Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to Western CIV. In today's Bonus author interview,
Speaker 1: I sit down with historian James McDougall, and we're talking
Speaker 1: about his most recent book, Worlds of Islam, A Global History.
Speaker 1: What I love about this book and what you're going
Speaker 1: to experience a little bit in the interview, is that
Speaker 1: it tries to put the rise and growth of Islam
Speaker 1: into a overall world context. So often when we're talking
Speaker 1: about history, we're trying to bracket it. You know, we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about the history of India or Japan
Speaker 1: or the Southern United States in a given period. That's
Speaker 1: actually impossible, to be honest with you, That's like looking
Speaker 1: at only a small section of a painting. At the
Speaker 1: moment that you back up, you realize the scope of
Speaker 1: what it is that you're supposed to actually be looking at.
Speaker 1: And that's what this book does. I highly recommend picking
Speaker 1: it up. It's available today if you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: and the link is in the show notes. And I
Speaker 1: hope you enjoyed the interview. And so after these brief messages,
Speaker 1: my interview with James McDougall talking about Worlds of Islam
Speaker 1: A Global History. All right, and welcome back. As I
Speaker 1: mentioned before, I'm sitting down today with historian James McDougall,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about his most recent book, Worlds of Islam,
Speaker 1: a Global History. Now there's a lot that we could
Speaker 1: discuss with this book. It's several hundreds of pages, it's
Speaker 1: very detailed. Anybody who's interested in learning more about this
Speaker 1: subject or history in general, is going to love it.
Speaker 1: As I mentioned before, but you know, we'll confine ourselves
Speaker 1: to a couple sections of the book today in order
Speaker 1: to give a more coherent narrative so you can understand
Speaker 1: what you might expect when you pick it up. But
Speaker 1: I want to start with, I guess a pretty general question,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, I think a lot of people
Speaker 1: in the West have a lot of misconceptions about the
Speaker 1: history and the spread of Islam, And I'm going to
Speaker 1: ask you. I know it's a big question, I understand,
Speaker 1: but if you could give, like what you think is
Speaker 1: the number one misconception or something that you're constantly correcting,
Speaker 1: I think that would be helpful for the audience for sure.
Speaker 2: Thanks Adam. And yeah, I mean there are only big
Speaker 2: questions right when you come to this topic, which which
Speaker 2: is a good thing and also like a challenge, right,
Speaker 2: And as you say, yeah, the book is just over
Speaker 2: five hundred pages long, six in the pages or something,
Speaker 2: so it's fairly chunky, and I cover fourteen hundred years
Speaker 2: of history. So I think the main misconception that I
Speaker 2: guess the book is trying to address, and then I
Speaker 2: find myself often, you know, in teaching over the past
Speaker 2: twenty five years addressing as well, is the assumption really,
Speaker 2: and it's not a prejudice or anything, right, It's just
Speaker 2: an assumption that people just just come to this question
Speaker 2: without even thinking about really or really noticing that they
Speaker 2: hold this assumption that there is a thing called Islam
Speaker 2: which has a completely separate history to a thing called
Speaker 2: the West, right, and that it's an entirely self contained,
Speaker 2: civilizationally defined kind of monolith, this history of Islam. And
Speaker 2: I think one of the ways that you know, the
Speaker 2: book is trying to change the narrative on that is
Speaker 2: by pointing out that what Islam means and what it
Speaker 2: means to be Muslim has in fact changed radically and
Speaker 2: has always been enormously diverse over the whole of Islam's history,
Speaker 2: and you can't understand the history of what is meant
Speaker 2: to be Muslim in the world, or what being Muslim
Speaker 2: has meant to people in the world, without understanding the
Speaker 2: multiplicity of different worlds in which they've lived, which of
Speaker 2: course includes things other than Islam. It includes you know, politics, ecology, trade, migration, languages, cultures, food,
Speaker 2: and of course other people who are not Muslims with
Speaker 2: whom Muslims have always been in relation. So that's the
Speaker 2: number one misconception, that there's a thing called Islam that
Speaker 2: just moves the history, that's kind of fully defined as
Speaker 2: a religious system that has its own separate civilizational history,
Speaker 2: and that can so be understood separately from another world
Speaker 2: of the West. I want to say that Muslim history
Speaker 2: has always been intertwined with other worlds.
Speaker 1: I think that's probably a misconception no matter what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, Honestly, whatever period, you know, we teach courses
Speaker 1: like the United States history from xperiod to experiod or
Speaker 1: European history as though you can kind of separate those
Speaker 1: things and put those things into these nice boxes. But
Speaker 1: reality is is that's never men are realistic for anyone
Speaker 1: of course, one of the things, yeah, go ahead, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's right.
Speaker 2: I mean and of course, you know, to a certain extent,
Speaker 2: those things, as you say, are inevitable, right, So partly
Speaker 2: it's a it's a convenience of the way we think
Speaker 2: about and teach the subjects. And because you know, no
Speaker 2: one can be an expert and everything, we tend to compartmentalize, right.
Speaker 2: And also because people need usable histories, people and just
Speaker 2: just kind of to be a regular kind of informed citizen,
Speaker 2: but especially for interested in history, you need a kind
Speaker 2: of usable narrative, and usually that narrative takes a particular
Speaker 2: and chronological form and takes a particular geographical or cultural center.
Speaker 2: One of the things that global historians have been doing
Speaker 2: in the last twenty five years is to problematize that
Speaker 2: a bit and to look at what happens when you
Speaker 2: start looking at things that move rather than things that
Speaker 2: are centered. So, I mean, yeah, it's absolutely right that
Speaker 2: it's completely inevitable that we have those kind of centered,
Speaker 2: compartmentalized histories, and they're very they're perfectly legitimate, right, I'm
Speaker 2: not saying that that's not a legitimate way to do history.
Speaker 2: And of course for learning history, it's a it's a
Speaker 2: kind of essential first step, but it does mislead us
Speaker 2: when we start thinking, especially in terms of the significance
Speaker 2: of history for contemporary issues about the world is separated
Speaker 2: into these different civilizational compartments. And of course, in the
Speaker 2: you know, since the nineteen nineties, we have this kind
Speaker 2: of narrative of the world going through a clash of civilizations,
Speaker 2: which has been politically enormously problematic and I would say,
Speaker 2: you know, dangerous and actually quite pernicious. And so again
Speaker 2: one of the things that again the type of the subtitle,
Speaker 2: because of global history, and one of the things the
Speaker 2: Global Historian has been trying to do is to rewrite
Speaker 2: some of those histories to look at connections rather than compartments.
Speaker 1: And I hope that listeners understand it does say it's
Speaker 1: a global history, and that's you know, the subtitle of
Speaker 1: the book, and I think that's really important for people
Speaker 1: to understand because that's very much the focus. Well, let's
Speaker 1: kind of go back to the early chapters here. I
Speaker 1: want to start to talk about the unbelievable expansion of
Speaker 1: the First Caliphate, because you know, listeners of the show
Speaker 1: will know, you know, how I have an affinity for
Speaker 1: the Roman Empire. I talked about that a lot but
Speaker 1: you know, this caliphate expands over much of the known
Speaker 1: world faster than it takes the Romans just to defeat
Speaker 1: the Carthaginians, you know, just just simply across the pond.
Speaker 1: And I want to read a quotation here from the
Speaker 1: very beginning of the introduction of your book says, quote,
Speaker 1: when ubig in Nafi, not sure about that pronunciation, reached
Speaker 1: the Atlantic Ocean, it said that he galloped straight into
Speaker 1: the sea. Big had been or born only a few
Speaker 1: years before the death of Prophet Mohammad fifty years earlier now,
Speaker 1: in six point eighty one CE, he led an Arab
Speaker 1: Muslim army that set out from southern Tunisia and skirmished
Speaker 1: with Byzantine forces as far as Tangier. We're talking about huge, huge,
Speaker 1: rapid expansion here, really that only the Mongols are going
Speaker 1: to sort of come close to, Like, how do we
Speaker 1: put that into context?
Speaker 2: That's a that's an excellent question. And at the same time,
Speaker 2: of course, as Ukber, this guy you're talking about, which
Speaker 2: is the Atlantic, he's the first Muslim conquer worth you like,
Speaker 2: to reach the far west of Morocco. At the same time,
Speaker 2: other Muslims are reaching just as far further east right
Speaker 2: from Mecca and Medina, and the kind of original point
Speaker 2: of where Islam came from at you know, as far
Speaker 2: as the borders of India. So that is an extraordinary
Speaker 2: expansion only in the first sort of fifty fifty two
Speaker 2: hundred years right of the Caliphate, And indeed the most
Speaker 2: significant expansion really is much much quicker than that. Even
Speaker 2: the prophet Mohammad dies in six thirty two of the
Speaker 2: Common era, right only ten years after the New era,
Speaker 2: the Islamic calendar that he's created is inaugurated and the
Speaker 2: first community is founded. And by the six forties only,
Speaker 2: you know, ten to fifteen years after the death of
Speaker 2: the prophet, the Muslim Arabs have collapsed the Persian Empire
Speaker 2: and driven the Roman or Byzantine Empire out of Egypt,
Speaker 2: Palestine and Syria right up to the borders of what's
Speaker 2: now modern Turkey, where the border between the Caliphate and
Speaker 2: the Roman Empire, the Basant and Empire will remain for
Speaker 2: the next three centuries. And I guess there were three
Speaker 2: things before we need to take into account. And before
Speaker 2: we take our three things into account, we also need
Speaker 2: to remember that for the Muslims themselves, the early expansion
Speaker 2: of the Caliphate or the establishment of the Calivate and
Speaker 2: then it's territorial expansion out of the Arabian Peninsula and
Speaker 2: into what we now know is the Middle East could
Speaker 2: only be understood by, you know, by reference to it
Speaker 2: as being the work of God. Right, they see it
Speaker 2: as only understandable as a work of divine providence, you know.
Speaker 2: And the same way as the Pilgrim Fathers think of
Speaker 2: you know, that the way that they come to establish
Speaker 2: themselves in America as only understandable as a work of
Speaker 2: divine providence. These are things that are astonishing on a
Speaker 2: world historical scale, and often human consciousness itself has been
Speaker 2: inadequate to understanding them. And that sense of, you know,
Speaker 2: the early expansion of the faith as being literally the
Speaker 2: work of God is really important to understand in the
Speaker 2: ideological self perception that those early Muslims have of themselves.
Speaker 2: I think that's the first thing to say. Obviously, that's
Speaker 2: not a historical explanation. That's the kind of the way
Speaker 2: that they saw themselves. If we think about it historically,
Speaker 2: there were three things that are important. One, I think
Speaker 2: is the community of Muslims themselves, and that the significance
Speaker 2: of that ideological self understanding that I just referred to
Speaker 2: in motivating the community in its early expansion. This is
Speaker 2: a community which is found as a kind of persecuted
Speaker 2: group of exiles by the proper Muhammad in the city
Speaker 2: of Medina in western Arabia, and which within only two
Speaker 2: within a generation, really becomes this kind of mobilized, highly mobilized,
Speaker 2: highly ideologically cohesive, conquering force. The leading historian of the
Speaker 2: early Conquests, Fred Donner, wrote that the early conquest, so
Speaker 2: I'm going to quote from him. He says they were
Speaker 2: a remarkable testament to the power of human action mobilized
Speaker 2: by ideological commitment, in other words, what people can do
Speaker 2: when they put their minds to it. Right. So that's
Speaker 2: one explanation that there's this extraordinary ideological cohesive force of
Speaker 2: what it means to be Muslim in this early period
Speaker 2: that gives people this extraordinarily kind of mobilizing energy. The
Speaker 2: second thing is again to to go back to what
Speaker 2: you said earlier about context. There has been a major
Speaker 2: superpower war between the Romans and the Persians which lasts
Speaker 2: for twenty five years, right a quarter of a century
Speaker 2: between six o three and sixty two eight of the
Speaker 2: Common Era, which really which is a crisis. In six
Speaker 2: twenty six, when the Persians are besiege in Constantinople, it
Speaker 2: looks like the Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire, which
Speaker 2: still thinks of itself as continuous with the classical Roman Empire.
Speaker 2: You know, these will call themselves what a mayoi, This
Speaker 2: be Greek, but they call themselves Romans. That they're almost
Speaker 2: at the point of collapse. That's then averted when the
Speaker 2: famous Roman emperor Heraclius, whom I'm sure you and your
Speaker 2: listener so familiar with counter attack spectacularly gets to the
Speaker 2: gates of testifon the Persian capital and almost takes the
Speaker 2: capital itself. The Persians have to suit. They're exhausted. The
Speaker 2: Byzantines have exhausted crucially within within the Persian or Sicanian
Speaker 2: Empire that the end of the war in the six
Speaker 2: twenties leads to a collapse of the empire. Effectively, there's
Speaker 2: the collapse that internally fragmented, there's a coup in the capital,
Speaker 2: that their territory has been occupied by Roman forces. The
Speaker 2: empire is kind of on the verge of collapse. The
Speaker 2: Banzaron Tines have just won the war, but they're also exhausted. Right,
Speaker 2: They've been paying very large amounts of money to keep
Speaker 2: armies in the field for a very long time. They've
Speaker 2: had their richest provinces in Egypt and Syria taken away
Speaker 2: from them for a long time. They've been under Persian occupation,
Speaker 2: and so when the Arab suddenly appear in the six twenties,
Speaker 2: six thirties, early six forties, they're facing a much weakened
Speaker 2: Persian Empire and also a Byzantine Empire that can no
Speaker 2: longer afford to keep large armies in the field. They
Speaker 2: do field a couple of quite significant armies, especially in Syria,
Speaker 2: but those armies don't stand up to the Arab attacks,
Speaker 2: and then and then they basically get withdrawn because they
Speaker 2: can't afford to keep them in the field anymore. And
Speaker 2: that the third final thing is what is it like
Speaker 2: to be conquered? So one of the things that we
Speaker 2: know about the early conquest is they're very rapid, especially
Speaker 2: in Syria and Palestine, and with relatively little bloodshed. Right, Certainly,
Speaker 2: there's there's there's pillaging, there are people who are masacred
Speaker 2: in the countrysides, but most of the major cities of
Speaker 2: Rome and Syria and Palestine. So Jerusalem Damascus negotiate with
Speaker 2: the our bamis to the gates and let them in.
Speaker 2: They've just gone through this war, been occupied by the Persians.
Speaker 2: They don't want to see this it is destroyed by
Speaker 2: another conquering army. So they basically cut a deal, and
Speaker 2: of course, the Caliph Omar enters the city of Jerusalem guarded,
Speaker 2: has it guarded tour of the Temple Mount at the
Speaker 2: hands of the patriarch of the Christian Church, Sophronius, who
Speaker 2: takes them up and shows them the sites. And that's
Speaker 2: another explanation, right that the world into which the Muslim
Speaker 2: other conquerors come is one which is already undergoing something
Speaker 2: of a er geopolitical crisis. And it's also one in
Speaker 2: which people are, you know, not necessarily predetermined in their
Speaker 2: actions by any sense of kind of religious antagonism. Right,
Speaker 2: They're perfect. You've partegy deals with each other, and that's
Speaker 2: what happens.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I always find this period in history so fascinating because,
Speaker 1: you know, as the Arab armies explode onto the scene,
Speaker 1: I always kind of make this analogy. It's almost as though,
Speaker 1: you've got two heavyweight boxers who have been slugging it
Speaker 1: out back and forth, round after round, and they've both
Speaker 1: landed significant blows and they're both exhausted. And then suddenly
Speaker 1: a third boxer walks out onto the ring and he
Speaker 1: totally rested, totally ready to go, you know. And so
Speaker 1: you've got these two champions, but they're tired, you know,
Speaker 1: and they've fought a lot. And I think you get
Speaker 1: at something really important here, which is, you know, we
Speaker 1: tend to look at the map of the Roman Empire,
Speaker 1: the map of any empire at n see it's well, okay,
Speaker 1: well it's read from here to here, so that means
Speaker 1: there's total control. But actually within all of these cities
Speaker 1: and communities, there's local elites and factions, and you know,
Speaker 1: they're looking out for themselves at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: you know, and if somebody else shows up with a
Speaker 1: strong army and they don't have protection from whoever whoever's
Speaker 1: color is over that section of the map right now,
Speaker 1: you know, it's much more likely that a cut of deal,
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 2: Then Yeah, so that's right, And so one of the
Speaker 2: things is that your third boxer is also incredibly nimble
Speaker 2: and agile and very and very motivated. Right, So he's
Speaker 2: much smaller than the other guys. That's very significant. We
Speaker 2: think the Alabamas are pretty small, not more than about
Speaker 2: ten thousand men probably. They're very mobile, they're very they're
Speaker 2: very disciplined, certainly, and that you know they've been in training.
Speaker 2: So that your your your third boxer is nimble, he's agile.
Speaker 2: He's a lot smaller, but he's more like can he
Speaker 2: can he can land some pretty rapid kind of stingy blows, right,
Speaker 2: And that's right. The other thing is, and also in
Speaker 2: particular this is relevant to the Eastern Roman Empire, the
Speaker 2: Byzantine Empire. One of the things that's been happening religiously
Speaker 2: for the last couple of times in those territories is
Speaker 2: there's enormous split within the Christian Church. Right. There have
Speaker 2: been a not very you know, sometimes quite violent doctrinal
Speaker 2: disputes over the nature of the nature of the person
Speaker 2: of Christ, the relationship between Christ, between the Father and
Speaker 2: the Son, what it means to be you know, a Christian.
Speaker 2: And many people who are what historian Princeton Jacksnese called
Speaker 2: simple believers or no people are in the countryside, who
Speaker 2: are not literate, who do not you know, who have
Speaker 2: a sense of themselves belonging to a particular Christian community,
Speaker 2: but do not have a strong, you know, ideological understanding
Speaker 2: of doctrine or of the issues that are being fought
Speaker 2: fought out in these church councils over heresy and orthodoxy.
Speaker 2: They're actually surprisingly receptive to an incoming religious system that
Speaker 2: is not going to persecute them anymore, because frequently they
Speaker 2: have been persecuted. One of the things that the byzant
Speaker 2: And Empire has been doing is declaring that certain beliefs
Speaker 2: are Orthodox and others are heretic, and they've been persecuted
Speaker 2: in the heretics. And interestingly, when the Muslims turn up,
Speaker 2: they're perfectly've pared to tolerate everybody's religious opinions as long as
Speaker 2: they stay in their place, pay their taxes, you know, acnology,
Speaker 2: Muslim supremacy, and don't cause trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's very interesting, you know, because the Byzantines, as
Speaker 1: listeners of the show, no, we'll go through the iconoclasm
Speaker 1: period and we didn't even mention this, but of course
Speaker 1: in the sixth century, you know, the Byzantines and assassinates
Speaker 1: have also been racked by the plague, you know, and
Speaker 1: that's you know, sort of sapped their strength in addition
Speaker 1: to several abortive efforts by just Anian to retake the West,
Speaker 1: all of which costs money, all of which cost soldiers,
Speaker 1: you know, So it's not you know, we have again.
Speaker 1: This is so important because we're going about the global context,
Speaker 1: right and put and putting this these these sorts of
Speaker 1: things into images where if you take a snapshot, you
Speaker 1: probably come out with one image of what happened in
Speaker 1: a period. But if you back the lens out even
Speaker 1: a little bit, you start to realize that there's actually
Speaker 1: a lot more people in the picture than I thought
Speaker 1: that there were. Yeah, exactly, it's really important.
Speaker 2: I think that is important. The plague, yeah, has been
Speaker 2: significant part. And it doesn't it probably doesn't help the
Speaker 2: Albs that much because the Arabs suffer from it as
Speaker 2: well when they when they arrived in Syrian past time.
Speaker 2: But but it certainly has weakened the Byzantines. One of
Speaker 2: the things that you need if you're a late ancient
Speaker 2: empire is a large prosperous agrarian you know, population to
Speaker 2: provide you with the tax base that keeps your empire
Speaker 2: afloat and keeps your armies in the field. And you
Speaker 2: know the effects of the plague is certainly to depopulate
Speaker 2: some of those provinces that have been paying the taxes
Speaker 2: that keeps the Byzantine armies in the field. So although
Speaker 2: they are able to put troops in the field, you
Speaker 2: know in Syrian pasta, indeed, Heraclius is there for a
Speaker 2: while commanding those armies himself, they their taxpace is definitely
Speaker 2: shrunk a lot, and they and they don't have the
Speaker 2: resources that they need to fight yet another war having
Speaker 2: just won one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so important. Now, in in the book, you write
Speaker 1: about how in the years after it emerged from the
Speaker 1: Arabian Peninsula, Islam had become a global force in two ways.
Speaker 1: Could you explain for the listeners what were those two
Speaker 1: ways and why were they important?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, what I mean by that is, and I'm
Speaker 2: using this word global you know a lot. So let's
Speaker 2: be a little more specifical what I mean by it
Speaker 2: in that sense. What I'm what I'm saying is that
Speaker 2: global is cultural and it's geographical. So there's a there's
Speaker 2: a kind of cultural culturally globalizing impetus to Islam if
Speaker 2: you like, which is that Islam is a universalizing religion.
Speaker 2: It's a missionary religion, if you like, in the same
Speaker 2: way that Christianity is for Muslims. The vocation of the
Speaker 2: believers to bring the word of God to the whole
Speaker 2: of humanity. And when Nephew, the little bit that you quoted,
Speaker 2: you know, from the beginning of the book, rides you know,
Speaker 2: into the Atlantics because he kind of sees himself as
Speaker 2: carrying that message. If the Atlantic Ocean had not prevented him,
Speaker 2: he would have written on to the ends of the Earth, continuing,
Speaker 2: you know, to bring God's message to human to humanity.
Speaker 2: So there's a kind of there's a there's a universalism
Speaker 2: implicit in Islam, which makes it potentially global or globalizing force.
Speaker 2: It has a reach unto the ends of the earth,
Speaker 2: right kind of universalizing religious message, and more basically more
Speaker 2: materially geographically, Islam also becomes a global force in that
Speaker 2: it does reach out. All these Muslims move out globally
Speaker 2: from the birthplace of the faith and the Western Arabian
Speaker 2: Peninsula into what we now call the Middle East, across
Speaker 2: North Africa, across Central Asia and into South Asia, and
Speaker 2: then ultimately across across to Mariatim, Southeast Asia, to the Philippines,
Speaker 2: to China, to Western East Africa, and then to you know,
Speaker 2: to Europe and to the Americas and to Australasia and
Speaker 2: Japan and to basically, if we're looking at you know,
Speaker 2: the expansion of Islam globally today into basically every country
Speaker 2: in the world. So there's a there are two ways
Speaker 2: in which which Islam is a global force or has
Speaker 2: a global history in that sense. Part of course we've
Speaker 2: just been talking about the way in which we need
Speaker 2: to understand Islam contextually is part of global history, of
Speaker 2: the history of the world's into which it comes. And also,
Speaker 2: you know, the vision of Islam for the world is
Speaker 2: one that kind of comes into the whole of the world,
Speaker 2: both culturally and geographically.
Speaker 1: One of the things I'm always interested about, and I
Speaker 1: know there's these are these are tough questions because we
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have a lot of historical sources for I'll
Speaker 1: put in an air quotes common people or you know,
Speaker 1: Anon elites. But I'm always interested as to whether or
Speaker 1: not we know, you know, what was the rapidity with
Speaker 1: which people were willing to adopt a new faith. You know,
Speaker 1: this is an ideologically driven religion. How long you know,
Speaker 1: did let's say Christians in Egypt or anywhere like, like,
Speaker 1: how long were they willing to hold on to and
Speaker 1: I know obviously some do forever, but you know, at
Speaker 1: what point can we say that, Okay, well this is
Speaker 1: you know, this is a tipping point where more people
Speaker 1: are converting to Islam that are holding through old religion.
Speaker 1: Is that something that happens very quickly? Is it something
Speaker 1: that takes a long time like where like because it
Speaker 1: would seem to me that would provide stability for the
Speaker 1: regime and so how how long does that sort of
Speaker 1: process take in it as this expansion is going forward?
Speaker 1: If you can answer that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we can answer that that there's quite
Speaker 2: a good literature on this and now especially for the
Speaker 2: for the Middle East and the medieval period, and the
Speaker 2: answer is that it takes quite a long time. I
Speaker 2: mean that when the Muslim Arabs come out of Arabia
Speaker 2: as a kind of conquering elite, being a Muslim means
Speaker 2: to be part of the new conquering elite community and
Speaker 2: they're not terribly keen for you know, all the peasants
Speaker 2: in the in the villages that are pain that access
Speaker 2: to join that community, particularly to start with. So the movement,
Speaker 2: although it has this, as I said, a universalizing kind
Speaker 2: of missionary impetus, it also kind of belongs to the
Speaker 2: Arabs in the early years, and the Muslims will remain
Speaker 2: a minority religiously speaking, in the kind of what we
Speaker 2: think of as the heartlands of Islam in the Middle
Speaker 2: least until about the twelfth century. So it takes a
Speaker 2: good you know, three to four centuries for large numbers
Speaker 2: of Christians and Jews, overwhelmingly in the former Roman Byzantine
Speaker 2: provinces Christians to convert to Islam. Now that happens in
Speaker 2: various it's not kind of at a regular rate. Over time,
Speaker 2: there are moments at where people begin to convert in
Speaker 2: larger numbers, and certainly elites probably convert relatively quickly, especially
Speaker 2: those in the cities. So people who two three generations
Speaker 2: down the line, you know, if you're a physician, you're
Speaker 2: a lawyer, or an administrator. Certainly administrative elites in what
Speaker 2: was the Sasanian Persian Empire seem to convert relatively rapidly.
Speaker 2: So people can come into Islam relatively rapidly. They become
Speaker 2: Muslims in order to maintain the social status and the
Speaker 2: prestige of the position, the access to the court, that
Speaker 2: access to resources, the membership of the ruling elite, right
Speaker 2: or no. People in the countryside takes much much longer.
Speaker 2: So over the first few centuries of the Muslim presence,
Speaker 2: really in most of the Middle East, it takes quite
Speaker 2: a long time for people to convert. And as I say,
Speaker 2: it's by the twelfth century, basically by the eleven hundreds,
Speaker 2: Muslims have become a majority in the Middle East. But
Speaker 2: it's taken them that long to do that.
Speaker 1: That's actually much longer than I would have expected. So
Speaker 1: that that's very interesting. But well, let's talk about a
Speaker 1: group that's definitely on the outside looking in. You know,
Speaker 1: you're write about how is Islam expands, it gains captive
Speaker 1: people's obviously very very quickly. And you're right about how
Speaker 1: Islamic law accept is slavery and put it this in
Speaker 1: quotes as a fact of life. All right, that's the
Speaker 1: quote part. What were ISLAMI I mean, we're coming out
Speaker 1: of civilizations where slavery was practiced as well, So I
Speaker 1: think this doesn't Again, this isn't something new, This isn't
Speaker 1: something that was people's created. Okay, the Romans had plenty
Speaker 1: of slaves, all right, you go to the coliseum. It
Speaker 1: wasn't free folks who built a lot of that. So
Speaker 1: what were the views of the Islamic world towards slavery
Speaker 1: and did they did they change at some point, I'm assuming,
Speaker 1: but you know, what were they like at least initially.
Speaker 2: So as you say, first of all, again to put
Speaker 2: you know, the early Muslim community in its context, it's
Speaker 2: a slaveholding. It's a slaveholding world, right, in which there lives.
Speaker 2: There were slaves in Arabia. Certainly, Arabia is a very hierarchical,
Speaker 2: patriarchal society in which there are slaves the bottom of
Speaker 2: the world, just as there are in the Persian speaking
Speaker 2: world to the eastern, and the Greek speaking world and
Speaker 2: omex speaking Worll to their west. When the caliphates again
Speaker 2: comes in and conquers these areas, they become a new
Speaker 2: imperial power, just like the old imperial powers they have.
Speaker 2: They accept the legitimacy of slave owning or slaveholding that
Speaker 2: some people can belong to other people, and it's quite
Speaker 2: an important part of the workforce in certain parts of
Speaker 2: the of the New Muslim Empire, certainly in the cities
Speaker 2: where they inherit a kind of enslaved workforce from the
Speaker 2: Roman Empire, and in certain areas, especially in southern Iraq,
Speaker 2: where there are kind of large scale agricultural operations that
Speaker 2: will allow on slave labor and will continue to rely
Speaker 2: on slave labor, kind of very large scale slave labor
Speaker 2: for a few centuries. The Again, there were a couple
Speaker 2: of extremes in you know, people's perceptions of this that
Speaker 2: we need to be careful to avoid. One is a
Speaker 2: kind of apologetic narrative that you know, Muslim slavery quote
Speaker 2: unquote or kind of Islamic kind of legal understanding of
Speaker 2: slavery are kind of much more liberal and much more
Speaker 2: kind of humane than those practiced elsewhere in the world.
Speaker 2: Or sometimes we see this in African historiography, right that
Speaker 2: there's a.
Speaker 1: Perception that.
Speaker 2: Unfreedom or forms of unfreedom are more like kind of
Speaker 2: extended kinship relations in parts of West Africa, for example,
Speaker 2: than they are like slave free in I don't know,
Speaker 2: the Americas, for example, and that is that's true, but
Speaker 2: it can kind of shade off into this kind of
Speaker 2: attitude that, well, you know, this kind of slavery is
Speaker 2: somehow kind of not as bad as the kind of slavery,
Speaker 2: and I think we need to be really careful of
Speaker 2: those kinds of arguments. On the other hand, there's a polemical,
Speaker 2: you know, kind of Islamophobic tradition of writing about Islamic
Speaker 2: slavery as somehow kind of you know, much much worse
Speaker 2: and much longer lived and kind of much more kind
Speaker 2: of inherent somehow to Islamic civilization than slavery would be
Speaker 2: in kind of Western history, which again is historically untrue
Speaker 2: and obviously deeply problematic. Within Islamic law, fairly early on
Speaker 2: there is established a set of norms governing the conduct
Speaker 2: of slave owners, which tends to limit the extent to
Speaker 2: which people are unfree in Islamic law. Right, So the
Speaker 2: one crucial thing really is that slaves are considered as
Speaker 2: persons in Islamic law, not as property, so they're not
Speaker 2: considered chattle, so unlike in English law. In the Americas,
Speaker 2: you know, with the establishment of plantation slavery and the
Speaker 2: Americas and the American colonies. In the Caribbean, slaves are
Speaker 2: not where slaves are treated simply as property as chattels. Right,
Speaker 2: slaves are never chattels in Islamic law. Now that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that all Muslim slave owners treat their slaves great right,
Speaker 2: but it is technically true that slaves are persons, not property,
Speaker 2: and they have the rights of persons. If a slave
Speaker 2: mother gives birth to a child, the child is free,
Speaker 2: and the child of a free born man and a
Speaker 2: slave mother sore concubine, which happens a lot in the
Speaker 2: Middle East, the child is born free, the child is
Speaker 2: not born as slave right again, and that's legally speaking,
Speaker 2: a really crucial distinction from slavery in the Atlantic world,
Speaker 2: where children born to slaves, children born to slave mothers
Speaker 2: are born slaves in respective with their fathers. So there
Speaker 2: are these legal norms which are tending in the case
Speaker 2: of Islamic law towards manumission, towards limiting slavery, which is
Speaker 2: the opposite of what happens in the Atlantic complex, where
Speaker 2: legal status of slaves tends to expand. Slavery tends to
Speaker 2: bring children into slaverty. So to keep women in slavery.
Speaker 2: A mother of a freeborn child who gives birth to
Speaker 2: a freeborn child who is fathered by a freeborn Muslim
Speaker 2: should also become free right in the Islamic law. So
Speaker 2: there are attitudes to slavery within the legal tradition which
Speaker 2: tends to restrict slavery, which certainly emphasized manumission or freeing
Speaker 2: slaves as an active piety. And we know that on
Speaker 2: people's deaths, very often their slaves are free. That's a
Speaker 2: kind of active of piety that people perform kind of
Speaker 2: before they die in their will. And most of the
Speaker 2: time slavery in the Middle East is a kind of
Speaker 2: domestic slavery, and that's the way in which it kind
Speaker 2: of comes slightly closer to this idea of it being
Speaker 2: a kind of a more extended kinship kind of structure.
Speaker 2: Right that the slaves of people who work in domestic
Speaker 2: service often women who are enslaved for domestic s us
Speaker 2: rather than men who are enslaved for you know, large
Speaker 2: scalar cultural works and so on. That does happen though,
Speaker 2: especially in the Middle East, especially in southern Iraq, and
Speaker 2: some of the biggest slave revolts in fact in history
Speaker 2: are known to have occurred in the early and the
Speaker 2: early caliphates in southern Iraq, where you have these very
Speaker 2: large numbers of black African slaves who enslaved on these
Speaker 2: really atrocious kind of agricultural estates in southern Iraq, clearing
Speaker 2: the ground, draining marshes, preparing the ground for agricultural product
Speaker 2: of that kind of thing. And these are there were
Speaker 2: some major major slave revolts that are actually also legitimated,
Speaker 2: interestingly enough, by kind of Islamic ethics, a kind of
Speaker 2: Islamic redempative message that the leader of the slave revolts,
Speaker 2: a guy called Mohammed min Ali, mobilizes the slaves behind
Speaker 2: this message of like were Muslims too, and we actually
Speaker 2: should be freed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's you know, I tend to agree with you
Speaker 1: that I think it's it's kind of a fool's Errand
Speaker 1: to start to draw these gradients between different types of slavery,
Speaker 1: you'll see it in all kinds of primary sources from
Speaker 1: the you know, Antebellum American South as well too. Whether
Speaker 1: the domestic slaves are they're they're better treated, so it's
Speaker 1: still slave okay, you know, And if you're a female
Speaker 1: domestic slave, you're you're probably subject to at least the
Speaker 1: threat of almost constant you know, sexual abuse, and like
Speaker 1: that's I think, you know, if we're going to start
Speaker 1: to talk about like, well, this wasn't as bad, like
Speaker 1: I don't know, like it's it's still it's still pretty
Speaker 1: bad here, guys, Like let's like let's drop the attitude,
Speaker 1: but you know, kind of turning away from the slavery
Speaker 1: for the moment. One of the questions that I'm fascinated
Speaker 1: about is how did empires in the pre modern world
Speaker 1: manage all of this? How on earth? Because if you
Speaker 1: look at the abbess at Caliphate, right, and and I'll
Speaker 1: ask you to talk about how large it was, and
Speaker 1: it's the largest extent, but then also like how do
Speaker 1: they manage it? It's could you be centralized? Is that
Speaker 1: even possible given the limitations of communication a lot. Let's
Speaker 1: just sorry about communication, not anything else. Like how do
Speaker 1: you do that with a territory that's this big? And
Speaker 1: if you could start by saying just how big.
Speaker 2: It was, yeah, just how big it is? So at
Speaker 2: its high? So if we talk I mean at its height. Again,
Speaker 2: that's a problematic term, right, because when do we think
Speaker 2: that is, but but generally speaking so that at its
Speaker 2: greatest territorial extent under a more or less centralized rule,
Speaker 2: which doesn't last very long. Right, So if we look
Speaker 2: at the beginning of the ninth century, the Passive Caliphate
Speaker 2: stretches from at least notionally right all the way across
Speaker 2: to Morocco and all the way east to Iran, Central Asia.
Speaker 2: So if we if people think of like where the
Speaker 2: ol Sea is, well, there's much there's not much left
Speaker 2: of the Olca now, but in the ninth century it
Speaker 2: was much bigger than it is now. So the ol
Speaker 2: Sea and kind of what's Central Asia through with an Oxus,
Speaker 2: down through Afghanistan to the borders of northern India and
Speaker 2: north up as far as the Caucasus h and the
Speaker 2: frontiers of Turkey and south obviously as far as the
Speaker 2: desert lightened and southern the edges of the Arabian Peninsula
Speaker 2: towards the Indian Ocean, and all this is ruled from Baghdad.
Speaker 2: And as you say, it's truly centralized rule obviously over
Speaker 2: a territory that wide is pretty impossible. And from very
Speaker 2: early on we have rival dynasties in the far West
Speaker 2: in Morocco, and in Spain, and also in the Far East,
Speaker 2: in Central Asia and the eastern frontieres of Uan beginning
Speaker 2: to contest the centralized well to contests that that that
Speaker 2: their subjection to the ambassad Califfin Baghdad. Right, But interestingly,
Speaker 2: one of the ways in which the Empire is able
Speaker 2: to maintain its effective jurisdiction over that period is precisely
Speaker 2: through communication. So the one thing really that keeps the
Speaker 2: empire together under the basids when it's working well is
Speaker 2: the cir called buddied the postal system, which is partly
Speaker 2: in inheritance from the late Roman and Ssanian postal system
Speaker 2: and partly a kind of creation of the caliph it itself.
Speaker 2: And this is an amazingly well organized, efficient system which
Speaker 2: has been studied in great death by a medieval historian
Speaker 2: called Adam Silverstein. And there is a system of placing
Speaker 2: postal rest stops with fresh horses and fresh messengers at
Speaker 2: a day's wide from any place within the within the empire.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And information and also of course intelligence gathering operates really, again,
Speaker 2: considering the period we're talking about, astonishingly effectively, at least
Speaker 2: for a while, across this whole area thanks in large
Speaker 2: part to the efficiency of the postal system. And then
Speaker 2: at the core of that, at the center, at the
Speaker 2: court itself, you have this again, especially under the Abasids,
Speaker 2: a very experienced and professionalized bureaucracy staffed by mainly Persian
Speaker 2: speaking secretaries, the whole kind of class of imperial courtiers
Speaker 2: known as the ketebs, the secretaries in the Islamic historic
Speaker 2: historiographical tradition, and these people have inherited an Iranian set
Speaker 2: of Sicanian you precedents have the science in the empire
Speaker 2: itself was governed becomes very important. These are the people
Speaker 2: who kind of who write this kind of moors for
Speaker 2: prince's kind of literature, the guides for good governance that
Speaker 2: come down to us in the literary tradition. And similarly
Speaker 2: in the early Caliphate, you know the provinces of Egypt, Syria, Palestine,
Speaker 2: these are all run by administrators who are initially largely
Speaker 2: not Muslims. So again going back to those Christian elites
Speaker 2: that we talked about earlier, who continue to administer in
Speaker 2: Greek initially at least until the end of the seventh
Speaker 2: beginning of the eighth century, and who and who are
Speaker 2: familiar with, though. You know how you how you manage taxation,
Speaker 2: how you manage the cadastal survey, how you how you
Speaker 2: know how much land is under cultivation, how you know
Speaker 2: how many people who are to pay taxison in a
Speaker 2: given area, how you raise troops, how you move your
Speaker 2: troops around. So those kind of basic technologies of government,
Speaker 2: if you like, are really well established because the Caliphate
Speaker 2: inherits them pastally partly from the late Byzantine and the
Speaker 2: Sicanian states, and because they develop their own spins on
Speaker 2: those things. But from very early on it also kind
Speaker 2: of breaks down, right, So, as I said, you have
Speaker 2: rival dynasties already in the eighth century, ninth century and
Speaker 2: the in the far West, and then also in Nyulan,
Speaker 2: Afghanistan and the East, we start to get rival dynasties
Speaker 2: beginning to take up their own sovereignty, usually people who
Speaker 2: start off as governors of provinces under the Abbasids, who
Speaker 2: begin to appropriate the tax offer use to their own
Speaker 2: purposes starting in the in the tenth century.
Speaker 1: And I think that's I think we just have to
Speaker 1: recognize when we talk about, you know, an effective system,
Speaker 1: well it's effective for the time period. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not necessarily universally effective. Sometimes I think about expansion too.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about you know, I think
Speaker 1: about militaries sometimes, especially in the early classical world, is
Speaker 1: sort of like water, like it's going to find the
Speaker 1: easiest path forward. And sometimes, you know, I think a
Speaker 1: lot about the Roman Empire and the sustaining it, the
Speaker 1: party and and so on and so forth, and they
Speaker 1: have they have very different like troop types militaries, and
Speaker 1: you know, I'm not a historian, but I like to
Speaker 1: do wargame what ifs a lot, you know, and you
Speaker 1: think kind of think of like the Romans have got
Speaker 1: this really strong, heavy, tight packed infantry which is real
Speaker 1: great in tight spaces and in Europe and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, but it gets out on the planes
Speaker 1: of the Middle East and it's just doesn't work as well.
Speaker 1: And then and then you've got this sort of cavalry
Speaker 1: oriented system that a lot of the Parthian military is
Speaker 1: and which is obviously coming from the Persians originally, and
Speaker 1: they're very effective in those spaces. But gosh, you know,
Speaker 1: the Islamic armies, particularly of the Caliphate, they just can't
Speaker 1: get past Constantinople, you know, until fourteen fifty three, they
Speaker 1: just can't get past there. And so I wonder if
Speaker 1: I could ask you, like, is there just a limit
Speaker 1: based on the type the way their military functions that
Speaker 1: you know, this is you know, the caliphate stretches to
Speaker 1: so that they get turned back at tours, you know,
Speaker 1: so they get you know, they kind of get pushed
Speaker 1: into this area, but there's just a natural limit to
Speaker 1: as far as they're going to be able to go.
Speaker 1: I've always wondered if that's the case, what do you
Speaker 1: think about that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know about that. I mean I think
Speaker 2: so that there's a kind of natural limit beyond which
Speaker 2: any imperial polity is going to find itself overextended. And
Speaker 2: that kind of depends on where its centers are, how
Speaker 2: long it's lines of communication if we want to talk,
Speaker 2: and kind of military terms, right, and also how effectively
Speaker 2: you can mobilize resources beyond your core territories. So the
Speaker 2: early color of fate again, you know, it depends on
Speaker 2: these highly mobile, highly disciplined, but quite small, mainly cavalry armies.
Speaker 2: They do lay siege to cities right in the first
Speaker 2: wave of the conquer. The main kind of phase of
Speaker 2: the conquest that we're talking about. Earlier in Syria and Palestine,
Speaker 2: they lay siege to cities, but their sieges don't tend
Speaker 2: to last terribly long, again partly because, as we said,
Speaker 2: the inhabitants of the cities decide to make a deal
Speaker 2: rather than risk having the city actually sacked and destroyed, right,
Speaker 2: so that they have some siege you know, technology that
Speaker 2: they're familiar with with siege, orly become familiar with siege
Speaker 2: technology fairly early on. But they're mostly mobile cavalry armies.
Speaker 2: They're not large standing armies set up for long campaigns
Speaker 2: in the field. They're mobilized for particular campaigns and then
Speaker 2: they're in the again in the early Califate. The veterans
Speaker 2: of those campaigns are settled as as kind of veterans,
Speaker 2: you know, in the garrison cities that are built for
Speaker 2: them in in Barcelona and Kufe in Iraq in particular,
Speaker 2: which become the centers of the new Muslim community. And yeah,
Speaker 2: in terms of how how far they extend, I mean
Speaker 2: that they get as far as a bunch of natural
Speaker 2: bowriers in a way, as far as the Indus River
Speaker 2: in India, interestingly across the mountains right but down into
Speaker 2: the Indus Valley, and then again as far as the
Speaker 2: Oxus and the across the Oxus River and too Transaxoniana
Speaker 2: in Central Asia. But then you're faced with, you know,
Speaker 2: the vastness of the steps of Central Asia in which
Speaker 2: you need to be mobile in order to survive. The
Speaker 2: one kind of lots of once you've passed kind of
Speaker 2: Bukada and Samarkan, the major population centers to to kind
Speaker 2: of be interesting to you as kind of points of conquest.
Speaker 2: And similarly in Europe, Yeah, you know, once the Arabs
Speaker 2: her and their Berber allies importantly in North Africa have
Speaker 2: conquered the Physigothic Kingdom and Spain, you know, they push
Speaker 2: up a little bit briefly into southern France, but there's
Speaker 2: no indication they have a particularly interested in staying there,
Speaker 2: you know, that would have that would have overextended their
Speaker 2: their lines too far.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's interesting how similar that these sort
Speaker 1: of end points are for expansions throughout history. You know,
Speaker 1: they get they get in India about as far as
Speaker 1: Alexander gets before he's turned back, you know, and so
Speaker 1: it's kind of and you repeated Roman empires who are
Speaker 1: kind of butting right up against the Tea Risan phrase
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. I think there's just
Speaker 1: these points that we just can't get past. And a
Speaker 1: lot of it is distance. It's yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a long way from Macedonia to the Oxas River.
Speaker 1: That's a long difference at that time.
Speaker 2: And you mentioned Constantinople, and of course the Ottomans can't
Speaker 2: get you know that there's a there's a very early
Speaker 2: attempts about the Arabs in fact, to take Constantinople right
Speaker 2: and that first wave of of early expansion, but no
Speaker 2: Muslim army manages to take Constance diply, as you said,
Speaker 2: into the middle of the fifteenth century. That's because they
Speaker 2: don't have they don't have the cia jutilly right, they
Speaker 2: don't have the artillity to get through the walls. When
Speaker 2: the Ottomans are using explosive shells in four and fifty three,
Speaker 2: when they actually take Constantinople, you don't You don't have
Speaker 2: that kind of technology until you have the kind of
Speaker 2: heavy gunpowder firepower that is there's really only becoming available
Speaker 2: anywhere in Europe or the Middle East in the middle
Speaker 2: of the in the middle of the fourteen hundreds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's true. It's very much metallurgy that allows them
Speaker 1: to ultimately take down those triple Walls, which we've talked
Speaker 1: about in the show here previously. But I want to
Speaker 1: end with one final, like big question that I'm always
Speaker 1: really interested in, which is you know about the Mongol
Speaker 1: invasions that come in the thirteenth century, because those, to me,
Speaker 1: are so much of a tipping point in world history.
Speaker 1: So many things change as a consequence. Now, of course,
Speaker 1: you know, the Arabs and the Muslim world has been
Speaker 1: dealing with Crusader wars, you know, since you know, the
Speaker 1: Urban the Second made the call to crusade at Clermont
Speaker 1: in ten ninety five, you know, so that's been going
Speaker 1: on for a while. But they've kind of managed that
Speaker 1: at this point. But then suddenly the Mongols come sweeping
Speaker 1: in from the east, and to me, this has always
Speaker 1: seemed like a huge turning point for the Muslim world,
Speaker 1: and so I wanted to ask you sort of and
Speaker 1: I know it's a huge last question, but like how
Speaker 1: big of a I'll use the word catastrophe for the
Speaker 1: Muslim world. Maybe that's not the right word. Were these
Speaker 1: Mongol invasions? Just how big of a variable are we
Speaker 1: suddenly introducing onto our board.
Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting that you mentioned the Crusades. Certainly, you know,
Speaker 2: again in what's often kind of a I want to
Speaker 2: say the Western but a Western kind of imagination of
Speaker 2: Islamic history, at the Crusades loom pretty large, right, because
Speaker 2: they loom pretty large in European history, in his European
Speaker 2: historical tradition, But they don't loom very large for the Muslims. Actually, interestingly,
Speaker 2: they're just not that important, first of all, because the
Speaker 2: Muslims have kind of them by the early thirteenth century,
Speaker 2: and the Mongols are much more important and much bigger deal.
Speaker 2: Certainly a much bigger catastrophe. I mean, the loss of
Speaker 2: Jerusalem to the Crusaders in the twelfth century is a
Speaker 2: big deal. But then Jerusalem gets reconquered and everything's fine again,
Speaker 2: and the Mongols, you know who, show up in Baghdad
Speaker 2: in twelve fifty eight Lacey's Baghdad sak Baghdad, kill the Caliph,
Speaker 2: put an end to the Bastid line again. In you know,
Speaker 2: a classical Islamic historiography kind of bring to an end
Speaker 2: the golden age of kind of Islamic civilizational history. That's
Speaker 2: often the way there's been seen, you know, within the
Speaker 2: Muslim tradition as well as by secular historians of kind
Speaker 2: of Islamic civilization. And again those terms that we talked
Speaker 2: about the beginning of our conversation, it's it's an absolutely
Speaker 2: cataclysmic world chattering moment. And interestingly, you know, for later
Speaker 2: descendants of the Mongols as well, like the Muggle emperors
Speaker 2: in India, you know, the rise of the Mongols is
Speaker 2: kind of the second most important world historical event of
Speaker 2: the millennium when they're looking back at you know, the
Speaker 2: last thousand years from the perspector of say fourteen hundred,
Speaker 2: fifteen hundred, sixteen hundred, the first great world historical event
Speaker 2: of course being the rise of Islam for them, and
Speaker 2: then the rise of the Mongols right to which they
Speaker 2: become the heirs. So within the Islamic tradition on the
Speaker 2: one hand, and the Arabic tradition, the emergence of the
Speaker 2: Mongols is this absolute calamity in what's often a Persian speaking,
Speaker 2: Persian writing tradition from further east, especially from South Asia.
Speaker 2: You know, the rise of the Mongols is equally momentous,
Speaker 2: but maybe not such a terrible thing. And that's quite interesting, right,
Speaker 2: And I think I showed that tell us a number
Speaker 2: of things. So partly the kind of catastrophe thesis, if
Speaker 2: you like, of the Mongol conquest is obviously influenced by
Speaker 2: the way it's perceived from the West. And when I
Speaker 2: say the West, I mean the western part of the
Speaker 2: Muslim world, from places where the Mongols never conquer, so Syria,
Speaker 2: Palestine and Egypt, and the medieval tradition of writing about
Speaker 2: the mongo conquest from these areas Mongols who are calamity,
Speaker 2: They're a plague, you know, they're the worst thing ever
Speaker 2: to be seen in the face of the earth, not
Speaker 2: likely to be repeated before the end of time. But
Speaker 2: when the Mongols turn up to Baghdad, they have Muslims
Speaker 2: with them, right, And indeed they have Muslim historians with
Speaker 2: them who will go on to write a rather different tradition,
Speaker 2: which is all about how the Mongols, you know, actually
Speaker 2: are part of an instrument of God's plan for the
Speaker 2: salvation of humanity, and that they're kind of a scourge
Speaker 2: on sinful human kind. But the Mongols themselves, of course,
Speaker 2: within a couple of generations, will also be Muslims from
Speaker 2: the end of the eleventh century, so from the end
Speaker 2: of the thirteenth century, most Muslim rulers in Central Asia
Speaker 2: and the Middle East are are themselves Muslim, and they
Speaker 2: go on to kind of be the origin point of
Speaker 2: a bunch of dynasties, most notably the Timurids or them
Speaker 2: Goes in South Asia, who will rule up until the
Speaker 2: eighteenth century as kind of the most significant Muslim dynasty
Speaker 2: in South Asian history. So what's really interesting about the Mongols,
Speaker 2: I think again from a kind of global history perspective,
Speaker 2: is the extent to which yeah they that marks a watershed,
Speaker 2: a turning point in Islamic history. It shift from a
Speaker 2: kind of Arabic speaking Eastern Mediterranean centered history to a
Speaker 2: Persian at Central and South and Asian history. The importance
Speaker 2: of Baghdad shifts from being kind of the center of
Speaker 2: the world to being a peripheral city on the east,
Speaker 2: on the western part of this persian at world which
Speaker 2: the mainly looks east, looks into Central Asia, looks to China,
Speaker 2: looks for the Indian Ocean, and it's kind of a
Speaker 2: moment of a shift of the center of gravity of
Speaker 2: the larger Muslim world as a whole, the Muslim ECUMENI
Speaker 2: right as I call it, kind of the shared world
Speaker 2: of different cultures that's united by belonging to Islam, and
Speaker 2: that center of gravity shifts from what we think of
Speaker 2: as the Middle East, Eastern Mediterranean into Central Asia, South Asia,
Speaker 2: and the world that's connected by the Mongol conquests all
Speaker 2: the way across to northern China, and that in that world,
Speaker 2: you know, Islama is going to flourish and to have
Speaker 2: a whole another whole life in architecture, in art, in painting,
Speaker 2: and in literature, poetry, in painting and so on, you know,
Speaker 2: for the next several hundred years. So the that's certainly
Speaker 2: a catastrophe for the people of Baghdad, right if you're
Speaker 2: on the receiving end of it in twelve fifty eight,
Speaker 2: it's it's absolutely horrendous. The city is sacked, large numbers
Speaker 2: of people are killed. You know, the chronicles, even the
Speaker 2: Mongol chronicles themselves, are pretty clear, at least the chronicles
Speaker 2: written under Mongol patronage are pretty clear about the extent
Speaker 2: of the slaughter the Mongols don't have any problems about,
Speaker 2: you know, foregrounding their reputation for as slaughtering conquerors. But
Speaker 2: what's interesting is that after that, it's more of a
Speaker 2: shift of the center of gravity and the force of
Speaker 2: the expansion of Islam around the world than it is
Speaker 2: clear kind of endpoint to what we think was a
Speaker 2: kind of classical Islamic civilization.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes I think that worlds don't quote unquote end
Speaker 1: they just move, They just shift in different places. Well,
Speaker 1: obviously there's a huge amount that we have not talked
Speaker 1: about in this excellent book, and I'm sure that everyone
Speaker 1: who picks up a copy of it is going to
Speaker 1: love it, and I would entreat those listening to do so.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming on the show. I've
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the conversation. Thanks ading me too, And there
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