limited religious toleration, and
the social and economic doctrines of Islam were far more humane than those
of the other peoples of the time. Islam was a liberal force.
RRQuestion 15 - What did the Koran mean when it referred to Jews as
"the people of the Book"?
Religious
toleration in Islam consists of the recognition of the revelations given
by God to the Jews, whom the Muslims call "The People of the Law," and to
the Christians, who are called "The People of the Book." Muslims recognize
the Jewish prophets and the Christian Jesus as having been inspired by God
but accord the highest position to Muhammad as "The Seal of the Prophets,"
to whom God revealed his final and complete message.
One should note,
however, that the Qu'ran does not suggest that those who worship
Idols should be tolerated. In fact, it states that they are either to be
converted to Islam or face war.
g. Arabic gave the peoples of Islam a common language, and the Qu'ran
gave them a common set of laws and values.
Was Islam spread by the sword?
Islamic expansion, not Arab
conquests. The expansion of Islam was as more a
matter of religious conversion than it was of military conquest.
The Koran states clearly "Let there be no compulsion in
religion". (chapter 2,v 256). Islam must come from inner conviction
and free choice, not from outside force.
One of the many examples which attests to Islam's non violent expansion is
the conversion of the Indonesians. No Muslim army ever set foot in
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation. Islam was established there
by traders, merchants, teachers.
War is therefore only permissible under certain conditions like self
defense and under well defined limits. A well known saying of the prophet is "Do not oppress
and do not be oppressed".
The Effects of the Rise of Islam
RRQuestion 3 What was the Umma, and how did it helped Arabs
transcend their tribal boundaries?
Umma means community. But it means community in the larger
sense of a spiritual community and it emphasizes people's relationship
based on common belief - not on birth or ethnic ties. For Muslims,
religion was the core of identity.
What is the difference between a nation and a
state? How do they differ from a country?
The bible proscribes some behavior in the old and new
testaments. However it is not very specific about how one is to live one's
life.
The Koran, on the other hand contains all kinds of
specificity - it even talks about things like how wide streets should be
and how to build things. It is much more specific about laws and how
society is to be governed. As a result, for a true believer, it is not
acceptable to live in a non-Islamic state because the Koran says how
states are to be governed. You should not be living in a state that does
not follow the word of God. This is the reason that Islam divides
the world into the House of Islam and the rest of the world and says that
a struggle will ensue until God's kingdom is established on earth.
As you know from your reading, the history of early
Islam is complicated. It seems more complicated because many of the terms
are foreign to non-Islamic students. The conflicts are political and
religious.
What does Caliph mean? Successor, leader, deputy
of the Prophet. It is like the concept of king except that it includes
religious overtones because there is no clear separation of religious and
secular authority in Islam. So when we talk about Caliphates in Islam we
are talking about kingdoms.
Events that took place right after the death of the
prophet split Islam into two groups - the Sunnis and the Shi'ites.
Those divisions are still important today. Shi'ites are a minority in
Islam - maybe 15% and they are often persecuted by the Sunni majority.
Shi'ites are found throughout the Islamic world but they are concentrated
in Iran. Because of differences in religious doctrine, Shi'ites tend to be
more radical and militant and, in a sense, more religious - that is, less
prone to compromise with secular entities like the US. It is one of the
reasons that the US has trouble with Iran today. The history of these
divisions within Islam matters because if you know the history, you can
better understand contemporary politics. So let try and tackle some of
that historical complexity.
RRQuestion 8
- What were the political events that led to the division between Shi'ites
and Sunnis
Events that took place right after the death
of the prophet split Islam into two groups - the Sunnis and the Shi'ites.
Those divisions are still important today.
The Shi'ites
are the Shiat Ali - the party of Ali. Ali was Mohammed's son- in-law and
also his cousin. The Shi'ites believe that Mohammed designated Ali as his
successor and that the first three Caliphs before Ali were usurpers. They
also believe in the doctrine of the Imamate
RRQuestion 9 - What
is the doctrine of the imamate?
belief that Mohammed designated Ali as the spiritual leader and that
the Caliph, as a blood relative of the Prophet, is the divinely inspired
religious guide and political leader. So Shi'ite leaders - the imams
combine religious and secular authority.
The Sunnis are the people of the custom of the
Prophet - the sunnas. They believe that Caliphs should be elected by
the elders and not tied to blood relationship to the Prophet.
The
pre-Islamic aristocracy of Mecca still remained in power and became
involved in the politics of Islam after they converted. They installed the
first three Caliphs that the Shi'ites think of as illegitimate
usurpers. The Umayyad dynasty (661-750) was related to the
pre-Islamic Meccan aristocracy. As the Umayyads expanded their territory,
they kept political authority in the hands of the Arabian elite.
The Abbasid dynasty were Shi'ites. The Abbasid
family was related to Mohammed's uncle so they claimed direct blood
relationship with the Prophet. By the time they took power in 750, 90
years after the death of the Prophet, Islam was far more cosmopolitan and
Arabic ethnicity was not very important in the Abbasid state.
Turning Away from the Mediterranean
The trade routes connecting the
eastern and western branches of Christendom were weakened as the Muslims
seized control of the sea. Western Europe, under the Frankish kingdom of
the Carolingians, turned away from the Mediterranean, and Western Europe developed in a continental
semi-isolation. The region was freed from lingering influences of the
Byzantine empire and was left to develop on its own.
About 750, the West, under the
first Carolingians, turned their attention from Spain, Italy and the
Mediterranean and the center of their culture and political power moved to
northern France and Germany.
At about the same time the Byzantine empire
ceased to rely so heavily on its Mediterranean fleets and to base its
power on land armies supported by great agricultural estates in Anatolia.
Under the Ummayyad dynasty, the Muslims had been active in the
Mediterranean Sea and the center of their political power was in Damascus
(in modern Syria).
After a civil war had driven the Umayyads from power,
the new rulers, the Abbasids, moved their base of power to the new city of
Baghdad (in modern Iraq) in the lands of the old Persian empire.
For some reason, all three civilizations simultaneously
decided upon a policy of disengagement. It may well have been that the
unity of the Mediterranean was not broken by the incursion of the Muslims
except for a short while. For the next two hundred and fifty years, it
would seem that the civilizations of the region simply ignored the great
waterway that lay at their front doors.
This answers RRQuestion 7 - Where was the Umayyad Caliphate based? and
RRQuestion 10 - Where did the Abbasids move the capital of the Caliphate
in 750?
This is the implication
of moving the capital deep inland, away from the coast - a reason why Islam did not come to fully replace the
Roman Empire.
Had they remained focused on the Mediterranean, history
might have turned out very differently. It is entirely possible that Islam
would have replaced Christianity in much of Europe and Western art,
architecture, politics, law, literature etc. would have developed under
considerably different influences.
In any event, it gives one something to think about.
RRQuestion 11 - In administering the Islamic state, on what previous societies
did the Moslems base their imperial administration?
Byzantine and Hellenic
RRQuestion 12 - What is Shari'a and what matters does it cover?
the religious law of Islam.
As Islam makes no distinction between religion and life, Islamic law covers not
only ritual but every aspect of life. The basic scheme for all actions
is a fivefold division into obligatory, meritorious, permissible, reprehensible,
and forbidden.
RRQuestion 13 - The Seljuk Turks conquered Baghdad in 1055. What sort of
construction projects were undertaken by Nizam al-Mulk?
Caravanserai (Merchants' Inn). The word 'caravanserai' is derived from the
Persian "karwan," which signifies a company, or
"caravan," of travelers in a serai (large inn). Muslim
rulers often built and maintained serais on major travel routes to foster the
political cohesion, trade safety, and economic growth of their kingdoms.
Muslim women contributed to the rise in this particular kind of architecture.
Zubayda, the wife of the great 'Abbasid Caliph Harun al-Rashid (reigned
786-803 A.D.), built serais, wells, and cisterns on the pilgrim route from
Baghdad to Mecca. This route became known as the Darb Zubaydah (road of
Zubaydah).
RRQuestion 14 - How far did Genghis Khan's Mongol empire extend at the time
of his death? (your book spells his name Chinggis Khan)
RRQuestion 16 - What was the legal status of the offspring of a free man
and a slave women in Islamic society?
Free. How does this compare with Roman Slavery? With later European and
American Slavery?
RRQuestion 17 - What was the role of women in the early Umayyad period?
large role strong presence in the early religious movement - especially
Fatima and Aishah.
RRQuestion 18 - From where was the practice of women wearing head scarves
and seclusion of women in harems borrowed?
Byzantine Christians
RRQuestion 19 - Look at the map on page 266. Comment on the extent of
knowledge that the Moslems must have had of the world compared to the Romans at
the height of their empire, and compared to the Western Europeans of the 13th
and 14th centuries.
Europeans sphere of influence was circumscribed and focused on itself. The
economies were local as International trade had declined. Communication within
Europe was difficult and knowledge was focused on Christianity. Islam had
expanded far beyond the boundaries of the old Roman Empire to India, the East
Indies, Mongolia and parts of China, deep into Africa.
RRQuestion 20 - In what sense did Moslem economic activity amount to a
kind of capitalism?
The medieval Muslim economy included private ownership of the means of
production, production of goods for market sale, profit as the main motive for
economic activity, competition, money economy, and lending money at interest.
It was superior to anything that had come before and remained so until the
16th C.
RRQuestion 21 - How large was the library at Cordoba in the tenth
century? Compare that with the Great Benedictine library of the Abby of
Saint-Gall.
400,000 volumes versus 600. Why? The book says its paper versus
vellum. Do you think this is the whole explanation?
RRQuestion 22 - What did the ijaza license it's holders to do?
The ijaza, or license, certified that a student had read a book and studied
it and commentaries on it with his teacher. Presumably the teacher would not
issue the license unless he were satisfied that the student would pass on the
teacher's interpretation of the meaning of the work. the ijaza legally
legitimated a student to become a teacher and pass on his knowledge to the
next generation.
RRQuestion 23 - Who was Ibn Battuta? Why might his writings provide
insight into the world of the 14th Century?
1304?–1378?, Muslim traveler, b. Tangier. No other medieval traveler is
known to have journeyed so extensively. In 30 years (from c.1325) he made a
series of journeys. He traveled overland in North Africa and Syria to make the
pilgrimage to Mecca. Afterward he visited Arabia, Mesopotamia, Persia, and Asia
Minor. He made a journey by way of Samarkand to India, where he resided for
almost eight years at the court of the sultan of Delhi, who sent him to China
as one of his ambassadors. Ibn Batuta visited the Maldives, the Malabar coast,
Ceylon (Sri Lanka), and Sumatra. He returned c.1350 to Tangier. Later he went
to Spain, then to Morocco, and from there he crossed the Sahara to visit
Timbuktu and the Niger River. Batuta is still considered a most reliable source
for the geography of his period and an authority on the cultural and social
history of Islam. For annotated selections from his writings, see Travels of Ibn Battuta
(tr. by H. A. R. Gibb, 3 vol., rev. ed. 1958–71).
RRQuestion 24 - Why was Islamic culture so intellectually vital and
creative?
Shared language, culture, philosophy across a vast area. Access to knowledge
of India, Persia, Greece, Rome, Egypt. Tradition of critical thinking. Strong
advances in mathematics, geography, founded sociology and critical history.
RRQuestion 25 - Explain what the word zuhd might mean for a Sufi.
Sufism - ascetic and mystical movements within Islam seeking a direct
relationship with God. Zuhd means renunciation.
Typical was Rabia al-Adawiyya, a woman from Basra (Iraq) who rejected
worship motivated by the desire for heavenly reward or the fear of punishment
and insisted on the love of God as the sole valid form of adoration.
Renunciation of the material world, the power of the Caliphates, the
control of the ulema - the religious scholars who interpret the Koran and
Sharia.
RRQuestion 26 - Why did the Moslems consider Europeans to be ignorant
infidels?
They perceived Western European Culture to be first and foremost Christian.
Christianity is a flawed religion because it didn't acknowledge the latter
revelations of the Prophet. Christian Europe had largely turned inward and lost
contact with the rest of the world, Christians were largely illiterate so they
had lost touch with the past. Islamic scholars communicated with each other
from China to Spain. They had preserved and expanded upon the knowledge of the
Romans and the Greeks. Islam had a tradition of critical analysis. Christianity
prosecuted dissenters as heretics.
RRQuestion 27 - Read the section on Endowment of a Madrasa, pages
276-77. What attitude does Islam have toward learning and why did people
endow schools (madrasas)?
Learning is an act of piety - of religious devotion to God. Therefore
learning is highly valued. Under sharia, contributing to a madrasa would be a
meritorious act.
