After the Prophet: The Epic Story of the Shia-Sunni Split in Islam by Lesley Hazleton Page B
Authors: Lesley Hazleton
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took place more by messenger than by the sword. Given the choice to accept Arab rule—albeit with the sword held in reserve—most of Islam’s new subjects raised little objection. The Arabs, after all, were no strangers.
Long before Muhammad’s ascent to power, Meccan aristocrats had owned estates in Egypt, mansions in Damascus, farms in Palestine, date orchards in Iraq. They had put down roots in the lands and cities they traded with, for to be a trader in the seventh century was to be a traveler, and to be a traveler was to be a sojourner. The twice-yearly Meccan caravans to Damascus—up to four thousand camels at a time—did not merely stop and go at that great oasis city. They stayed for months at a time while contacts were made, negotiations carried out, hospitality extended and provided. Arabian traders had long been part and parcel of the social, cultural, and economic life of the lands they were to conquer.
And the timing was perfect. Just as Islam had come into being, a vast vacuum of power had been created. The two great empires that had controlled the Middle East—the Byzantines to the west and the Persians to the east—were fading fast, having worn each other out with constant warfare. The Persians could no longer even afford the upkeep on the vast irrigation systems fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. The Byzantines’ hold on Damascus and Jerusalem was tenuous at best. Both empires were collapsing from within, their power waning just as the Muslim nation was born, opening its eyes to what was practically an open invitation to enter and take over.
There was no imposition of Islam. On the contrary, Omar discouraged conversion. He wanted to keep Islam pure—that is, Arab—an attitude that would earn him no love among the Persians, who felt especially demeaned by it and would convert in large numbers after his death. He even ordered two new garrison cities built in Iraq—Basra in the south and Kufa in the center—to protect his administrators and troops from what he saw as Persian decadence.
But there was another strong incentive to keep conversion to a minimum. Omar had set up the diwan, a system by which every Muslim received an annual stipend, much as citizens of the oil-rich Gulf state of Dubai do today. It followed that the fewer Muslims there were, the larger the stipends, and since the taxes that provided these stipends were no greater than those previously paid to the Byzantines and the Persians, there was at first little resistance to them. As in any change of regime today, when photographs of the old ruler suddenly come down off the walls and ones of the new ruler go up, most people made their accommodations with Arab rule. But not everyone.
Nobody could have foreseen the assassination, the Medinans would say. It seemed to come out of the blue. How was anyone to know that a Christian slave from Persia would lose his mind and do such a dastardlything? To stab the Caliph six times as he bent down for morning prayer in the mosque, then drive the dagger deep into his own chest? It was incomprehensible.
There would be hints of a conspiracy—veiled derision of the very idea of a lone gunman, as it were, instead of a sophisticated plot by dark forces intent on undermining the new Islamic empire. Yet in the seventh century, as in the twenty-first, people could be driven to irrational despair. Or in this case, perhaps, to rational desperation.
The story has it that the slave’s owner had promised to free him but reneged on that promise. The slave had then appealed to Omar for justice, only to be rebuffed, and so bore an intense personal grudge against the Caliph. The story made sense, and people were glad to accept it. Even as Omar lay mortally wounded, even as they faced the death of their third leader in twelve years, there was nonetheless a palpable undercurrent of relief that the assassin was not one of theirs. He was Persian, not Arab; a Christian, not a Muslim. The
Long before Muhammad’s ascent to power, Meccan aristocrats had owned estates in Egypt, mansions in Damascus, farms in Palestine, date orchards in Iraq. They had put down roots in the lands and cities they traded with, for to be a trader in the seventh century was to be a traveler, and to be a traveler was to be a sojourner. The twice-yearly Meccan caravans to Damascus—up to four thousand camels at a time—did not merely stop and go at that great oasis city. They stayed for months at a time while contacts were made, negotiations carried out, hospitality extended and provided. Arabian traders had long been part and parcel of the social, cultural, and economic life of the lands they were to conquer.
And the timing was perfect. Just as Islam had come into being, a vast vacuum of power had been created. The two great empires that had controlled the Middle East—the Byzantines to the west and the Persians to the east—were fading fast, having worn each other out with constant warfare. The Persians could no longer even afford the upkeep on the vast irrigation systems fed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in Iraq. The Byzantines’ hold on Damascus and Jerusalem was tenuous at best. Both empires were collapsing from within, their power waning just as the Muslim nation was born, opening its eyes to what was practically an open invitation to enter and take over.
There was no imposition of Islam. On the contrary, Omar discouraged conversion. He wanted to keep Islam pure—that is, Arab—an attitude that would earn him no love among the Persians, who felt especially demeaned by it and would convert in large numbers after his death. He even ordered two new garrison cities built in Iraq—Basra in the south and Kufa in the center—to protect his administrators and troops from what he saw as Persian decadence.
But there was another strong incentive to keep conversion to a minimum. Omar had set up the diwan, a system by which every Muslim received an annual stipend, much as citizens of the oil-rich Gulf state of Dubai do today. It followed that the fewer Muslims there were, the larger the stipends, and since the taxes that provided these stipends were no greater than those previously paid to the Byzantines and the Persians, there was at first little resistance to them. As in any change of regime today, when photographs of the old ruler suddenly come down off the walls and ones of the new ruler go up, most people made their accommodations with Arab rule. But not everyone.
Nobody could have foreseen the assassination, the Medinans would say. It seemed to come out of the blue. How was anyone to know that a Christian slave from Persia would lose his mind and do such a dastardlything? To stab the Caliph six times as he bent down for morning prayer in the mosque, then drive the dagger deep into his own chest? It was incomprehensible.
There would be hints of a conspiracy—veiled derision of the very idea of a lone gunman, as it were, instead of a sophisticated plot by dark forces intent on undermining the new Islamic empire. Yet in the seventh century, as in the twenty-first, people could be driven to irrational despair. Or in this case, perhaps, to rational desperation.
The story has it that the slave’s owner had promised to free him but reneged on that promise. The slave had then appealed to Omar for justice, only to be rebuffed, and so bore an intense personal grudge against the Caliph. The story made sense, and people were glad to accept it. Even as Omar lay mortally wounded, even as they faced the death of their third leader in twelve years, there was nonetheless a palpable undercurrent of relief that the assassin was not one of theirs. He was Persian, not Arab; a Christian, not a Muslim. The
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