Islâm, 622 AD-present

Recite! In the name of your Lord! [Qur'ân, Sûra 96:1]

Islâm, , is the religion founded by the Prophet Muh.ammad. The word is sometimes said to mean "peace," but it is salâm, , that is the word for peace. Islâm means "submission, resignation," i.e. to the will of God. Both are from the same root, slm, , "to be safe and sound, unharmed," and many other meanings. This is related to Hebrew shalôm, "peace," and the Ancient Egyptian root snb, "health." The Dâru-l'Islâm, the "House of Islâm," means the predominantly Islâmic part of the world, especially the part covered by Islâmic states. Outside the Dâru-l'Islâm is the Dâru-lH.arb, the "House of War"; and it was the traditional duty of Islâmic rulers to extend the House of Islâm into the House of War.

This expansion of the Dâru-l'Islâm was the Jihâd, , the Holy War. Someone who does the Jihâd is a Mujâhid, (pl. Mujâhidûn, ). Jihâd is now often said not to mean, or not primarily to mean, Holy War but merely a moral and spiritual "struggle" for perfection. The root (jhd, ), indeed, does mean "to endeavor, struggle," etc., but also "to fight." Different derivatives of the root, as with slm, are used for different purposes. Ijtihâd, , is from the same root and can also mean "struggle," but it is mainly used to mean "independent interpretation" on a point of Islâmic Law, i.e. independent of legal precedent (following precedent is taqlîd, ). It is no distortion of Jihad to say that it means "Holy War." Indeed, in the Middle Ages it was an important question whether Islâm could be properly practiced in a non-Muslim state. Even though Islâm was supposed to tolerate "People of the Book," which originally meant Jews and Christians but in practice came to include Zoroastrians and even, unevenly, Hindus, this was only in a subordinate position (dhimma, the status of the dhimmî, the tolerated non-believer) -- Muslims being "tolerated" in a non-Muslim state was against the divine order.

The treatment of Jihâd in public discourse does not always seem honest. Thus, the former History International cable channel (now "H2") recently (12/10/08) aired a show called "Secrets of the Koran." This was copyrighted 2006 and so perhaps was a repeat showing. The show explained the ideology of Jihâd as the result of the Crusades, and otherwise positively affirmed that Muslims are only supposed to use force in self-defense. But to suppose such a thing with any kind of superficial consistency, major events in Islamic history were then ignored or glossed over. The Omayyads were never even mentioned during the show, and the original Islamic conquest of Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Iran, and Egypt, although illustrated with maps, was discussed in no detail and often only characterized as "spreading the Word of Islam." This was a grave distortion when the original Islamic Conquest was not intended to "spread the Word" or obtain converts at all. Islam was initially viewed as a religion just for Arabs.

Most terrible evils has Romania suffered from the Arabs even until now. Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (d.959) quoting The Chronicle of Theophanes (c.815) [De Administrando Imperio, Greek text edited by Gy. Moravcsik, Dumbarton Oaks Texts, 1967, 2008, p.94]

The earliest non-Arab coverts had to become affiliated with an Arab tribe, and their status was subordinate. Equality for all Muslims was, in general, the achievement of the Abbasid Revolution. The Islamic Conquest was therefore in the name of Islam, but its purpose was simply domination. Later, the show mentioned that the Crusades were elicited by an appeal from the Roman/Byzantine Emperor Alexius Comnenus, and that this had something to do with the Turks. Exactly what the Turks had been doing, however, was glossed over nearly as completely as the history of the Omayyads, and one might have derived the impression that Turkey had always been in Anatolia (they are not shown coming from anywhere else). That the advent of the Turks represented a major surge in Islamic Conquest was not made obvious; and the viewer of the show might notice a hiatus between fending off the Crusaders and the Ottoman Turks arriving at the gates of Vienna. In between, of course, there were rather serious events like the Fall of Constantinople, which gets ignored. Obviously, if the ideology of Jihâd only exists because of the aggression of the Crusaders, and war in Islam is only supposed to be used for defense, things like the Arab Conquest of the Middle East or the Turkish Conquest of the Roman/Byzantine Empire and Hungary are going to be somewhat awkward to explain. Hence the dishonesty. It is as though Egyptians, Syrians, etc., on hearing the Word, spontaneously converted to Islam, with Christian counter-attacks constituting, in modern leftist terminology, "Imperialist Aggression." No, the only thing about any Imperium that is really resented is that the wrong people possessed it. "Secrets of the Koran," thus, unfortunately, constituted a dishonest apologetic, not truly informative history.

Islâmic rulers engaged in Jihâd were not secular rulers in the modern sense, but neither were Mediaeval Christian rulers. In some ways Islâmic rulers seem more secular than Christian ones, since their military origin was usually recent and conspicuous (the Mamlûks are the most obvious), while Christian rulers (like the Kings of France) might claim authority directly from God. More important were other differences. European states had a legal tradition from Roman Law that was originally independent of Christianity, while Islâm had developed its own system of law. European judges were thus secular officials, while Islâmic judges were religious jurists. Europe even had parallel secular and eccelesiastical judicial systems, which is why King Henry II of England could be angry with Thomas à Becket, not for protecting the poor Saxons from oppression by the Norman King, but for protecting priests guilty of rape and murder from the full force of secular justice. Islâmic jurists were the principal institutional existence of Islâm, which otherwise had no priests or religious hierarchy. The Imâm in Orthdox Islâm might be learned (an 'Âlim, , "Knower," pl. 'Ulamâ', ), might even be a judge (a Qâd.î, ), but essentially is just the leader of the Prayer, with no particular religious authority. ('Ulamâ' or "Ulema" is frequently used for jurists and learned religious opinion in general; and, strickly speaking, the indefinite citation form for Qâd.î is Qâd.in, .) The institutional distinction in the West between Church and State made it relatively easy to separate these institutions. This separation was not only less easy in Islâm but the trend in recent years has actually reversed, with a reinstitution of Islâmic Law in states that had previously adopted secular law codes. This reversal has, not surprisingly, accompanied a renewed militancy and a sense of Jihâd that owes nothing to mollifying apologetics.

Other comparisons have been made between the characters of Muh.ammad, Jesus, and Moses, since Muh.ammad commanded armies, had multiple marriages, etc. Muh.ammad, indeed, had the responsibilities of rule, with a hostile enemy, Mecca, nearby. This involved battles. Jesus wasn't in any such position. His Kingdom, as he said, was not of this world. Moses did have the responsibilities of rule, though actual fighting didn't begin until the Israelites crossed the Jordan. Moses didn't go with them, and Joshua then handled the military business. Since Joshua was instructed by God to annihilate the people he found in the Promised Land, Muh.ammad comes off rather well in comparison, since the war with Mecca ended in a negotiated settlement where the only losers were the idols in the Ka'aba, (though there had been a fair amount of killing in the conflict, and Muh.ammad had in the meantime expelled the Jews from Medina). As for his marriages, Muh.ammad seemed to have been genuinely devoted to his wife Khadîja, an older widow whom he married after helping her run her business. Khadîja was one of the first who believed that Muh.ammad was actually receiving a divine revelation. He married no other until after she died. I do not know how to judge the subsequent marriages. At least some of them seem to have been honorary, with the widows of fallen companions. His favorite wife, 'Â'isha, was betrothed to him at six. It was she who laid him to rest in the floor of their house in Medina, and the last person to set foot there for many centuries, as the Prophet's Mosque was built around it. One might think the Prophet was simply heir to some of the understandable temptations of power, but this explanation is generally not allowed in Islâmic tradition, since the Prophet is viewed as necessarily morally perfect. That is hardly necessary. The Bible does not present Moses as morally perfect -- indeed, God prohibits his entry into the Promised Land as a punishment.

At right we have been seeing an image of the Angel Gabriel leading the Prophet Muh.ammad on the miraculous horse Buraq, from a 15th century Persian miniature. I include this because of the recent controversy over cartoons of the Prophet published in October 2005 in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. By early 2006, Islamic radicals managed to stir up riots in many Islâmic countries over the cartoons, featuring attacks on Denmark, the EU, and Christians. It was positively affirmed by the radicals that images of the Prophet are absolutely forbidden in Islâm and that the cartoons were an intolerable slander against Islâm -- except that the Danish cartoons were really very mild and the radicals had included some other cartoons, nastier ones, that had nothing to do with the Danish newspaper. They were obviously looking for a pretext, not honestly expressing any reasonable protest. Not only that, but what they positively affirmed was not true. Although images have definitely been frowned upon in Islâmic history, and often absent altogether, there is nevertheless no lack of them. A favorite theme was the Prophet's "Night Journey," when he was taken up in a dream to heaven and hell, as we see in the image here. The whole episode thus exposes the extremism of modern Islâmic fundamentalism. This is not the Islâm of The Thousand and One Nights or 'Umar Khayyâm. It is a fascism that derives from the least humane and tolerant varieties of Islâmic law, often that of the H.anbalî school favored by the Wahhâbîs of Sa'udi Arabia, not to mention the dangerous, militant, and reactionary insanity of revolutionary Irân. Apologists then accuse Westerners of hostile misunderstandings Islâm, when the disagreement of the apologists is with the radicals, whose own interpretations often have substantial support in Islâmic jurisprudence -- if indeed the apologists really do disagree with the radicals:  they often seem disingenuous to a suspicious degree.

A new political crime has been added to Leftist demonology. This is "Islamophobia." The precedent for this term seems to be "homophobia," and both are about equally confused in their etymology. A "phobia" is a fear, so "Islamophobia" should mean "fear of Islam," as "homophobia," with "homo" used as a prefix for "homosexual," should mean "fear of homosexuals." This is not the way these words are used, however. "Homophobia" and "Islamophobia" are supposed to mean hatred of homosexuals, and of Islam, respectively, where this hatred is the morally (and perhaps legally) culpable expression of bigotry and hostility.

In "homophobia" this was already a tendentious reading of traditional attitudes towards homosexuality. Certainly there are people who hate homosexuals, and are even willing to commit violence against them, and it might be reasonable to imagine people fearing homosexuals, if they think that the innocent can be "converted" to homosexuality, or that homosexuality is a decadent and disruptive influence in society. But in general, "homophobia" is usually just applied to people who, largely for religious reasons, and without any particular personal hostility or tendency to violence, judge that homosexual practices are immoral. This is rarely addressed in an honest way in public debate, where "liberal" opinion is in the business of smearing traditional religion (or at least traditional Christianity). Instead, "homophobia" has become a political slogan and a slur, whose meaning and implications are left unarticulated, and which itself becomes an expression of hostility and contempt for religious traditionalists.

It is then ironic that "Islamophobia" should follow in the footsteps of this usage, taking advantage of its device as a political slogan and a slur, when in the modern world the source of some of the most intense persecution of homosexuals is from militant Islam. When the President of Iran, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, was invited to speak at Columbia University (at the time of his appearance before the United Nations), many of the anti-American elite were certainly hopeful of hearing a good diatribe against Imperialism and the United States. Unfortunately, a naive, or perhaps hopeful (or both), participant then asked Ahmadinejad about the status of homosexuals in Iran. The answer was that there are no homosexuals in Iran. An informed questioner would have already known that they are hanged as quickly as they can be identified. The sentiment that homosexuals should be executed had also been previously expressed by a British Imam, without consequences, despite laws in Europe that could construe such an opinion as an incitement to a hate crime.

How absurd this can all get was revealed recently when a "gay pride" parade was cancelled in London, not because of anti-gay threats from Muslims -- which had actually been expressed -- but purportedly in "solidarity" with opposition to anti-Muslim "Islamophobia," which was said to be the moral equivalent of homophobia. Why a desire to assert solidarity between anti-homophobia and anti-Islamophobia should result in a "gay pride" parade being cancelled was left unexplained -- as, indeed, one would expect the opposite reaction, that the "gay pride" parade, with an anti-homophobia theme, would be combined with a parade asserting an anti-Islamophobia theme. Obviously, the fear of violence against the parade from Muslims led to its cancellation; but the organizers, in a sort of anticipatory Stockholm Syndrome, decided to dislay their political correctness by identifying with those from whom they feared violence. There are few more bizarre contortions evident in contemporary politics.

Ironic or not, the use of "Islamophobia" is an attempt to demonize those who actually do fear Islam,

Jihad against America is binding upon myself, just as it is binding on every other able Muslim. Anwar al-Awlaki (d.2011)

when such a fear is well justified by recent events and by the behavior of people in the Islamic world. Since Islamists, terrorists, and assorted tyrannical regimes and radicals like to justify their attitudes and actions in terms borrowed from the Qur'ân and from Islamic Law, one might think that honest defenders of Islam would acknowledge this, find it an embarrassment, and attempt to both combat the radicalism and assuage the fears of its victims. But this is not done -- except among a few well meaning Muslims who do not receive nearly as much attention as their militant brethren. Instead, public apologists for Islam seem to want to put the blame on the fearful victims, while discounting or ignoring the well-funded popularity of the terrorists. When Palestinians danced in the streets on 9/11, it was not because they believed that the Jews or George Bush were behind the attack on America, or because they believed that Islamic terrorism was an embarrassment to Islam. They were spontaneously celebrating a great heartfelt victory in the Jihad. Apologists who do not acknowledge this are simply exposing their bad faith and ill will.

The conflicts, confusions, and deceptions in these attitudes came to a head with the proposal for building a mosque on Park Place, a couple of blocks from the site of the World Trade Center in New York -- the "ground zero mosque." We see the building on the site at right, with modest New York City police protection.

There would have been a right way and a wrong way to do this project. The right way would have reflected the concern of well-meaning Muslims to dissociate their religion from the 9/11 attacks and to express their dismay and mortification that the terrorists should have invoked Islam to justify the atrocities. The mosque as an expression of contrition for the damage done by vicious co-religionists would have at least been a step in assuaging the justifiable fears of all the targets of terrorism. Indeed, there should be such a mosque at Ground Zero, in conjunction with facilities related to the religions of all the victims of 9/11. There were, after all, many innocent Muslims who were killed at the World Trade Center. The project of the mosque should be making clear that the "martyrs" of 9/11 were the victims of the terrorists, not the terrorists themselves (for whom, of course, a "martyrdom operation" means a suicide attack).

The wrong way to promote the project, however, is the way it has actually been done. The leader of the effort, the Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, himself was on record as blaming the United States for the 9/11 attacks and refused to distance himself from terrorist organizations like Hamas. He and his wife have responded to objections to the project with accusations of "Islamophobia," by which they clearly mean, not reasonable "fear of Islam," but a bigoted and intolerant hostility for Islam. Thus, they give every indication of militancy and would leave any reasonable person with the impression that the mosque is not an attempt at reconciliation -- which would be ill served by calling most Americans bigots -- but is in fact a Jihad Victory Mosque whose purpose is to promote an Islamist agenda as close as possible to the place were militant Islamists killed almost 3000 victims. This makes the project an insolent gesture that both insults America and makes use of the anti-American "useful idiots" who are eager to cooperate in their own destruction.

Imam Rauf appeared on "The O'Reilly Factor" on 8 May 2012 and announced that he was no longer involved with the Park Place mosque, citing some kind of disagreements with other backers. It would be nice to know who those other backers are and what Rauf's differences were with them. Nevertheless, in the interview Rauf keep talking as though he were still planning the project. Perhaps he was just talking about his general goals. Bill O'Reilly mentioned that he had long ago said that if Rauf would appear on "The Factor" and renounce Terrorism, O'Reilly himself would take up a hammer and help build the mosque. Rauf brought along a drawing of a hammer, that he said was from his wife, and gave it to O'Reilly. I did not notice, however, that Rauf ever did actually renounce Terrorism during the interview. Perhaps my attention wandered and I missed it.

We need to begin to suspect the motives of anyone willing to use the term "Islamophobia." The Left admires militant Islam for its expressions of hostility to America, capitalism, "imperialism," and democracy -- i.e. for something that apologists want to deny that Islam actually represents. The Left, of course, has no respect for Islam as a religion or for its traditional religious or social values. All of these, from the subordination of women to the ferocious treatment of homosexuals, are actually anathema to elite political correctness. But opportunism trumps honesty, and this is as true for the Islamists as for Western Leftists. Both are pleased with the alliance, however Unholy to either ideology, as the old Arab saying (from the days of tribal vendettas) is well remembered -- "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

We see this alliance in various examples of what can only be called wishful thinking, if not outright delusion. Thus, Hollywood personality Rosie O'Donnell, a homosexual herself, drew considerable attention to her assertion that Christian fundmentalists are as bad as Islamic terrorists (along with claims that the 9/11 attack was an "inside job," a favorite trope of the Left). Since "just as bad" doesn't seem to square with the absence of Christian suicide bombers, mass terror attacks, or large popular organizations that preach Christian Holy War through terror and combat, O'Donnell seemed more than a little out of touch with reality. Not as extreme but just as revealing was the speculation by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg that the perpetrator of the May 2010 attempted Times Square bombing was, "Homegrown, maybe a mentally deranged person or someone with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something." It looked like Bloomberg was hoping that the bomber was one of his political enemies (i.e. opposed to socialized medicine), rather than the kind of Muslim radical that he turned out in fact to be. Bloomberg loudly supports the ground zero mosque. Meanwhile, the City of New York has attempted to prevent the rebuilding of the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was actually crushed by the falling South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11. Bloomberg has not spoken out on this issue.

The courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali grew up in Somalia, lived in Saudi Arabia and Kenya, and fled an arranged marriage, and Islam, to the Netherlands. There she worked with Theo van Gogh on the movie about women in Islam that got him assassinated on the street. She was elected to the Dutch parliament before her citizenship was revoked, probably because of the embarrassment she was causing to spineless Dutchmen like Ian Buruma (a Professor of "Democracy and Human Rights" at Bard College), who has publicly said that Ali is as much a fanatic (for freedom, human rights, and tolerance?) as the Islamists (for murder, terror, and intolerance?). If Buruma means that this is good, he has not done a good job of clarifying his intention.

Similarly, Ali has been confronted in interviews with the proposition that crimes are committed as much by Christians as by Muslims. Since the common crimes of Christians are rarely framed in terms of a Holy War against infidels, Ali naturally found the proposition more puzzling than anything else; and we are left with the impression of a kind of desperation on the part of the interviewers to deflect blame from Islam and to create the kind of "moral equivalence" that the Left promoted, in relation to the United States and the Soviet Union, during the Cold War. Most people see through this easily, although, as George Orwell said, nothing is so preposterous that an intellectual will not believe it. People like O'Donnell, Bloomberg, and Buruma know that they have the "useful idiot" intellectuals on their side.

Currently, the ugliest counter-examples to the good intentions of Muslims are the continuing attacks on Christians in Iraq, Pakistan, and especially in Egypt. Churches are looted, burned, demolished, and/or bombed. Christians in Iraq and Egypt are kidnapped and ransomed or tortured and murdered. Women and girls are kidnapped, forcibly converted to Islam, and "married" to Muslims against their will. Campaigns are conducted in Egypt that Christians families are holding their own girls "hostage" after they supposedly converted to Islam. The government of Egypt does not even allow churches to be built or repaired without its permission, which is effecively never given. Or, if it is, mobs often attack the churches, or even the whole Christian villages around them, during or after construction. On 24 November 2010, Egypt security forces actually stormed the St. Mary and St. Michael churches, which were under construction in Giza, occupying them and firing live ammunition at Coptic demontrators, killing at least four. The official complaint was that a permit for the construction had not been obtained, although actually it had. Either way, a paramilitary attack, shooting civilians, is not the reasonable response to people building churches.

The Western Press pays little attention to these atrocities, both because the Western secular elite, in the intelligentsia, academia, and the media, is hostile to Christianity, and generally kills stories about the persecution of Christians, and because the political Left is effectively an ally of Islamic Fascism. Since Egyptian state security forces fail to protect Christians and often appear to cooperate in their persecution, including this recent case of shooting Christian demonstrators, while the government-controlled Press promotes anti-Christian hysteria, this puts the lie to claims about the general tolerance, respect, and good-will that Islam is supposed to show towards other religions. That is not the practice on the ground in most Islamic countries, whether the Western Press reports it or not.

On 15 April 2003, the Jihad struck a great blow against that hated symbol of American imperialism and oppression:  the Boston Marathon. It also struck a blow against the idea that there is some sort of factual, moral, or psychological problem with fearing and suspecting American Muslims of nurturing and harboring terrorists. It now turns out that the apparently nice Muslim kid next door, who hangs out, smokes dope, plays on the soccer team, isn't named "Muhammad," doesn't even look like an Arab (as was all the case with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) might nevertheless be building bombs and planning to blow up children who are watching a footrace. It is also a sobering lesson that the Chechens, whose main nationalistic complaint is with Russia, and with whom we fought on the same side in Kosovo, nevertheless habor the same antipathy towards the "Great Satan" as other Jihadists. The Leftist "Islamophobia" narrative is exploded. Of course, since it was perverse, dishonest, and tendentious to begin with, there is nothing to stop it contining in the hands of the same blind ideologues who originated it.

The word "Allâh" in Arabic, with Cognates in Hebrew & Babylonian

Islâmic Fascism and Satyagraha in Palestine

Philosophy of History

Political Economy

• Introduction
• "Islamophobia"
• The word "Allâh" in Arabic, with Cognates in Hebrew & Babylonian
• The Prophet, 622-632 AD
• The Rightly Guided Caliphs, 632-661 AD
• The Shi'ite Imâms, 632-878 AD
• The Omayyad Caliphs, 661-750 AD
• The Abbasid Caliphs, 750-1258 AD
  • The Aghlabids, 800-909 AD
  • The T.âhirids, 821-873 AD
  • The T.ûlûnids, 868-905 AD
  • The Sâmânids, 819-1005 AD
  • The S.affârid, 861-1003 AD
  • The Ikhshîdids, 935-969 AD
  • The H.amdânids of Aleppo, 944-1004 AD
  • The Buwayid Amirs of Iraq, 945-1055
  • The Qarakhânids, c.992-1212 AD
  • The Ghaznawids, 977-1186 AD
  • The Ghûrids, 1011-1215 AD
• Islâmic Rulers of Spain, 756-1492 AD
  • The Omayyad Amirs, 756-912
  • The Omayyad Caliphs, 912-1031
  • The Mulûk at-T.awâ'if, 1010-1114
    • The Jahwarids of Cordova
    • Murcia
    • The 'Abbâdids of Seville
    • The H.ammûdids of Málaga
    • The Zîrids of Granada
    • Aft.asids of Badajoz
    • The 'Âmirids of Valencia
    • The Dhu'n-Nûnids of Toledo
    • The Banû Mujâhid of Denia and Majorca
    • The Tujîbids of Saragossa
    • The Hûdids of Saragossa
  • The Murabit (Almoravid) Sult.âns, 1067-1147 AD
  • The Mulûk at-T.awâ'if, 1144-1266
    • Cordova
    • Valencia
    • Murcia
    • The Banû Ghâniya of Majorca
  • The Muwahid (Almohad) Caliphs, 1147-1238 AD
  • The Nas.rid Sult.âns of Granada, 1232-1492 AD
    • The Hûdids of Murcia
• Islâmic Rulers of North Africa, 789-1163 AD
  • The Idrîsids of Morocco, 789-985 AD
  • The Rustamids of Algeria, 778-909 AD
  • The Aghlabids, 800-909 AD
  • The Shi'ite Fatimid Caliphs, 909-1171 AD
  • The Zîrids of Tunisia, 947-1163 AD
  • The Hammâdids of Algeria, 1015-1152 AD
  • The Murabit (Almoravid) Sult.âns, 1067-1147 AD
  • The Muwahid (Almohad) Caliphs, 1147-1238 AD
• The Seljuk Great Sult.âns, 1037-1157 AD
  • Seljuk Sult.âns of Rûm, 1078-1307 AD
  • The Zangid Atabegs of Mosul, Aleppo, & Damascus, 1127-1262 AD
  • The Khwârazm Shâhs, 1097-1231 AD
  • The Oghullar of Rûm
    • Aydïn Oghullarï
    • Sarukhân Oghullarï
    • Menteshe Oghullarï
    • Germiyân Oghullarï
    • H.amîd Oghullarï
    • Tekke Oghullarï
    • Jândâr Oghullarï
    • Qaramân Oghullarï
    • Eretna Oghullarï
    • Dulghadïr Oghullarï
    • Osmanli Oghullarï
• The Il Khâns, 1256-1353
  • The Jalâyirids, 1340-1432
  • The Qara Qoyunlu, 1351-1469
  • The Timurids, 1370-1500
  • The Aq Qoyunlu, 1396-1508
• The Khâns of the Golden Horde
  • The Khâns of the White Horde
  • The Khâns of Kazan
  • The Khâns of Astrakhan
  • The Khâns of the Crimea
• The Ayyûbid Sult.âns, 1169-1252 AD
• Islâmic Rulers of North Africa, 1217-1659 AD
  • The Marînid Amîrs of Morocco, 1195-1465
  • The Wat.t.âsid Amîrs of Morocco, 1472-1554
  • The Sa'did Sharîfs of Morocco, 1510-1659
  • The H.afs.id Amirs, Caliphs, or Sult.âns of Tunisia, 1229-1574
  • The Zayyânid or Ziyânid Amîrs of Algeria, 1236-1555
  • The 'Alawid Sharîfs, Sult.âns, & Kings of Morocco, 1640-present
  • The H.usaynid Beys of Tunisia, 1705-1957
• The Keita Kings of Mali, 1230-1390
• The Si & Askiya Kings of Songhay, 1464-1592
• The Mamlûk Sult.âns of Egypt, 1252-1517 AD
  • The Abbasid Puppet Caliphs of Egypt, 1261-1517 AD
• The Ottoman Sultâns & Caliphs, 1290-1924 AD, Maps and List of Emperors
  • The Shihâbî Amîrs of Lebanon, 1697-1842 AD
  • The House of Muh.ammad 'Alî in Egypt, 1805-1953 AD
  • The Sanûsî Amîrs & Kings of Libya, 1837-1969 AD
• Shibânid Özbegs, 1438-1599
• Kazakhs, 1394-1748
• Toqay Temürids, 1599-1758
• Mangïts of Bukhara, 1747-1920
• The Shâhs of Iran, 1501-1979 AD
  • The Safavids, 1501-1736
  • The Afsharids, 1736-1750
  • The Zands, 1750-1794
  • The Qajars, 1794-1924
  • The Pahlavis, 1924-1979
• Sult.âns of Delhi, 1206-1555
  • Mu'izzî or Shamsî Slave Kings, 1206-1290
  • Khaljîs, 1290-1320
  • Tughluqids, 1320-1414
  • Sayyids, 1414-1451
  • Lôdîs, 1451-1526
  • Sûrîs, 1540-1555
• Moghul Emperors, 1526-1540, 1555-1858
  • Nawwâbs of Bengal, 1704-1765
  • Nawwâbs of Oudh, 1722-1856
  • Niz.âms of Hyderabad, 1720-1948
• Sult.âns of Malacca, 1403-1528
• Sult.âns of Johor, 1528-present
• Sult.âns of Acheh, c.1450-1903
• Yemen, 1230 BC-1962 AD
  • at-Tababi'a, 1230 BC-533 AD
  • Saba/Sheba, 755 BC-100 AD
  • Dhu-Raydan & Himyar, 120 BC-629 AD
  • Rassids, 860-1226
  • Ayyûbids, 1173-1229
  • Rasûlids, 1229-1454
  • T.âhirids, 1454-1517
  • Qâsimids, 1597-1962
• Modern Islâm
  • The Shihâbî Amîrs of Lebanon, 1697-1842 AD
  • The House of Muh.ammad 'Alî in Egypt, 1805-1953 AD
  • The Sanûsî Amîrs & Kings of Libya, 1837-1969 AD
  • The Sult.âns of Oman and Zanzibar, 1754-present
  • The Hâshimites, 1827-present
  • The 'Alawid Sharîfs, Sult.âns, & Kings of Morocco, 1640-present
  • The H.usaynid Beys of Tunisia, 1705-1957
  • The House of Sa'ûd, 1735-present
  • The Sultans of Brunei, 1405-present
    • The Rajahs of Sarawak, 1841-1946
  • Afghanistan, 1747-1973
  • Prime Ministers & Presidents of Pakistan
  • Islâmic Fascism and Satyagraha in Palestine

My thanks to Professor Shaun Marmon of Princeton University for drawing my attention to Clifford Edmund Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996]. This remarkable and invaluble work is, strangely enough, already out of print. Also of great use was Classical Islam, a History 600-1258, by G.E. von Grunebaum [Aldine Publishing, 1970], The Arabs, by Anthony Nutting [Mentor, 1964], The Arab Awakening, by George Antonius [Capricorn Books, 1965], The Cambridge History of Islam, edited by P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, and Bernard Lewis [Vols. 1A, 1B, 2A, & 2B, Cambridge, 1977], and other historical sources credited elsewhere in these pages.

Philosophy of History

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Copyright (c) 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

Islâm, 622 AD-present

The advent of Islâm, with Arab armies coming out of the practical equivalent of nowhere, was unforeseen and unforeseeable. It dramatically and permanently altered the history of both the Middle East and the Mediterranean world. Persia was eliminated for many years as an independent political or cultural force, and the revival of Romania was ended, with the Empire reduced from about 3/4 of its original extent, as restored by Justinian, to little more than 1/4, all that was left by the reign of Leo III.

THE PROPHET
THE H.IJRAH ERA, THE ISLÂMIC HISTORICAL ERA	16 July 622 AD
28 April 1998 AD = 1419 Annô Hegirae
Muh.ammad, Peace Upon Him	622-632

The Arabs were the first Semitic speaking people since the Assyrians to dominate the Middle East. This broke up the cultural oecumene that had been created by the conquests of Alexander the Great and reinforced by Rome, and it reduced Western Europe for some time to a cultural and economic backwater. The poverty and ignorance of the "Dark Ages" was in fact a side show to the prosperity and learning of the Islâmic Middle East. In European eyes, this made Islâm the successor to what Persia had been for the Greeks, the great looming threat of Oriental Despotism, now including North Africa (where, after all, the earlier threat of Carthage had been) and with the added twist of religious Unbelief. This polarization, however, obscures the fact that Greece itself was essentially a Middle Eastern civilization, and that Islâm itself had nothing else to build upon but a common heritage of Greece, Rome, Irân, Judaism, and Christianity. Although perhaps alienated cousins, Christendom and Islâm could have nearly equal claim as standard bearers of "Western Civilization," and the revival of European learning after the 11th Century undeniably owed a heavy debt to what Islâm had been doing with Classical philosophy and science in the previous centuries.

Although the Arabs tend to be thought of as desert nomads, the origin of Muh.ammad was urban and mercantile. His home town of Mecca became increasingly hostile to his attacks on polytheism and idolatry, until he was invited to the nearby Yathrib as a mediator -- later marked as the beginning of the Islâmic Era in 622. Soon the virtual ruler of Yathrib, which then became Madinatu-nNabî', the "City of the Prophet," or just Madina (Medina), Muh.ammad seemed to pose an even greater threat, and the Meccans resorted to military force. Since the results of this were inconclusive, and warfare was very bad for business, the Meccans decided that if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Under a treaty, Muh.ammad returned to Mecca and smashed the idols. Since the House of God, the Ka'aba, then became the goal of universal Moslem pilgrimage, the Meccans ended up doing very well out of the transaction. Muh.ammad did not long survive this triumph and was buried in his house in Medina, around which the Prophet's Mosque was built.

The Islâmic Era accompanies the Islâmic Calendar, which is purely lunar and cycles through the seasons every 32 or 33 years, a convenient provision when fasting is required during the daylight hours in the month of Ramad.ân -- neither Northern nor Southern hemispheres are stuck with Ramad.ân at times of either long or short days. Curiously, the 30 year cycle of the Islâmic calendar commensurates with the 19 year cycle of the Jewish calendar after 1368 solar or 1410 lunar Islâmic years. This puts the Islâmic Era in 622 at one full cycle after the beginning of the Era of Nabonassar in 747 BC. Another full cycle comes down to our time, in 1990. Anyone disposed to numerological portents are welcome to make of this what they will.

THE RIGHTLY GUIDED CALIPHS
'Abû Bakr	632-634
assumes title Khalîfah, "successor," to the Prophet
'Umar	634-644
Roman Emperor Heraclius defeated at Yarmûk, 636; fall of Gaza, Antioch, Mesopotamia conquered from Persians, 637; Jerusalem surrendered, 638; Egypt invaded, 639; fall of Caesarea in Palestine, 640; Persians defeated, 642
'Utman	644-656
attacks in India, 644; Roman army destroyed in North Africa, but army withdraws, 647; Persia overrun, by 651
'Alî	656-661

With the death of the Prophet, some Arabs thought that the House of Islâm had ended. They were soon persuaded of the error of their ways, and the armies of united Arabia were turned on Romania and Persia, which were both exhausted from the longest and harshest war they had ever fought against each other. The Roman position in Syria and Egypt was also compromised by the Monophysite heresy of the locals, and its suppression by Imperial authorities.
The tolerance of the Arabs for any "People of the Book" seemed preferable, especially after the respect and consideration shown by the Caliph 'Umar when he entered Jersualem. The period of the "Rightly Guided Caliphs," who were all either fathers-in-law or sons-in-law of Muh.ammad, however, ended in some confusion. The murder of 'Uthman was blamed by his powerful Meccan relatives on 'Alî, who was unable to exert authority against them over all Islâmic territories. The "bloody shirt of 'Uthman" was thereafter considered a largely cynical ploy by the Omayyads to further their own cause, which soon did triumph at the death of 'Alî, whose sons were either bought off (H.asan) or killed (H.usayn).

Although the Omayyads were cousins of Muh.ammad, they definitely had the greater status at Mecca and were originally quite hostile (except for 'Uthman) to Islâm. The symbolic crowns in the diagram are for the Prophet and the Caliphs (Khalifah, "successor"). Only that for the Prophet is given with a nimbus, since for the Orthodox only he was divinely inspired and authoritative. The light blue nimbus for 'Alî indicates the Shi'ite belief that he and his descendants were divinely inspired and authoritative also (the Imâms). Modern families that trace descent to the Prophet or his family, like Kings of Hijaz, Iraq, and Jordan, call themselves Hâshemites.

THE SHÎ'ITE IMÂMS
1	'Alî	632-661
First Cousin & Son-In-Law of the Prophet & Fourth Rightly Guided Caliph
2	H.asan	661-669
3	H.usayn	669-680
Martyred at Karbalâ', 680
4	'Alî Zayn al-'Âbidîn	680-712
5	Muh.ammad al-Bâqir	712-731
6	Ja'far al-S.âdiq	731-765
7	Ismâ'îl	765-760
Schism -- followers of Isma'il become the "Seveners" or "Ismailis," basis of Shî'ism of the Fatimids, the Assassins, and in India
7	Mûsâ al-Kâz.im	765-799
8	'Alî al-Rid.â	799-818
9	Muh.ammad al-Jawâd	818-835
10	'Alî al-Hâdî	835-868
11	al-H.asan al-'Askarî	868-874
12	Muh.ammad al-Muntazar al-Mahdî	874-878
Disappears, 878 -- becomes the "Hidden Imâm," basis of "Twelver" & Iranian Shi'ism

The Shî'a, or "Faction" of 'Alî held that he was the proper Successor to the Prophet and that only his descendants qualified for the office. Soon, he and his successors were also believed to have a unique divinely inspired understanding of the meaning of the Qur'ân. Thus, the Shî'ite office of Imâm became a source of doctrinal authority such as was missing from Orthodox Islâm, which relied on tradition and consensus to establish Islâmic law and doctrine. The line of Imâms splits, however, when the Seventh, Ismâ'îl, is rejected by much of the community. The Seveners, nevertheless, had the most spectacular successes of Shî'ism in the Middle Ages. Today, the Agha Khan heads a Sevener community in India. The collateral line ended with the Twelfth Imâm, who disappeared in 878. Although probably kidnapped and murdered by the Abbasid Caliph, he was believed by his followers to have gone into deathless "Occultation," preparing to return as the "Rightly Guided One," the Mahdî, to usher in the Apocalypse. In time, this Twelver Shî'ism was used by the Safavids to establish a durable national monarchy in Irân. In 1848, it had been 1000 Islâmic lunar years since the Occultation, and the return of the Hidden Imâm was widely expected. Various figures appeared as the Imâm, including the Bâb ("Gate"), from whom the Bâbî and Bahâ'î faiths derive. The source of doctrinal authority in Irânian Shi'ism became the Ayatollâhs, who were not individually believed to be the Hidden Imâm but were thought to communicate with him. The Ayatollâh Khomeini was able to use his position to overthrow the last Shâh in 1979 and establish a theocratic "Islâmic Republic."

OMAYYAD CALIPHS
Mu'âwiya I	661-680
assumes caliphate at death of 'Alî, moves capital to Damascus; Arab aristocratic government; Siege of Constantinople, 674-677; attacks in India, 677
Yazîd I	680-683
Mu'âwiya II	683-684
Marwân I	684-685
Uqba ibn Nâfi' founds Qayrawân, 663/4; reaches the Atlantic, killed & Army annihilated by Berber Kusayla, 683
'Abd 'al-Malik	685-705
Builds the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, finished 691/692; Conquest of Armenia, 693; silver dirham & gold dinar first minted, 695; Fall of Carthage, 698, 705; H.assân ibn al-Nu'mân defeated by Berber (possibly Jewish) prophetess al-Kâhina (Dahiyah, Dahia, or Dhabba), driven out of North Africa, after 698; Kâhina defeated, Berbers convert, 702
al-Walîd I	705-715
Builds the Omayyad Mosque in Damascus, 706-715; Spain falls to Islâm, end of Visigoths, invasion of India, 711
Sulaymân	715-717
Siege of Constantinople, 717-718
'Umar II	717-720
Yazîd II	720-724
Hishâm	724-743
defeat, 725, & explusion, 737, from India; defeated by Khazars, Ardebil, 730; but defeated and subjected Khazars, 737-c.740
al-Walîd II	743-744
Yazîd III	744
'Ibrâhîm	744
Marwân II	744-750
Abbasid revolution, Omayyads overthrown and massacred (except in Spain); end of Arab empire, 750; Battle of Talas, 751, T'ang Dynasty Chinese defeated, but no further advance into Central Asia

Under the Omayyads the House of Islâm was undoubtedly an Arab Empire, with only a very secondary interest in winning converts to the Faith. Indeed, many Arabs believed that Muh.ammad had simply been a Prophet for the Arabs, as Moses had been the Prophet for the Israelites, and this view was reflected in the practice that newly converted Moslems needed to be affiliated with an Arab tribe. Despite the seemingly half-hearted religious mission, the zeal of the Arab armies nevertheless permanently altered the linguistic and religious map of lands from the Hindu Kush to the Atlantic. Of the major territories won in this period, only Spain would later return to Christendom, while in our own time a precarious Jewish state has been established in Palestine. The principal disappointment, the failure to take Constantinople and overthrow Romania, had to wait 800 years for the Ottomans.

The high water mark of the Omayyad realm was certainly under 'Abd al-Malik and al-Walîd, as North Africa, Spain, Transoxania, and part of the Indus Valley fell to Islâm. Permanent monuments to the period were 'Abd al-Malik's Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and al-Walîd's Omayyad Mosque in Damascus. Since both these buildings are now some 1300 years old, it is an oversight of many treatments of history that they are not more celebrated as monuments from a period that is otherwise considered an obscure part of the "Dark Ages." Never before had Damascus been, and never again would it be, the center of such power and civilization.

In time, hostility against the Omayyads began to mount. The resentment of the non-Arabic second-class Moslems joined with the cause of the partisans of 'Alî, questioning the legitimacy of the regime and agitating against it. Also, later Omayyads sometimes seemed insufficiently interested in Islâm. Desert hunting lodges contained images much more Roman than Arab in inspiration, and one Caliph is supposed to have shot a copy of the Qur'ân to pieces out of resentment for its prohibition of wine.

When the storm broke, it was with astonishing ferocity. The entire Omayyad clan was exterminated. Only one prince escaped, to Spain, where an Omayyad regime endured. Elsewhere, the rebellion succeeded completely, bringing to power distant cousins of the Omayyads, the descendants of Muh.ammad's uncle 'Abbâs.

All Moslems now became (more or less) equal, and when the capital shifted to Baghbad, the influence of Persian civilization began to predominate over Roman. The Arabs lost their preeminence, and soon it was the rare Caliph who was not the child of a Persian or Turkish mother. As the Abbasids later declined, Arabia itself slipped from their hold, to become once again a political, if not a religious, backwater. The Arabs had bestowed their religion and their language on the civilization of the Middle East, but true Arabian Arabs would be politically insignificant until the discovery of oil in the 20th century gave them a geopolitical status beyond what any other asset would warrant.

The defeat of the Chinese at Talas was probably still a function of the momentum of Omayyad conquest. However, the overthrow of the Omayyads immediately deflated this momentum, and no further advantage was taken of the Chinese embarrassment -- at a time when the T'ang Dynasty had seen its best days and was on the verge of decline. Curiously, there seems to have been one long-term consequence of the battle of a very different sort. Reportedly, among the Chinese prisoners taken at Talas were artisans who knew how to make paper. What they were doing with a Chinese army in Central Asia, I don't know; but the significance of their craft was quickly recognized. Soon, the Abbasids founded paper mills in Baghdad and the industry quickly spread to Romania. Since parchment is more durable than paper, surviving books tend to be in that material; and the role of paper books in the Mediaeval book market is thus a matter of some uncertainty. That they existed, however, at least in Islam and Romania, is beyond doubt. Paper mills in Francia are first attested in Aragón in 1282.

The Arabic title , amîr, is important. Originally this just means "commander" and would be used for a general military officer, or even for the Caliph himself, the Amîru 'lMu'minîn, "Commander of the Faithful." The military commanders then become governors, and so amîr comes to mean "governor." The governors then drift into independence, and amîr then can reasonably be translated "prince." The first truly independent Amirs were the Omayyads in Spain, who were content with the title for a century and a half. Later many Abbasid governors drifted into independence, and the "Emirate" becomes the basic domain of independent Islâmic statehood. A title that is mostly not seen for many centuries is malik, "king." This is not really an Islâmic title of rule, though it can be a proper name and is very close to one of the Names of God, Mâlik, "Owner, Master, Possessor." Every day, Muslims invoke God as the Mâliku lYaumi dDîni, "Possessor the of the Day of Judgment." Malik has largely been a post-colonial title, often an ephemeral one. The old Persian word for King, however, Shâh, occurred with some frequently in Iran and India. What becomes the classic Islâmic title of rule, Sult.ân, "Power, Dominion, Authority," begins with the Seljuks.

ABBASID CALIPHS
'Abdullâh asSaffâh.	750-754
'Abdullâh al-Mans.ûr	754-775
Muh.ammad al-Mahdî	775-785
Mûsâ al-Hâdî	785-786
Hârûn arRashîd	786-809
mythic and cultural height of Abbasid Caliphate; Idrîsids break away in Morocco, 789; first paper mill established in Baghbad, 794-795; great earthquake in Egypt, Alexandria & Pharos Lighthouse damaged, 797
Muh.ammad al-'Amîn	809-813
'Abdullâh al-Ma'mûn	813-833
Muh.ammad al-Mu'tas.im	833-842
moved to Samarra with Turkish guard
Hârûn al-Wâtiq	842-847
Ja'far al-Mutawakkil	847-861
assassinated by Turkish guard
Muh.ammad al-Muntas.ir	861-862
Ah.mad al-Musta'în	862-866
Muh.ammad al-Mu'tazz	866-869
Muh.ammad al-Muhtadî	869-870
Zanj Rebellion, 869-883
Ah.mad al-Mu'tamid	870-892
returned to Baghdad   Recognizes King of Armenia, 885
Ah.mad al-Mu'tad.id	892-902
'Alî Muktafî	902-908
Ja'far al-Muqtadir	908, 908-929, 929-932
Muh.ammad al-Qâhir	929, 932-934
Ah.mad arRâdî	934-940
loss of authority
Ibrâhîm al-Muttaqî	940-944
'Adbullâh al-Mustakfî	944-946 d. 949
under Shi'ite Buwayids, 945
al-Fad.l al-Mut.î'	946-974
'AdulKarîm at.T.â'î'	974-991
Ah.mad al-Qâdir	991-1031
'Abdullâh al-Qâ'im	1031-1075
under Seljuks; 1055, grants title of Sult.ân
'Abdullâh al-Muqtadî	1075-1094
Ah.mad al-Mustaz.hir	1094-1118
al-Fad.l al-Mustarshid	1118-1135
al-Mans.ûr arRâshid	1135-1136
Muh.ammad al-Muqtafî	1136-1160
Yûsuf al-Mustanjid	1160-1170
al-H.asan al-Mustad.î'	1170-1180
Ah.mad anNâs.ir	1180-1225
Independent from Seljuks, 1194
Muh.ammad az.Z.âhir	1225-1226
al-Mans.ûr al-Mustans.ir	1226-1242
'Abdullâh al-Musta's.im	1242-1258
1258, killed by Mongol Khân Hülägü; end of Abbasid Caliphate; Mamlûks set up Abbasid puppet caliphate in Egypt; continues until Ottoman conquest

Military expansion of the Caliphate ceased under the Abbasids. Instead there soon was, in effect, a turning inward and an examination and definition of what Islâm and Islâmic civilization were going to mean, especially in relation to the rival religions and the heritage of Classical civilization. Thus, we find the beginning of philosophy in Islâm, especially when al-Ma'mûn creates the Dâru-lH.ikmah, the "House of Wisdom," principally to translate Greek texts into Arabic. This gives rise to the Hellenizing tradition of falsafah, . On the other hand, we also get the independent, or antagonistic, development of Islamic theology, or Kalâm, ("Talk") -- which often displays more original ideas than the strictly philosophical tradition. The height of the Abbasid period in legendary hindsight is the reign of Hârûn arRashîd. There are several stories about him in the One Thousand and One Nights (Alf Layla waLayla), often with him visiting the public incognito. It is hard to know how much of a historical basis there is for most of those stories. It does lend, however, a magical air to the early culture of Baghdâd.

As noted above, Chinese artisans with knowledge of paper making are supposed to have been captured in 751. They were first put to work making paper in nearby Samarkand. By 794-795, the Wazîr of Hârûn arRashîd, Jafar al-Barmak, founded a paper mill in Baghbad. The relative cheapness and convenience of paper over the alternatives (parchment, papyrus, stone, clay, bone, shells, ostraca) transformed literate culture, with the drawback, however, that the medium, like papyrus, is less durable than parchment, let alone stone or ostraca. The technology was soon exported to Romania, where we get notable developments in the literate culture of the 9th century, such as the introduction of "miniscule" script and punctuation -- things that are often noted as features of the Carolingian "Renaissance" but certainly derive from the innovations apparent in Islam and Romania.

Politically, the Abbasid era then becomes a story of fragmentation, as governors become autonomous and then rival powers arise. At first, only Spain escaped the Abbasid revolution.

OMAYYAD AMIRS OF SPAIN
'AbdurRah.mân I	756-788
grandson of the Caliph Hishâm; escapes to Spain from the massacre of the Omayyads
Hishâm I	788-799
al-H.akam I	799-822
'AbdurRah.mân II	822-852
Muh.ammad I	852-886
al-Mundhir	886-888
'Abdullâh	888-912
Line continues with the Omayyad Caliphs, 912-1031

After the Abbasid overthrow and massacre of the Omayyads, Spain was a place where their authority was never asserted. Instead, the Omayyad prince 'Abd-urRah.mân, escaping the massacre, established himself and his line. Islâm had little trouble in Spain these days. Charlemagne pushed the Omayyads back from the Pyrenees and established the Marches there that grew into later kingdoms, but he was defeated at Roncesvalles in 778 and the heart of Spain was little effected. Eventually, in response to the Fatimid Shi'ite Caliphate, the Spanish Omayyads proclaimed their own Caliphate.

THE AGHLABID AMIRS OF TUNISIA, ALGERIA, & SICILY
Ibrâhîm I	800-812
'Adbullâh I	812-817
Ziyâdat Allâh I	817-838
Invasion of Sicily, 827
al-Aghlab	838-841
Muh.ammad I	841-856
Sack of Ostia & Rome, 846
Ah.mad	856-863
Ziyâdat Allâh II	863
Muh.ammad II	863-875
Capture of Malta, 870
Ibrâhîm II	875-902
Capture of Syracuse, 878
'Abdullâh II	902-903
Ziyâdat Allâh III	903-909
Conquest by the Fatimids, 909

The Aghlabids were originally the faithful Abbasid governors of Tunisia and only gradually drifted out of central supervision and control. Their greatest independent project was the conquest of Sicily, 827-878, which remained in Islâm until the arrival of the Normans.

THE T.ÂHIRID AMIRS OF KHURÂSÂN
T.âhir I	821-822
T.alh.a	822-845
T.âhir II	845-862
Muh.ammad	862-873
Occupied by S.affârids

The T.âhirids were the faithful Abbasid governors of Khurâsân, only beginning the process of drifting out of central control when the area was seized by the S.affârids. T.âhirids were also governors of Baghdad and Iraq under the Abbasids. For many years, Muh.ammad continued as the nominal governor of Khurâsân while living in Iraq. His brother al-H.usayn briefly returned in 876.

THE T.ÛLÛNID AMIRS OF EGYPT
Ah.mad ibn T.ûlûn	868-884
Khumârawayh	884-896
Jaysh	896
Hârûn	896-904
Shaybân	904-905
Recovered by Abbasids

Egypt first drifted out of Abbasid control under its originally faithful T.ûlûnid governors, while the Caliphate was distracted by the Zanj Rebellion (869-883). Ah.mad built one of the oldest monuments in Cairo (at the time still called Fust.ât.), the Ibn T.ûlûn Mosque. The dynasty fell victim to the brief revival of Abbasid power at the beginning of the 10th century.

THE SÂMÂNID AMIRS OF TRANSOXANIA AND KHURASAN
Ah.mad I	governor of Farghâna & Soghdia, 819-864
Nas.r I	864-892
Ismâ'îl	892-907
Ah.mad II	907-914
Nas.r II	914-943
Nûh. I	943-954
'Abd al-Malik I	954-961
Mans.ûr I	961-976
Nûh. II	976-997
patron of Ibn Sîna (d.1037)
Mans.ûr II	997-999
'Abd al-Malik II	999-1000
Ismâ'îl II	1000-1005
Conquest by Qarakhanids & Ghaznawids, 1005

The Sâmânids, like many other Abbasid successors, were originally duly appointed governors, but the S.affârids started as aggressive rebels, overthrowing the Tâhirids and launching an invasion of Iraq that reached the Tigris in 876.

THE S.AFFÂRID AMIRS OF SÎSTÂN
Ya'qûb	861-879
Overthrow T.âhirids, 873
'Amr ibn al-Layth	879-900
T.âhir	900-909
al-Layth	909-910
Muh.ammad	910
al-Mu'addal	910-911
Sâmânid Occupation, 911-912
'Amr ibn Ya'qûb	912
Sâmânid Occupation, 912-914
[local commanders]	914-923
Ah.mad	923-963
Khalaf	963-1003, d.1009
Tâhir	regent, 963-969
Ghaznawid Occupation, 1003

 
Although Orthodox, the S.affârids rejected the need for recognition by the Caliphal authority -- but the second amir was eventually recognized as governor of several Irânian provinces. S.affârid power, however, was soon checked by the Sâmanîds, who themselves claimed descent from the Sassanid Shâhs and patronized the revival of Persian as a literary language in the epic of Firdawsî (940-1020), the Shâh-nâma (Book of Kings -- nâma is today used to mean "letter" or "paper," while Arabic kitâb is used for "book"). This is now regarded as the Irânian National Epic and is noteworthy for the dignity accorded to Zoroaster as a Prophet of God. The book contains a striking dream image, of four men pulling at the corners of a square cloth, but not tearing it. This is interpreted to mean that the four men are the Prophets Moses, Zoroaster, Jesus, and Muhammad, while the cloth is the Religion of God. That Zoroaster figures along with Moses, Jesus, and Muhammad is an unmistakable clue that we are dealing with a Persian source. Otherwise, Muslims do not go out of their way to include Zoroaster, certainly not on equal footing, with the other three. Also, as a statement about religion it is un-Islâmic and subversive in that it implies an equality, despite the conflict, between the four attendant religions. The Islâmic view is that only Muhammad delivers an uncorrupted revelation.

Both the S.affârids and Sâmanîds eventually fell to the coming wave of Turkish regimes. The Sâmânids were thus the last Irânian domain in Transoxania.

THE IKHSHÎDID AMIRS OF EGYPT
Muh.ammad ibn T.ughj al-Ikhshîd	935-946
Ûnûjûr	946-961
'Alî	961-966
Kâfûr al-Lâbî, Regent	966-968
Ah.mad	968-969
Conquest by the Fatimids, 969

 
After the Abbasid revival, the Ikhshîdids began the process of drifting out of Abbasid control again but then found themselves trying to stop the triumphant Fatimids, ultimately unsuccessfully.

THE H.AMDÂNIDS OF ALEPP0
'Alî I SayfudDawla	944-967
patron of al-Fârâbî (d.950)
Sharîf I Sa'dudDawla	967-991
Antioch lost to Romania, 969
Sa'îd Sa'îdudDawla	991-1002
'Alî II & Sharîf II	1002-1004
Lu'lu'	Regent, 1002-1004
	1004-1009
Vassal of Fatimids, 1004
Mans.ûr Murtad.âdDawla	1009-1015
Fled to Romania, 1015

As the Ikhshîdids drifted out of Abbasid control, Northern Syria broke away from them, beginning an era of considerable fragmentation. Sayf-udDawla ("Sword of the State") became a celebrated foe of Romania, but he was largely unsuccessful against the revival of Roman power, and his son experienced devastating defeats, at one point with Aleppo and H.oms themselves falling, though retained with the payment of tribute.

THE BUWAYID (BÛYID) AMIRS OF IRAQ
Ah.mad ibn Bûya	945-967
Bakhtiyâr	967-978
Fanâ Khusraw	978-983
Marzubân	983-987
Shîrzîl I	987-989
Fîrûz	989-1012
Abû Shujâ'	1012-1021
H.asan	1021-1025
Shîrzîl II	1025-1044
Marzubân	1044-1048
Khusraw Fîrûz	1048-1055
Overthrown by Seljuk Great Sult.âns, 1055

The Buwayids were Shi'ite Princes who dominated the Abbasid Caliphs for a century. Although they fostered a flourishing of Shi'ite scholarship and theology, they never tried to suppress the Orthodox Caliphs altogether, so the Abbasids continued to exercise their minimal religious authority under the regime. Nevertheless, the Caliphs and the Orthodox were not too happy about this and so, at least initially, welcomed the coming of the Orthodox Seljuks. The appeal of Shi'ism in Irân, evident here, later becomes the basis of Irânian nationalism in the Safavids. This is the nadir of the Abbasid Caliphate, with its secular power and prestige completely eclipsed.

The origin of the name of Baghdâd, , is itself obscure. The dâd element looks like it is from the Indo-European verb "give," which we also see in Persian names like Mehrdâd, "given by Mithra." With the first element, it could be Middle Persian "god," bag (Sanskrit bhaga), or Middle Persian "garden," bâgh (also bâgh in Punjabi, which looks like a borrowing from Persian -- the "gh" is not a voiced aspirate stop, as in Sanskrit or Hindi, but the fricative that is indicated, but not always pronounced, in Indian, i.e. Hindi and Urdu, borrowings from Persian or Arabic). My guess is that "garden" is more likely right, so that the meaning is probably "a garden is given," rather than "given by God."

The complete genealogy of the Alids, Omayyads, and Abbasids is in The Cambridge History of Islam, Volume 1B, [edited by P.M. Holt, Ann K.S. Lambton, & Bernard Lewis, Cambridge University Press, 1970, pp.731-733]. Unfortunately, the diagrams contain no dates. Much the same information, with dates, is in The Arabs by Anthony Nutting [Mentor Books, 1964, p.202-203]. I have not found a complete genealogy of the Egyptian Abbasids. According to Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [pp.7 & 9], the relationship of the two lines is uncertain anyway. Now, however, I have received from Derek Whaley a genealogy of the Egyptian Abbasids which he has assembled, with a connection to the main Abbasid line. Much of this can be confirmed in Bosworth, and I provide it, with a couple of additions and corrections, here, formerly just in a popup, but now connected up with the rest of the Abbasids. There is no reason why the Abbasid line should not have continued in Constantinople, but instead they disappear from history. I do not know whether they died out, the Ottomans exterminated them, or they just disappeared into obscurity.

Below we see Islâm in the year 1000 AD. The days of secular authority of the Abbasid Caliphs are now gone. The Caliphs are dominated by the Buwayid princes. The center of Islamic power and culture now seems to be in Egypt, with the Caliphate of the Shi'ite Fatimids. The Fatimids even control the sacred cities of Mecca and Medina. Representing Orthodoxy, the Omayyads in Spain have also declared a Caliphate. In the East, we now have the advent of the Turks, with the Ghaznawids beginning their inroads into India. This will permanently introduce Islam into India, even as these Turkish states mean the disappearance of Iranian people from Central Asia.

THE IDRÎSID CALIPHS OF MOROCCO, 789-985 AD
Idrîs I	789-791
Idrîs II	791-828
Muh.ammad al-Muntas.ir	828-836
'Alî I H.aydara	836-849
Yah.yâ I	849-863
Yah.yâ II	863-866
'Alî II	866-?
Yah.yâ III al-Miqdâm al-Jût.î	?-905
Yah.yâ IV	905-925
Tributary to Fatimids, 917
al-H.asan al-H.ajjâm	925-938
al-Qâsim Gannûn	938-948
Ah.mad Abu'l-'Aysh	948-954
al-H.asan	954-974, 985
Annexed by Fatimids, 985

The Rustamids of Algeria, 778-909 AD
'Abd ar-Rah.mân	778-788
'Abd al-Wahhâb	788-824
Aflah. Abû Sa'îd	824-872
Abû Bakr	872-874
Muh.ammad Abû'l-Yaqz.ân	874-894
Yûsuf Abû H.âtim	894-895, 899-?
Ya'qûb	895-899, ?-907
Yaqz.ân	907-909
Fatimid Conquest, 909
The Hammâdids of Algeria, 1015-1152 AD
H.ammâd	1015-1028
al-Qâ'id Sharaf ad-Dawla	1028-1054
Muh.sin	1054-1055
Buluggîn II	1055-1062
al-Nâs.ir	1062-1088
al-Mans.ûr	1088-1105
Bâdîs	1105
al-'Azîz	1105- 1121/24
Yah.yâ	1121/24- 1152
Almohad Conquest, 1152

After the Ommayads prevented the imposition of Abbasid authority in Spain, the first territories to be wholly alienated from the Caliphate were in North Africa -- the Maghrib, the "West." This was mostly a matter of heterodoxy. The Rustamids were Khârijites.

The Zîrids of Tunisia, 947-1163 AD
Zîrî	Governor, 947-972
Yûsuf Buluggîn I	972-984
al-Mans.ûr	984-996
Bâdîs Nâs.ir ad-Dawla	996-1016
Division of Tunisia & Algeria, 1015
al-Mu'izz	1016-1062
Breaks with Shi'ism & Fatimids, 1049; invasion of Banu Sulaym and Hilâli, 1051
Tamîm	1062-1108
conquest of Sicily by Normans, 1061-1091
Yah.yâ	1108-1116
'Alî	1116-1121
al-H.asan	1121-1148; Governor, 1148-1163, d.1168
conquest by Normans then Almohads, 1148

In the East the Khârijites had been a violent and revolutionary heresy, denying that those who violated the moral strictures of Islâm were even Muslims. In the East, they were suppressed amid great slaughter. In North Africa, the sect finds a nationalistic base among the Berbers, creating a mass movement, beginning with the Rustamids, such as didn't exist in the East.

In Morocco, under Idrîs I ibn 'Abdallâh, a great-grandson of H.asan, the son of 'Alî, we get another movement. With his background, it is perhaps not surprising that Idrîs both claimed the Caliphate and established Shi'ism. He also founded the Madînat Fâs, the city of Fez. Eventually the Idrîsids fragmented and then fell to the Fatimids, who inherited the mantle of the Shi'ite Caliphate. Years later, an Idrîsid branch, the H.ammûdids became one of the Reyes de Taifas of Spain.

The other two North African dynasties given here (perhaps a bit out of sequence) were successors to the Fatimids. These began with Zîri ibn Manâd, a Berber retainer of the Fatimids. His son, Buluggîn, was appointed Fatimid governor of Ifrîqiya. As with the Abbasids, so with the Zîrids. They began to drift away into autonomy. In 1015, Bâdîs ceded the western part of the territory to his uncle H.ammâd, after a falling out over H.ammâd's shift in allegiance to the Abbasids. Thus we get a division between Algeria and Tunisia. The Fatimids didn't much worry about autonomy in North Africa, but they were outraged when the Amîr al-Mu'izz changed his own allegiance to the Abbasids -- even while the Hammâdids had returned to Shi'ism. The Fatimids were too weak at this point (1049) to visit their own vengeance, so they directed instead two Arab tribes, the Banu Hilâl and the Banu Sulaym, to do the job for them (1051). The result was an unorganized pillaging, which mainly just ruined the countryside and hinterland. The Zîrids and Hammâdids moved down to the coast and built fleets. This was useful against the Norman conquest of Sicily but ultimately, by 1091, the Normans succeeded, ending the history of Islamic Sicily that had begun with the Aghlabids. Eventually the Almohads ended both regimes and unified North Africa again.

THE FATIMID CALIPHS
al-Mah.dî	909-934
Shi'ite (Sevener) Caliphate established in North Africa to rival Orthodox Abbasid Caliphate
al-Qâ'im	934-946
al-Mans.ûr	946-952
al-Mu'izz	952-975
Egypt occupied, Caliphate removed to new city, al-Qâhirah -- Cairo -- 969
al-'Azîz	975-996
al-H.âkim	996-1021
az.Z.âhir	1021-1035
al-Mustans.ir	1035-1094
al-Musta'lî	1094-1101
al-'Âmir	1101-1130
collateral line assumes throne; no longer considered to be Shi'ite Imâms
al-H.âfiz.	1130-1149
az.Z.âfir	1149-1154
Apostacy of & Zirids, 1049; dispatch of Banu Sulaym and Hilali into Tunisia, 1051
al-Fâ'iz	1154-1160
al-'Âd.id	1160-1171
dies natural death as Egypt passes to Yûsuf ibn Ayyûb S.alâhu dDîn

OMAYYAD CALIPHS OF SPAIN
'AbdurRah.mân III	912-961
al-H.akam II	961-976
Hishâm II	976-1008 & 1010-1012
Muh.ammad II	1008-1009
Sulaymân	1009 & 1012-1017
('Alî ibn Hamûd)	1017-1021
'AbdurRah.mân IV	1021-1022
(al-Qasim)	1022
'AbdurRah.mân V	1022-1023
Muh.ammad III	1023-1024
(Yahya ibn 'Alî)	1024-1027
Hishâm III	1027-1031

The glorious culmination of Omayyad rule in Spain, when 'AbdurRah.mân III proclaims himself Caliph, ends up leading to a surprisingly rapid collapse of the regime. 'AbdurRah.mân's great grandchildren became the pawns of slave troups from Europe (the S.aqâliba) and North Africa. Leadership devolved onto the H.âjib or Chief Minister, like Ibn Abî 'Amir Al-Mans.ûr (Almanzor), who captured Barcelona and sacked the shrine of St. James of Compostella in Galicia, hitherto the most sacred site of Christian Spain, but the situation soon escaped even this kind of control. Islâmic Spain broke into petty states and permanently lost its ability to maintain its own unity or resist the Christian Reconquista.

One reason that 'AbdurRah.mân III may have proclaimed himself Caliph, besides the general decline of the Abbasids in power the prestige, was the new Fatimid Caliphate in North Africa. While the Fatimids claimed descent from the Prophet's daughter Fât.ima, as descendants of the Seventh Imâm, Ismâ'îl, there is little confidence and less evidence for this genealogy. What it gave the Fatimids, however, was a claim to the Shi'ite Imâmate. This was an Apocalyptic movement, coincidentally approaching the Millennium on the Christian calendar. When the Fatimids occupied Egypt in 969, it did look like they might be the heirs of all of Islâm. The new capital founded in Egypt, al-Qâhirah, "the Victorious," although at the place of the Roman fortress of Babylon (of all things) and the Omayyad city of Fust.ât. (Old Cairo), now becomes the classic Islâmic capital of Egypt, Cairo. While Fatimid control soon extended into the Levant and to the Holy Cities of the Hijaz, this proved to be the Fatimid high water mark. In the Fatimid decline, North Africa broke away, the Crusaders arrived in the Levant, and the Fatimid succession itself passed to a collateral line that lost the numinous status of Shi'ite Imâm. The last Fatimid Caliph, a sickly child, was allowed to die a natural death by the occupier of Egypt, Saladin, before the regime was deposed.

THE MULÛK AT-T.AWÂ'IF, REYES DE TAIFAS
The Jahwarids of Cordova, Qurt.ubah
Jahwar ibn Muh.ammad ibn Jahwar	1031-1043
Muh.ammad ar-Rashîd	1043-1058
'Abd al-Malik Dhu's-Siyâdatayn al-Mans.ur	1058-1069
'Abbâdid conquest, 1069

Omayyad Spain broke up into a chaos of petty states, like the period of the Oghullar in Anatolia. In Arabic, the rulers were called the mulûk at.-T.awâ'if, or the "kings of the bands/factions/parties [t.â'ifa]." This was adapted into Spanish as the Reyes de Taifas.

The map shows 21 Reyes de Taifas in 1030, but at different times there were up to 39 of them. Only some of the more significant and durable are listed in the tables here. Already, both León and Navarre are larger than any Islamic state. Spain would never again be unified by a native Islamic state. This disunity was, of course, a golden opportunity for the Christian kingdoms; and the fall of Toledo to León and Castille in 1085 is significantly considered the beginning of the Christian Reconquista. The Moslem position was restored by the advent of the Almoravids, who then absorbed all the Taifa states. Toledo, however, which had been the capital of the Visigoths and was still considered the heart of Spain, was never recovered.

Murcia, Mursiyah
Khayrân as.-S.aqlabî	1012/13-1028
Zuhayr as.-S.aqlabî	1028-1038
'Abd al'Azîz ibn Abî'Âmir al-Mans.ûr of Valencia	1038-1045
Mujâhid al-'Âmirî	1045-c.1049
The T.ahirids
Ah.mad ibn T.âhir	c.1049-1063
Muh.ammad ibn T.âhir	1063-1078
'Abbâdid conquest, 1078
The 'Abbâdids of Seville, Ishbîlyah
Muh.ammad I ibn Ismâ'îl ibn 'Abbâd	1023-1042
'Abbâd Fakhr ad-Dawla al-Mu'tad.id	1042-1069
Muh.ammad II al-Mu'tamid	1069-1091, d.1095
Almoravid conquest, 1091
The H.ammûdids of Málaga, Malaka
'Alî ibn H.ammûd	1014/15-1017
al-Qâsim I al-Ma'mûn	1017-1021, 1022-1026
Yah.yâ I al-Mu'talî	1021-1022, 1026-1036
Idrîs I al-Muta'ayyad	1036-1039
Yah.yâ II al-Qâ'im	1039-1040
al-H.asan al-Mustans.ir	1040-1043
Idrîs II al-'Alî	1043-1046, 1053-1056
Muh.ammad I al-Mahdî	1046-1052
Idrîs III as-Sâmî	1052-1053
Muh.ammad II al-Musta'lî	1056
Zîrid conquest, 1056
The Zîrids of Granada, Gharnât.ah
Zâwî ibn Zîrî as.-S.anhâjî	1013-1019
H.abbûs ibn Mâksan	1019-1038
Bâdîs al-Muz.affar an-Nâs.ir	1038-1073
'Abdallâh ibn Buluggîn	Granada, 1073-1090
Tamîm ibn Buluggîn	Málaga, 1073-1090, d.1095
Almoravid conquest, 1090

Aft.asids of Badajoz, Bat.alyaws
'Abdallâh ibn Muh.ammad ibn al-Aft.as	1022-1045
Muh.ammad al-Muz.affar	1045-1068
Yah.yâ	1068
'Umar al-Mutawakkil	1068-1094
Almoravid conquest, 1091
The 'Âmirids of Valencia, Balansiyyah
'Abd al'Azîz ibn Abî'Âmir al-Mans.ûr (Sanchuelo)	1021-1060
'Abd al-Malik Niz.âm ad-Dawla	1060-1065
Occupied by Dhu'n-Nûnids, 1065-1076
Abû Bakr al-Mans.ûr	1076-1085
'Uthmân al-Qâd.î	1085
Yah.yâ II Dhu'n-Nûnid	1085-1092
Rodrigo Díaz, El Cid	1094-1099
Almoravid conquest, 1102
The Dhu'n-Nûnids of Toledo, T.ulayt.ulah
Ismâ'îl Dhu'r-Riyâsatayn az.-Z.âfir	1018-1043
Yah.yâ I Sharaf ad-Dawla al-Ma'mûn	1043-1075
Yah.yâ II al-Qâdir	1075-1080, 1081-1085, d.1092
Occupied by Aft.asids, 1080-1081; Conquest by Leon & Castille, 1085
The Banû Mujâhid of Denia and Majorca
Mujâhid al-'Âmirî al-Muwaffaq	c.1012-1045
'Alî Iqbâl ad-Dawla	1045-1076
conquest by Hûdids, 1076
The Tujîbids of Saragossa, Saraqus.tah
al-Mundhir I al-Tujîbî	governor, 1010-1023
Yah.yâ al-Muz.affar	1023-1029
al-Mundhir II Mu'izz ad-Dawla	1029-1039
'Abdallâh al-Muz.affar	1039-1040
The Hûdids of Saragossa
Sulaymân ibn Hûd al-Judhâmî	1040-c.1047
Sulaymân Tâj ad-Dawla	c.1047-1049
Ah.mad I Sayf ad-Dawla	1049-1082
Yûsuf al-Mu'tamin	1081-1083
Ah.mad II al-Musta'în	1083-1110
'Abd al-Malik 'Imâd ad-Dawla	1110
Almoravid occupation, 1110-1118; occupation by Aragón, 1118-1130
Ah.mad III Sayf ad-Dawla	1130-1146
Conquest by Aragón, 1146

 

MURÂBIT. (ALMORAVID) SULT.ÂNS
Yûsuf ibn Tâshufîn	1061-1107
Crosses over into Spain, defeat of Alfonso VI at Zallâqa, 1086
'Alî ibn Yûsuf	1107-1142
Tâshufîn ibn 'Alî	1142-1146
Ibrâhîm ibn Tâshufîn	1146
Ish.âq ibn 'Alî	1146-1147
Almohad conquest, 1147

The Murâbit.ûn, or Spanish Almorávides, began as a Berber religious movement, named after a ribât. or "hermitage" at the mouth of the Senegal River from which, perhaps spuriously, its militants originally derived. Be that as it may, the movement began with a local chief, Yah.yâ ibn Ibrâhîm, who returned from Mecca with a Moroccan scholar, 'Abdallâh ibn Yâsîn, both ready to fire up a rivalist and militant movement. The warriors moved north, under multiple leadership. Since they wore veils, as do the Tuaregs today, they are also known as the mutalaththimûn, "veiled ones." A state was founded in Morocco and Algeria by Yûsuf ibn Tâshufîn, who established himself at a new capital, Marrakech. Intervention in Spain followed shortly (1086), largely restoring the Islâmic position there. The Almoravids were Orthodox and acknowledged the Abbasid Caliph. They ended up getting overwhelmed by a new religious movement, less conservative, the Almohads.

THE GHAZNAWIDS
Sebûktigin	governor in Ghazna for Sâmânids, 977-997
Ismâ'îl	997-998
Mah.mûd of Ghazna	998-1030
Invasions of India, 1001-1024
Muh.ammad	1030-1031, 1040-1041
Mus'ûd I	1031-1040
Mawdûd	1041-1048
Mus'ûd II	1048
'Alî	1048-1049
'Abd ar-Rashîd	1049-1052
Farrukhzâd	1052-1059
Ibrâhîm	1059-1099
Mas'ûd III	1099-1115
Shîrzâd	1115-1116
Malik Arslan Shâh	1116-1117
Seljuk Occupation, 1117
Bahrâm Shâh	1117-1150, c.1152-1157
Ghûrid Occupation, 1150-c.1152
Khusraw Shâh	in Lahore, 1157-1160
Khusraw Malik	1160-1186, c.1191
Ghûrid Conquest, 1186

With the Ghaznawids, Turkish leaders first appear as a major power in Islâm. With the celebrated Mah.mûd, Islâm also becomes for the first time a permanent factor in Indian history. Mah.mûd's invasions of India involved looting temples and smashing idols. This was long remembered in anger by Hindus; but it was the first time in the history of Islâm, since the Prophet Muh.ammad's reoccupation of Mecca, that idols could be smashed in real pagan temples.

THE QARAKHÂNIDS
'Alî Arslan Khân	Great Qaghan
Ah.mad Arslan Qara Khân	998-1017
Overthrow of Sâmânids, 1005
Mans.ûr Arslan Khân	1017-1024
Muh.ammad Toghan Khân	1024-1026
Yûsuf Qadïr Khân	1026-32
'Alî Tigin Bughra Khân	Great Qaghan in Samarkand, c.1020-1034
Muh.ammad Arslan Qara Khân	c.1042-c.1052
Ibrâhîm Tabghach Bughra Khân	c.1052-1068
Nas.r Shams al-Mulk	1068-1080
Khid.r	1080-1081
Ah.mad	1081-1089
Ya'qûb Qadïr Khân	1089-1095
Mas'ûd	1095-1097
Sulaymân Qadïr Tamghach	1097
Mah.mûd Arslan Khân	1097-1099
Jibrâ'îl Arslan Khân	1099-1102
Muh.ammad Arlsan Khân	1102-1129
Nas.r	1129
Ah.mad Qadïr Khân	1129-1130
H.asan Jalâl ad-Dunyâ	1130-1132
Ibrâhîm Rukn ad-Dunyâ	1132
Mah.mûd	1132-1141
Defeat of Seljuks, Qara-Khitaï Occupation, 1141
Ibrâhîm Tabghach Khân	1141-1156
'Alî Chaghrï Khân	1156-1161
Mas'ûd Tabghach Khân	1161-1171
Muh.ammad Tabghach Khân	1171-1178
Ibrâhîm Arslan Khân	1178-1204
'Uthmân Ulugh Sult.ân	1204-1212
Khwârazm Conquest, 1212

Apart from the iconoclasm, however, Mah.mûd does not seem to have displayed any hostility or persecution of Hindus themselves, whom he actually recruited for his army. This began a long history of ambiguity, or worse, in the relations of Hindus and Moslems in India. Islâm always did best in India when tolerant, as under the Moghul Akbar, but could forfeit its strength suddenly with persecution.

Note that the Arabic "w" in Ghaznawid is usually pronounced as a "v," as it would be in Persian or Turkish.

The "Black" (Turkish qara) Khâns displace the Sâmânids in Transoxania and begin the process whereby the region, now Turkestan, becomes predominately Turkish. Vassals of the Seljuks and then of the Buddhist Qara-Khitaï, the khâns survive until absorbed in the brief empire of the Khwârazm Shâhs.

SELJUK GREAT SULT.ÂNS
T.ughrul I Beg	1037-1063
1055 frees Caliphs from Shi'ite Buwayids; granted title of Sult.ân
Alp Arslan	1063-1073
Destroys Roman army, captures Emperor Romanus IV, Battle of Manzikert, 1071
Malik Shâh I	1073-1092
Sult.âns of Rûm independent, 1092
Mah.mûd I	1092-1094
Berk Yaruq (Barkiyâruq)	1094-1105
Malik Shâh II	1105
Muh.ammad I Tapar	1105-1118
Ah.mad Sanjar	in Khurâsân 1097-1157
	1118-1157
Defeat by Qara-Khitaï, driven out of Transoxania, 1141
Mah.mûd II	in Iraq 1118-1131
Dâwûd	in Iraq 1131-1132
T.ughril II	in Iraq 1132-1134
Mas'ûd	in Iraq 1134-1152
Malik Shâh III	in Iraq 1152-1153
Muh.ammad II	in Iraq 1153-1160
Great Sultanate breaks up, 1157
Sulaymân Shâh	in Iraq 1160-1161
Arslan Shâh	in Iraq 1161-1176
T.ughril III	in Iraq 1176-1194
Conquest by Khwârazm Shahs, 1194

The Sejuks created a great empire in Central Asia and profoundly transformed the politics and even the ethnology (with the spread of Turkic peoples) of the Middle East. After being freed from the Buwayids by the Orthodox Seljuks, the Caliph bestows a new title on T.ughrul Beg:  Sult.ân -- "Power, Dominion, Authority." This looked like it might divide the ultimate authority in Islâm into secular and divine halves, between the Sult.ân and the Caliph. It might have, had the Seljuk domain maintained its unity and its power, which it didn't. The title of Sult.ân, rather than signifying unique and universal authority, henceforth becomes the title of choice for successor states. The greatest long term consequence, however, of the Seljuk state was the destruction of Roman power in Anatolia. There was no way of knowing it at the time, but the battle of Manzikert in 1071 was the end of Mediaeval Romania and the beginning of modern Turkey.

Under Alp Arslan and Malik Shâh there was considerable intellectual and cultural achievement, in part encouraged by their great Vizir, Niz.âm al-Mulk. This included the greatest of Islamic philosophers, al-Ghazâlî (1058-1111), and the mathematician, astronomer, and poet 'Umar Khayyâm (d.1122). Khayyâm's fatalism, although with its Islamic overtones, may owe more to an Iranian sensibility, as would what seems to be his worldiness and even cynicism ("Of all that one should care to fathom, I was never deep in anything but Wine," as FitzGerald translated it). Harsher times and considerably less intellectual daring were ahead.

The map below shows Islâm at the death of Malik Shâh I (1092). The Seljuk Great Sultanate, so vast (at least in Asia) and formidable, will now fragment, weaken, and disappear. When the First Crusade arrives in 1098, neither Seljuks nor Fatimids are in any shape to resist it. There is some irony in this, since the Crusades were initiated in response to the Seljuk conquest of Anatolia, which was then partially recovered for Romania. The extent of Seljuk control over the Ghaznawids is unclear, but the Ghûrids are just beginning their rise against their suzerains, whom they will replace (1186). While the Ghûrids fall to the Khwârazm Shâhs (1215), their slave vassals in India found the Sultanate of Delhi. The Almoravids have crossed over to Spain, defeated the Christians (1086), and delayed the Reconquista. When the Fatimid vassals, the Zirids of Tunisia, converted to Orthodox Islâm (1049), the Fatimids rid themselves of some troublesome Arab tribes by directing them to North Africa. This was a sterile revenge which gained the Fatimids nothing, but did contribute to an Arabization of North Africa.

THE GHÛRIDS
Abû 'Alî	Ghaznawid vassal, 1011-c.1035
'Abbâs
Muh.ammad	c.1059
H.asan
H.usayn I	1100-1146
Sûrî	1146-1149
Sâm I	1149
H.usayn II	1149-1161
Muh.ammad Sayf ad-Dîn	1161-1163
Muh.ammad Bahâ' ad-Dîn	Sult.ân, 1163-1203
Muh.ammad Mu'izz ad-Dîn	Ghazna, 1173-1203
	Sult.ân in Ghûr & India, 1203-1206
takes Lahore, 1186
Mah.mûd Ghiyâth ad-Dîn	1206-1212
Yïldïz Mu'izzî Tâj ad-Dîn	governor of Ghazna, 1206-1215
Sâm II Bahâ ad-Dîn	1212-1213
Khwârazm Vassals
Atsïz 'Alâ ad-Dîn	1213-1214
Muh.ammad Shujâ' ad-Dîn	1214-1215
Khwârazm Conquest, 1215

The Ghaznawids eventually came under the suzerainty of the Sejuks, and about the same time start displaying Persian rather than just Arabic (or Turkish) names. Their end came from the Ghûrids, one time vassals and now aggressive conquerers in their own right, following the last Ghaznawids to their last refuge in the Punjab. Thus the first permanent Islâmic state in Northern India became established, with the Ghûrids own vassals beginning the line of the Sult.âns of Delhi -- we even see a title with a word that will become very famous in India, Tâj ad-Dîn, "Crown of the Religion." Soon, however, the power of the Khwârazm Shâhs began to overtake the Ghûrids -- though the Mongols were not far behind.

THE KHWÂRAZM SHÂHS
Ekinchi ibn Qochqar	Seljuk governor, 1097
Arslan Tigin Muh.ammad Qut.b adDîn	1097-1127
Qïzïl Arslan Atsïz 'Alâ' adDîn	1127-1156
Vassal of Qara Khitaï, 1141
Il Arslan	1156-1172
Tekish Tâj adDunyâ wadDîn	1172-1200
Overthrows last Sejuks in Iraq, 1194
Muh.ammad 'Alâ' adDîn	1200-1220
Conquest of Qarakhânids, 1212, of Ghûrids, 1215
Mengübirti Jalâl adDîn	1220-1231
Thrown out of Transoxanian by Mongols, 1220-1221; Mongol conquest, 1231

For a while, the Seljuk successors, the Khwârazm Shâhs, seemed on the way to restoring the Seljuk empire, and more. By 1215, it looked like they had. From Central Asia to Iraq to India, the Shâhs held sway. Unfortunately for them, Genghis Khan was on the move. He arrived in 1220. The Shâh was crushed, but lingered in a rump of western Irân until 1231. In that twilight period Shâh Jalâl adDîn actually expanded into Azerbaijan and Georgia, but there was little he could do about the Mongols.

Jalâl adDîn was deposed without a major expenditure of Mongol effort. Greater effort came in 1256, when Qubilai Khan's brother Hülägü arrived with full Mongol force and the intention to conquer the whole Middle East. The long Abbasid Caliphate ended when Hülägü killed the last Caliph, perhaps at the urging of his Christian wife. The Seljuks of Rûm were subjugated, but then the Great Khan Möngke died in 1259. Hülägü returned to Mongolia to elect Qubilai Great Khan. This permanently redirected the main force of the Mongols, now against China. When the Mamlûks defeated a Mongol party in 1260, this was the practical end of Mongol expansion in the Middle East. Nevertheless, what was left was the massive state of the Il Khâns, which survived until collapsing in confusion in 1338. This was a brief ascendancy; and the great traveler Ibn Battuta, who visited the Khân Abû Sa'îd in 1327, at the flood tide of Mongol power, found upon his return from China and India, in 1348, that the realm had already disintegrated. Mongol successors, like the Jalayirids and the Black Sheep Turks, are followed on the Mongol page.

THE ZANGID ATABEGS OF MOSUL, ALEPPO, & DAMASCUS
Zangî I 'Imâd adDîn		appointed by Seljuk Sult.ân Mah.mûd II, 1127; Atabeg of Mosul, 1127-1146
Capture of the County of Edessa from Crusaders, 1144
MOSUL		ALEPPO, & DAMASCUS
Ghâzî I Sayf adDîn	1146-1149	Mah.mûd Nûr adDîn	1147-1174
Mawdûd Qut.b adDîn	1149-1170	Second Crusade, 1147-1149; captures Damascus, 1154; sends Shîrkûh to conquer Egypt, 1169; Shîrkûh dies, command passes to Saladin, 1169
Ghâzî II Sayf adDîn	1170-1180	Ismâ'îl Nûr adDîn	1174-1181
Mas'ûd I 'Izz adDîn	1180-1193	SINJÂR
		Zangî II 'Imâd adDîn	Sinjâr, 1171-1197
JAZÎRA			Damascus & Aleppo, 1181-1183
Sanjar Shâh Mu'izz adDîn	1180-1208		Conquest of Damacus & Aleppo by Saladin, 1183
Arslan Shâh I Nûr adDîn	Mosul, 1193-1211	Muh.ammad Qut.b adDîn	1197-1219
Mah.mûd Mu 'izz adDîn	Jazîra, 1208-1241
Mas'ûd II 'Izz adDîn	Mosul, 1211-1218
Arslan Shâh II Nûr adDîn	1218-1219
Mah.mûd Nâs.ir adDîn	1219-1234	Shâhanshâh 'Imad adDîn, Mah.mûd Jalâl adDîn, & 'Umar Fat.h adDîn	1219-1220
		Conquest by Ayyûbids, 1220
Lu'lu' Badr adDîn	Mosul, Lu'lu'id, 1234-1259	Mas'ûd al-Malik al-Z.âhir	Jazîra, 1241-1250
Ismâ'îl Rukn adDîn	Lu'lu'id, 1259-1262	Conquest by Ayyûbids, 1250, then Lu'lu'ids
Mongol dominion, 1254, conquest, 1262

An atabeg (ata="father"; beg or bey a title that now can just mean "mister") was a guardian for a minor Seljuk prince. The princes tended to disappear and the atabegs to become independent rulers. In no case was this process as fateful as with Zangî 'Imâd ad-Dîn, who took Edessa from the Crusaders in 1144.

This began what might be called the Islâmic Reconquista of the Crusader states in the Middle East. The vigor of Zangî's house seemed to promise the complete defeat of the Crusaders, but Mah.mûd Nûr ad-Dîn chose his own lieutenants far too well for the preservation of Zangid authority. His Kurdish general Shîrkûh completed the conquest of Egypt; but Shîrkûh then died, leaving authority to his nephew Yûsuf ibn 'Ayyûb, who became S.alâh.ud-Dîn. Nûr ad-Dîn soon discovered that S.alâh.ud-Dîn had his own ideas about governing Egypt, like ignoring orders to depose the last Fatimid Caliph (who then died a natural death in 1171). The insubordination of the subordinate soon was a practical independence that Nûr ad-Dîn could not contest before his death (1174). The tables were soon turned, as S.alâh.ud-Dîn returned to take Damascus from the Zangids (1183) and then Jerusalem from the Crusaders (1187). The Islâmic Reconquista thus had passed to the Ayyûbids, as would eventually most of the rest of the Zangid possessions. What the Ayyûbids didn't get, the Mongol Il Khâns did.

THE AYYÛBID SULT.ÂNS
EGYPT		DAMASCUS
1169-1193	anNâs.ir I S.alâh.udDîn (Saladin) Yûsuf ibn Ayyûb		1183-1186
Battle of the Horns of Hattin, Capture of King Guy of Jerusalem; Fall of Jerusalem, 1187; Third Crusade, led by King Richard I, 1189-1192
al-'Azîz Imad adDîn	1193-1198	al-'Afd.al Nûr adDîn	1186-1196
al-Mansûr Nâs.ir adDîn	1198-1200	al-'Adil I Sayf adDîn	1196-1201
1200-1218
Fourth Crusade, 1202-1204
1218-1238	al-Kamil I Nâs.ir adDîn	al-Mu'az.z.am Sharaf adDîn	Governor 1201-1218
			1218-1227
		al-Nâs.ir II S.alâh. adDîn	1227-1229
		al-Ashraf I Muz.affar adDîn	1229-1237
		asS.âlih. I 'Imad adDîn	1237-1238 1239-1245
		1238
Fifth Crusade, 1228-1229; Jerusalem turned over to Emperor Frederick II; remained in Crusader Hands, 1229-1244
1238-1240	al-'Adil II Sayf adDîn		1238-1239
1240-1249	asS.âlih. II Najm adDîn		1239, 1245-1249
1249-1250	al-Mu'az.z.am Tûrân-Shâh Ghiyât adDîn		1249-1250
Sixth Crusade, 1248-1254; St. Louis IX captured and held for ranson, 1250-1254
Shajar adDurr, widow of Najm adDîn	1250	anNâs.ir II S.alâh. adDîn	1250-1260
al-Ashraf II Muz.affar adDîn	1250-1252, nominally until 1254
Sult.ânate of Egypt seized by the Mamlûk Slave-soldier Aybak, 1252
		Damascus occupied by Mongols, then seized by the Mamlûk Baybars, 1260

The immortal Saladin (S.alâh.udDîn, the "Righteousness of the Religion"), who defeated and drove the Crusaders from Jerusalem, set up his sons and relatives in several subsidiary lines, in Damascus, Aleppo, H.ims., H.amât, Diyâr Bakr, and Yemen. Most of these were ended by 1260 by the Mamlûks or fell to the Mamlûks after Mongol conquest. The line in H.amâh (or H.amât) was a little more durable, only falling to the Mamlûks in 1332; and the line in Diyâr Bakr, with some interruptions, survived until conquest by the White Sheep Turks in the later 15th century. Only the lines in Egypt and Damascus are given in the table -- genealogies of the others are below.

Although originally ruling from Egypt, Saladin spent the last years of his life fighting in Syria and Palestine and was buried in Damascus, next to the Omayyad Mosque. The Ayyubid family still survives in Lebanon and retains Saladin's sword. His tomb is intact and open to visitors of the Omayyad Mosque. It was even visited by Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

Under Saladin, Cairo replaces Baghdad as the intellectual center of the Central Islâmic lands. The great Jewish philosopher Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) and the Sûfî 'Ibn 'Arabî (1165-1240) both relocated from Spain to Egypt. This climate became the subject of the play Nathan der Weise (1779) by Gotthold Lessing (1729-1781). Saladin's toleration, however, had its limits, since he executed another Sûfî, Suhrawardî (1153-1191) for heterodoxy -- less of a danger for Islâmic mystics than for Christian, but still a problem.

The genealogy of the Ayyûbids that follows is from The New Islamic Dynasties by Clifford Edmund Bosworth [Edinburgh University Press, 1996, pp.70-73] and A History of the Crusades, Volume III, The Kingdom of Acre and the Later Crusades by Steven Runciman [Cambridge University Press, 1951, 1993, p.532]. Since Bosworth simply gives names, and the genealogy there must be reconstructed from the patronymics, about which there are minor but confusing variations, some uncertainties occur. Some of these can be confirmed or corrected with Runciman's chart, which otherwise is innocent of dates and of diacritics for Arabic. The chart below includes the Ayyubid lines for Aleppo and H.ims. (Homs) that are not included in the table above. A larger popup table also includes the lines of H.amâh, Yaman (Yemen), and Diyâr Bakr. The continuation of the Ayyubids in Diyâr Bakr under the Mongols, until annexation by the White Sheep Turks, is covered in a separate popup. Dïyarbakir is today a city in Turkey, on the upper Tigris near where the Tigris and Euphrates approach each other before diverging courses. South of this, the broad area between the rivers came to be called the Nahrain, the "Two Rivers," or the Jazîra, the "Island." Today, the northern part lies in Turkey and the southern part in Syria. A corner of it lies in Iraq northwest of Mosul. Edessa, long the principal city of the area and a Crusader County, is now the city of Urfa in Turkey. It is not clear from the sources who actually used the title Sult.ân. I have restricted it to the rulers in Egypt and Damascus. Other rulers are simply "Lords," except Yemen, whose ruler Rucimen calls "King." As a matter of fact, every single one of these sovereigns employs the title al-Malik, i.e. "the King" -- so I have at least used it for Yemen.

THE MULÛK AT-TAWÂ'IF, REYES DE TAIFAS
Cordova, Qurt.ubah
H.amdîn al-Mans.ûr	1144-1145, 1146
Ah.mad III Sayf ad-Dawla Hûdid	1145-1146
Yah.yâ ibn Ghâniya	1146-1148
Almohad conquest, 1148
Valencia, Balansiyyah
Mans.ûr ibn 'Abdallâh Qâd.î	1144-1147
Abû 'Abdallâh Muh.ammad (Rey Lobo/Lope)	1147-1172
Hilâl	1172
Almohad conquest, 1172

Murcia, Mursiyah
'Abdallâh ibn 'Iyâd.	1145-1148
'Abdallâh ibn Faraj ath-Thaghrî	1145-1148
Abû 'Abdallâh Muh.ammad of Valencia	1148-1172
Almohad conquest, 1172
The Banû Ghâniya of Majorca
Muh.ammad al-Mussûfî ibn Ghâniya	1126-1155
'Abdallâh	1155
Abû Ibrâhîm Ish.âq	1155-1183
Muh.ammad ibn Ish.âq	1183-1184
'Alî ibn Ish.âq	1184-1187
'Abdallâh ibn Ish.âq	1187-1203
Almohad conquest, 1203

The rapid decline and fall of the Almoravids allowed a revival of the Reyes de Taifas. These were overtaken by the Almohads soon enough, although in the Balaerics the kings of Majorca held out until few days were even left for the Almohads. Aragón had the islands by 1231.

MUWAH.ID (ALMOHAD) CALIPHS OF SPAIN & NORTH AFRICA
'Abdul-Mu'min	1130-1163
Yûsuf I abû Yaqûb	1163-1184
Ya'qûb ibn Yûsuf al-Mans.ûr	1184-1199
Muh.ammad ibn Ya'qûb	1199-1213
devastating defeat by Christian Spain at Las Navas de Tolosa, 1212
Yûsuf II Abû Yaqûb	1213-1224
'Abdul-Wâh.id Abû Muh.ammad	1224
'Abdallâh Abû Muh.ammad	1224-1227
Yah.yâ Abû Zakariyyâ'	1227-1235
Idrîs I ibn Ya'qûb	1227-1232
abandonment of Spain, 1228-1229
'Abdul-Wâh.id ibn Idrîs I	1232-1242
'Alî ibn Idrîs I	1242-1248
'Umar ibn Ish.âq	1248-1266
Idrîs II ibn Muh.ammad	1266-1269
North Africa breaks up between H.afs.ids, Marînids, & 'Abdul-Wâdids (Zayyânids)

Almohad Spain ironically was distinguished by intellectual brilliance and by intolerant oppression. Some of the most important Islâmic and Jewish philosophers of the Middle Ages lived during the Almohad period. The principal Islâmic figures were Ibn Bâjja (Avempace, d. 1138), Ibn T.ufayl (Abubacer, d. 1185), and especially, Ibn Rushd (Averroës, 1126-1198). The great Jewish philosophers were Moses Maimonides (1135-1204) and Moses Nahmanides (1194-1270). Ibn Rushd was probably one of the two or three greatest Islâmic philosophers ever, and was certainly the most influential on subsequent thought in 13th Century Europe. Maimonides was definitely the most important Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages. Both men suffered from the religious fanaticism of the Almohad regime. Ibn Rushd was the last Islâmic philosopher to rigorously defend Neoplatonic and Aristotelian principles that had come to be regarded as un-Islâmic. However, it was his skill as a physician that helped in his ultimate rehabilitation with the Caliph. Maimonides, on the other hand, fled the Almohad persecution of Christians and Jews all the way to Egypt, where he found refuge at the court of Saladin. Nahmanides, on the other hand, was already a denizen of Christian Spain as, in his lifetime, the Almohads lost most of the Spain, abandoned the peninsula, and then were even overthrown in North Africa.

The Almohads styled themselves Caliphs, something not always noted in historical summaries of the area. Since they were Orthodox and the Abbasid line in Baghbad had not ended yet (though it would by the end of the dynasty), the precedent must have been the Omayyad Caliphate in Spain -- if there was even a concern with precedent.

The Marînid Amîrs of Morocco
'Abd al-H.aqq I	1195-1217
'Uthmân I	1217-1240
Muh.ammad I	1240-1244
Abû Bakr	1244-1258
'Umar	1258-1259
Ya'qûb	1259-1286
Yûsuf	1286-1307
'Âmir	1307-1308
Sulaymân	1308-1310
'Uthmân II	1310-1331
'Alî	1331-1351
Fâris	1351-1358
Muh.ammad II	1358-1359
Ibrâhîm	1359-1361
Tâshufîn	1361
'Abd al-H.alîm	1361-1362
Muh.ammad III	1362-1366
'Abd al-'Azîz I	1366-1372
Muh.ammad IV	1372-1374
Ah.mad	1374-1384, 1387-1393
Mûsâ	1384-1386
Muh.ammad V	1386
Muh.ammad VI	1386-1387
'Abd al-'Azîz II	1393-1396
'Abd Allâh	1396-1398
'Uthmân III	1398-1420
'Abd al-H.aqq II	1420-1465
The Wat.t.âsid Amîrs of Morocco
Yah.yâ I al-Wat.t.âsî	regent, 1428-1448
'Alî	regent, 1448-1458
Yah.yâ II	regent, 1458-1459
interregnum, Idrîsid Shurafâ, 1465-1471
Muh.ammad I	1472-1504
Muh.ammad II	1504-1526
'Alî	1526, 1554
Ah.mad	1526-1545, 1547-1549
Muh.ammad III	1545-1547
The Sa'did Sharîfs of Morocco
Muh.ammad I al-Qâ'im al-Mahdî	1510-1517
Ah.mad al-A'raj	1517-1543
Mah.ammad ash-Shaykh	1517-1557
'Abdallâh	1557-1574
Muh.ammad II	1574-1576
'Abd al-Malik	1576-1578
Ah.mad	1578-1603
Zaydân	Fez, 1603-1604; Marrakech, 1609-1627
'Abdallâh	Marrakech, 1603-1606; Fez, 1606-1609
Mah.ammad	Fex, 1606-1613
'Abdallâh	Marrakech, 1606-1609; Fex, 1609-1623
'Abd al-Malik ash-Shaykh	Fez, 1623-1627
'Abd al-Malik an-Nâs.ir	Marrakech, 1627-1631
Muh.ammad al-Walîd	Marrakech, 1631-1636
Mah.ammad ash-Shaykh	1636-1655
Ah.mad ash-Shaykh	1655-1659
The 'Alawid Sharîfs, Sult.âns, & Kings of Morocco, 1640-present

With the decline of the Almohads, we get North Africa breaking up into familiar parts, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. These modern divisions may not be perfectly natural, and the borders ebb and flow, but we are not that far from the modern divisions. Morocco originally looks the most likely to retain the unity of the region, and briefly holds it, but otherwise is the most durable unit, with a continuous succession of rulers, despite some moments of anarchy or transition, down to the present.

The H.afs.id Amirs, Caliphs, or Sult.âns of Tunisia
Yah.yâ I	1229-1249
Muh.ammad I	1249-1277
Seventh Crusade by St. Louis IX, 1270
Yah.yâ II	1277-1279
Ibrâhîm I	1279-1283
'Abd al-'Azîz	1283
Ah.mad	1283-1284
'Umar I	1284-1295
Muh.ammad II	1295-1309
Abû Bakr I	1309
Khâlid I	1309-1311, d.1313
Zakariyâ' I	1311-1317
Muh.ammad III	1317-1318
Abû Bakr II	1318-1346
Ah.mad I	1346-1347
'Umar II	1347
Marînid rule, 1347-1350
al-Fad.l	1350
Ibrâhîm II	1350-1369
Khâlid II	1369-1370
Ah.mad II	1370-1394
'Abd al-'Azîz	1394-1434
Muh.ammad IV	1434-1435
'Uthmân	1435-1488
Yah.yâ III	1488-1489
'Abd al-Mu'min	1489-1490
Zkariyâ' II	1490-1494
Muh.ammad V	1494-1526
Muh.ammad VI	1526-1534, 1535-1542
Ottoman occupation, 1534-1535; vassal of Charles V, 1635-1569
Ah.mad III	1542-1569
Ottoman rule, 1569-1573
Muh.ammad VII	1573-1574
vassal of Spain, 1573-1574; Ottoman conquest & direct rule, 1574-1705

The Zayyânid or Ziyânid Amîrs of Algeria
Yaghmurâsan ibn Ziyân or Zayyân	1236-1283
'Uthmân I	1283-1304
Muh.ammad I	1304-1308
Mûsâ I	1308-1318
'Abd ar-Rah.mân I	1318-1337
Marînid rule, 1337-1348
'Uthmân II & al-Zaîm	1348-1352
Marînid rule, 1352-1359
Mûsâ II	1359-1389
'Abd ar-Rah.mân II	1389-1394
Yûsuf I	1394
Yûsuf I	1394-1395
Muh.ammad II	1395-1400
'Abdallâh I	1400-1402
Muh.ammad III	1402-1411
'Abd ar-Rah.mân III	1411
Sa'îd	1411
'Abd al-Wâh.id	1411-1424, 1428-1430
Muh.ammad IV	1424-1428
Ah.mad I	1430-1462
Muh.ammad V	1462-1469
Abû Tâshufîn	1469
Muh.ammad VI	1469-1504
Muh.ammad VII	1504-1517
vassal of Spain, 1512
Mûsâ III	1517-1528
Ottoman presence, 1518
'Abdallâh	1528-1540
Muh.ammad VIII	1540-1541
Ah.mad II	1541-1543, 1544-1550
Spanish occupation, 1543-1544
al-H.asan	1550-1555
Ottoman conquest, 1555; Barbary States
French occupation, 1830-1871; French annexation; 1871-1962; Republic of Algeria, 1962-present

 

These tables are based on both The New Islamic Dynasties by Clifford Edmund Bosworth [Edinburgh University Press, 1996] and the Oxford Dynasties of the World by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002]. Bosworth has all of the rulers listed, while Morby gives only the Marînids [p.183] and H.afs.ids [p.185]. Morby has a clearer presentation, but Bosworth also has a brief discussion of the history.

With the Crusades, Francia begins to develop the seapower that enables it to return to North Africa. On the Seventh Crusade in 1270, St. Louis IX of France lands in Tunisia, formally as a preparation to return to Egypt but apparently simply at the self-interested urging of his brother, Charles of Anjou, who wanted to enlarge his Mediterranean empire. He dies instead and accomplishes nothing for Charles -- it is also the last Crusade.

After completing the expulsion of Islâm from Spain, both Spain and Portugal become intent on expanding into North Africa. Various cities get taken and held for a time, and local rulers become temporary vassals, but nothing permanent gets accomplished and it seems impossible to establish a durable or extensive presence on the continent.

It is not Europe but Turkey that actually does this. Both the H.afs.ids and Ziyânds come to an end with the Turkish conquest. Indeed, in the last stages, the local rulers sometimes relied on the Christians as allies against the Turks. North Africa thus became a theater of the larger conflict between Christendom and the Ottomans.

North Africa, however, was a long way from Constantinople. And as the Turkish reach slackened with time, local governors and princes began to run their own operations. This came to mean piracy and slaving. We enter the period of the Barbary States, a good three hundred years, when corsairs, from Algeria especially, were a plague on the surrounding seas, with ship after ship taken, and Christian crews and passengers sold on the slave markets. After 1604, when English pirates taught them Atlantic navigation, Barbary ships ranged as far as Newfoundland and even captured ships in Plymouth harbor. Between 1609 and 1616, they captured 446 English ships and sold more than 7000 English captives as slaves. Some such captives might be ransomed, but many others were lost the rest of their lives. Christian states were scandalized by this, but punitive expeditions were usually no more successful than they had been since St. Louis. An English expedition against Algeria in 1620 was a failure, but one in 1637 was more successful, seizing the city of Salee, with 300 captives freed. Nevertheless, it was easier to pay for "protection" and buy off the pirates (who also sometimes could be used as allies against other European powers). This was never more than partially effective, since, as the saying goes, once you pay the Danegeld, you can't get rid of the Dane (very similar kinds of pirates and slavers, as pagans, in their day).

The situation became especially infuriating to the new but distant United States of America. After paying $2,000,000 in extortion money, Thomas Jefferson had had enough and in 1801 sent the U.S. Navy and Marines against the city of Tripoli (actually just east of Tunisia, in modern Libya). This brought at least a temporary respite, and contributed a phrase ("the shores of Tripoli") to the Marine Hymn. The piracy and slaving did not really and fully end, however, until the French landed in Algeria, intent upon conquest, in 1830. They had a hard fight against the local charismatic leader, Abd al-Kader, from 1832 to 1847, but they accomplished the task. Fighting there would often be in French Algeria, for which the legendary Foreign Legion would be created, but local pirates would no longer plague the seas or harvest Christian merchants and travellers for slaves.
 
Islâmic Index

The Keita Kings of Mali
Mari Sun Dayâta (Mârî Jât.â) I	1230-1255
Mansâ Ulî/Ule	1255-1270
Mansâ Wâtî	1270-1274
Mansâ Khalîfa	1274-1275
Mansâ Abû Bakr I, Bata-Mande-Bori	1275-1285
Sabakura/Sâkûra	freedman, 1285-1300
Mansâ Gaw/Qû	1300-1305
Mansâ Mamadu/Muh.ammad	1305-1310, d.1312
Mansâ Abû Bakr II	1310-1312
Mansâ Mûsâ I	1312-1337
Mansâ Maghan/Maghâ I	1337-1341
Mansâ Sulaymân	1341-1360
Mansâ Kamba/Qanba/Qâsâ	1360-1361
Mansâ Mari Dyâta/Mârî Jât.a II	1361-1374
Mansâ Mûsâ II	1374-1382
Mansâ Maghan II	1382-1388/89
Sandigi/S.andiki	usurper, 1288/89-1390
Mansâ Maghan III, Mah.mûd	1390
succession strife, ascendancy of Songhay

Mali was the first literate sub-Saharan African kingdom since Abyssinia, and the first Islâmic one. The city of Timbuktu on the Niger River, although not the capital of Mali, was nevertheless probably the most famous city of the area (and now of the region), at the end of the caravan routes from North Africa. Pilgrimages of the Kings of Mali to Mecca, passing through Cairo, drew considerable attention, especially that of Mansâ Mûsâ I, whose attendants, walking by camels, all carried staffs covered in gold. His reign also saw a visit to the Kingdom from the great traveller Ibn Bat.t.ût.a, who observed, among other things, that the sexual mores of the people were somewhat less rigorous than required by Islam. Indeed, some accommodation with pre-Islamic practices long persisted.

The Islam that the Kings of Mali did want rigorously enforced was the prohibition of taking Muslims as slaves. Slavers from North Africa usually regarded all black people, Muslims or not, as fair game, and this became a matter of continuing annoyance, outrage, and reproach over time. The recent self-righteous expressing indignation over the European slave trade from the coast of West Africa usually forget that the trade began and long continued, in much the same volume, across the Sahara to the Arab north. There are few descendants of those slaves in Arab countries today, reflecting the harshness of their treatment, including the castration of the men.

Today this area suffers from an advance of the desert that has continued through all historical time. The Sahara has only gotten worse in the last five thousand years and more. The mediaeval kingdom thus enjoyed considerable rainfall and arable land now lost. The modern Republic of Mali, although encompassing some of the same territory as the old Kingdom, nevertheless has no direct connection to it and is named just in commemoration of it.

The fury and anaesthesia of Islamic Fascism have now come to historic and fabled Timbuktu. In late June, 2012, Islamist fanatics, such as the "Ansar Dine" group, have by pick-axes, hoes, and fire destroyed the tombs of the Mediaeval Muslim Saints Sidi Mahmoud, Sidi Moctar, and Alpha Moya in Timbuktu, previously called the "city of 333 Saints." This is consistent with the vandalism visited on cultural and religious artifacts by Jihadists, as most notoriously seen in the destruction of Buddhist art and monuments in Afghanistan; but it may surprise some that Islamic monuments, in this case ones designated by UNESCO as "world-heritage" sites, are now the target. But the Wahhabist inspired Islam of modern zealots regards the veneration or even commemoration of saints as un-Islamic, and they scruple at no death or destruction to enforce their particular fundamentalism. Since their fire also burned priceless manuscripts in the tombs, they are also indifferent to traditions of Islamic literature and historiography. In short, they are savages and barbarians, in the fullest senses of those terms. It is extraordinary that the modern world still has to deal with people like this.

The Si & Askiya Kings of Songhay
Sonni 'Alî Ber, the Great	1464/1465-1492
Abû Bakr/Bakari/Baru	1492-1493
Muh.ammad I Ture Askiya/Sikiya	1493-1528, d.1538
Mûsâ	1528-1531
Muh.ammad II Benkan	1531-1537
Ismâ'îl	1537-1539
Ish.âq I	1539-1549
Dâwûd	1549-1582
Muh.ammad III	1582-1586
Muh.ammad IV Bani	1586-1588
Ish.âq II	1588-1591
Muh.ammad V Gao/Kawkaw	1591-1592
conquest by Morocco, 1591-1592

Mali was the scene of an attempted coup in March, and this has unleashed the anarchy and fanaticism that now are in play in the north of the country. Many more tombs in Timbuktu are vulnerable to destruction.

THE MAMLÛK SULT.ÂNS OF EGYPT, 1252-1517
Bah.rî line, 1252-1390 (usually Turkish)
Aybak al-Turkumânî	1250, 1252-1257
'Alî I	1257-1259
Qutuz al-Mu'izzî	1259-1260
Baybars I al-Bunduqdârî	1260-1277
Defeats Mongols, 1260
Baraka/Berke Khân	1277-1279
Salâmish/Süleymish	1279
Qalâwûn al-Alfî	1279-1290
Khalîl	1290-1293
Fall of Acre, 1291; End of Outremer
Baydarâ(?)	1293
Muh.ammad I	1293-1294, 1299-1309, 1310-1341
Kitbughâ	1294-1296
Lâchîn/Lâjîn al-Ashqar	1296-1299
Pharos Lighthouse collapses after earthquake, 1303
Baybars II al-Jâshnakîr (Burjî)	1309-1310
Abû Bakr	1341
Kûjûk/Küchük	1341-1342
Ah.mad I	1342
Ismâ'îl	1342-1345
Sha'bân I	1345-1346
H.âjjî I	1346-1347
al-H.asan	1347-1351, 1354-1361
S.âlih.	1351-1354
Muh.ammad II	1361-1363
Sha'bân II	1363-1377
'Alî II	1377-1382
H.âjjî II	1382, 1389-1390
Burjî line, 1382-1517 (usually Circassian)
Barqûq al-Yalburghâwî	1382-1398, 1390-1399
Faraj	1399-1405, 1405-1412
'Abd al-'Aziz	1405
al-Musta'în	1412
	1406-1414, Caliph
Shaykh al-Mah.mûdî al-Z.âhirî	1412-1421
Ah.mad II	1421
T.ât.âr	1421
Muh.ammad III	1421-1422
Barsbay	1422-1438
Yûsuf	1438
Chaqmaq/Jaqmaq	1438-1453
'Uthmân	1453
Inâl al-'Alâ'î al-Z.âhirî	1453-1461
Ah.mad III	1461
Khushqadam	1461-1467
Yalbay	1467
Timurbughâ	1467-1468
Qâyit Bay al-Z.âhirî	1468-1496
Muh.ammad IV	1496-1498
Qâns.awh I	1498-1500
Jânbulât.	1500-1501
T.ûmân Bay I	1501
Qâns.awh II al-Ghawrî	1501-1516
T.ûmân Bay II	1516-1517
Ottoman Conquest by Selîm I Yavuz; line of Mamlûks actually continues until 1811

The Mamlûks, literally "possessed," i.e. "slaves," represent one of the strangest political institutions in world history, compared by Machiavelli to nothing so much as the Papacy. This was because of the non-hereditary nature of the succession, though the Mamlûks were by no means celibate -- that would be foreign to Islâm.

THE ABBASID PUPPET CALIPHS OF EGYPT, 1261-1517 AD, UNDER THE MAMLÛKS
Ah.mad al-Mustans.ir	1261
Ah.mad al-H.âkim I	1261-1262 in Aleppo
	1262-1302 in Cairo
Sulaymân al-Mustakfî I	1302-1340
Ibrâhîm al-Wâthiq I	1340-1341
Ah.mad al-H.akîm II	1341-1352
Abû Bakr al-Mu'tad.id I	1352-1362
Muh.ammad al-Mutawakkil I	1362-1377, 1377-1383, 1389-1406
Zakariyyâ' al-Mu'tas.im	1377, 1386-1389
'Umar al-Wâthiq II	1383-1386
'Abbâs or Ya'qûb al-Musta'în	1406-1414
	Sult.ân, 1412
Dâwûd al-Mu'tad.id II	1414-1441
Sulaymân al-Mustakfî II	1441-1451
H.amza al-Qâ'im	1451-1455
Yûsuf al-Mustanjid	1455-1479
'Abdul'Azîz al-Mutawakkil II	1479-1497
Ya'qûb al-Mustamsik	1497-1508, 1516-1517
al-Mutawakkil III	1508-1516, 1517
1517, Caliph removed to I.stanbul by Ottoman Sult.ân Selîm I Yavuz, later credited with assuming Caliphate

The pool of candidates for the Sultanate was from the ranks of the soldiers bought as slaves when children and then raised to rule Egypt. This force originated under the Ayyûbids, as a similar practice created an elite army, the Janissaries, under the Ottomans. While the Janissaries were eventually massacred (1826) for their practice of king-making, the Mamlûks were successful at replacing the Ayyûbid Sult.âns of Egypt completely, with themselves (1252). Slave troops at first were Turkish, but then preference shifted, as it did with the Ottomans, to originally Christian boys from the Caucasus. Although Cairo was a major terminus for the African slave trade, black boys were not used for this purpose. Although the Mamlûk Sult.ânate formally and by reputation was non-hereditary, it does turn out that many of the Sult.âns were sons or brothers of others. This can be seen in Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [pp.76-78] and, rather more clearly, in the Oxford Dynasties of the World by John. E. Morby [Oxford, 2002, pp.189-190] -- note that a genealogy of the Egyptian Abbasid Caliphs is given above.

Mamlûk Egypt for many years was the principal state of Islâm. The defeat of the Mongols in 1260 and then the establishment of an Abbasid line of Caliphs in Cairo gave the regime a respect and status that others could not match. The architectural monuments of Mamlûk Cairo are still impressive, and it is noteworthy that the great collection of Mediaeval Islâmic stories, the Alf Layla wa Layla (Thousand Nights and a Night, i.e. the Thousand and One Nights), achieved definitive form in Cairo around 1400.

This collection, including stories that must have been circulating for many centuries, is noteworthy for the social, cultural, and religious attitudes it reveals. While fiercely pro-Islâmic, with stories even about questions of Islâmic Law, and a very long and boring one about fighting the Romans (with nice touches like the notion that Christian incense is made from the excrement of Bishops), we find things that now seem rather un-Islâmic. For instance, there is a great deal of wine drinking, which seems to be casually accepted, even while its irreligion, strictly speaking, is noted. Thus, in one story, a character swears off wine in order to purify himself for the Pilgrimage. In another story, a man discovers that his wife has been having sex with a gorilla. With a shocking touch of racism, this affair is said to have commenced after a previous black lover had died (which fits the surviving stereotype of black sexual prowess but betrays ignorance of the anatomy of gorillas, which actually have smaller genitals than humans). We might expect that the proper thing to do about this would be to kill the wife. However, the wife's unnatural lust is extraordinarily treated as a medical disorder, and a physician is employed to cure her, which he does. Besides the wine drinking, there seems to be considerable ease and interest in unsanctioned sexual activities. Even those eunuchs who have been deprived of their testicles but not their penises boast of their ability to have sex with their mistresses. One real world consequence of that was the custom of only using black eunuchs, who typically had amputated penises, in the harîm.

Although the story of the Mamlûks is easily thought to end in 1517 with the Ottoman conquest, the amazing truth is that the Mamlûk garrison was not abolished by the Turks and that, as Ottoman authority weakened, Egypt ended up again under the de facto rule of the same "peculiar institution." Thus, when Napoleon arrived in Egypt in 1798, it was the Mamlûks with whom he had to contend. When he defeated them at the Battle of the Pyramids, he may not have stopped to think (so distracted by all the Egyptian stuff) that he had beaten victors over the Mongols. Nevertheless, this was still not the end of the Mamlûk story. They retreated up the Nile from the French and were again contesting the rule of Egypt when Muh.ammad 'Alî deceived, trapped, and exterminated them in 1811.

What did end in 1517 was the line of Abbasid Caliphs. The last was taken off to Constantinople. Ironically, this was al-Mutawakkil III -- the same title as the Caliph who was assassinated by his own Turkish guard in 861. It is not clear whether the Ottomans had any intention of continuing the line, as useful figureheads, as the Mamlûks had, for the Caliph and any possible descendants simply disappear from history. Later, when the Sult.âns got to thinking about it, they claimed the Caliphate for themselves.
 

The Hûdids of Murcia
Muh.ammad ibn Hûd al-Mutawakkil	1228-1238
Conquest of Valencia by Aragón, 1238
Muh.ammad al-Wâthiq	1238-1239, 1264-?
al-'Azîz D.iyâ'ad-Dawla	1239-1241
Muh.ammad Abû Ja'far Bahâ'ad-Dawla	1241-1262
Muh.ammad ibn Abî J'afar Muh.ammad	1262-1264
occupation by Granada, ?-1266
Conquest by Aragón, 1266

THE NAS.RID SULT.ÂNS OF GRANADA
Muh.ammad I al-Ghâlib, ibn al-Ah.mar	1232-1273
Muh.ammad II al-Faqîh	1273-1302
Muh.ammad III al-Makhlû'	1302-1309
Nas.r	1309-1314
Ismâ'îl I	1314-1325
Muh.ammad IV	1325-1333
Yûsuf I al-Mu'ayyad	1333-1354
Muh.ammad V al-Ghani	1354-1359, 1362-1391
Ismâ'îl II	1359-1360
Muh.ammad VI al-Ghâlib, el Bermejo	1360-1362
Yûsuf II al-Mustahgnî	1391-1392
Muh.ammad VII al-Mustâ'în	1392-1408
Yûsuf III an-Nâs.ir	1408-1417
Muh.ammad VIII al-Mustamassik, al-S.aghîr, el Pequeño	1417-1419, 1427-1429
Muh.ammad IX al-Ghâlib, al-Aysar, el Zurdo	1419-1427, 1429-1432, 1432-1445, 1447-1453
Yûsuf IV, Abenalmao	1432
Muh.ammad X al-Ah.naf, el Cojo	1445, 1446-1447
Yûsuf V, Aben Ismael	1445-1446, 1462
Muh.ammad XI, el Chiquito	1451-1455
Sa'd al-Musta'în, Ciriza, Muley Zad	1454-1464
'Alî, Muley Hácen	1464-1482, 1483-1485
Muh.ammad XII al-Zughûbî, Boabdil el Chico	1482-1483, 1486-1492, d. 1533
Mu.hammad ibn Sa'd al-Zaghal	1485-1490
Conquest by Castile & Aragón, end of Islamic Spain, 1492

The end of Islâmic Spain turned out to be a very protracted business, 260 years to be exact. In the course of this, one of the architectural jewels of the world was created, the Alhambra (al-H.amrâ', "the Red"). When the real end came, it was by no means easy for the Christians. A long and tough campaign finally resulted in a negotiated surrender. Muh.ammad XII (Boabdil), left for North Africa, and freedom of religion was supposedly obtained for Granadan Moslems (1492). Frustration with this incomplete victory may have helped Ferdinand and Isabella with their resolve to expel the Jews from Spain. Toleration for Moslems, however, was revoked as soon as 1499. Actions against the Moriscos, Christian converts from Islâm, led to a great revolt in 1568-1570. Dispersed through Spain, the remaining Moriscos nevertheless were enough of a worry that it was determined in 1609 to expel them from Spain altogether. By 1614, they were gone, and with them the last link with the 700 years of Islâmic Spain.

The Alhambra (a redundant expression, since "al" already means "the") survives out of its time as a living fossil of Islâmic Spain -- with its name transported to a city in Southern California, where at least the climate is similar. Another echo of Islamic Spain lives in California, however, where the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel reflects, on a more humble scale, architectural elements of the Great Mosque of Cordova (which survived through its conversion into the church). The builder of the Mission, it seems, was from Cordova. The buttresses unique to California Missions, unfortunately, have not always preserved San Gabriel from earthquake damage. An image of San Gabriel has recently been proposed for the Seal of the County of Los Angeles, since the City of Los Angeles was originally founded in 1781 as an asistencia or outlier of the Mission.

THE SULT.ÂNS OF MALACCA/MELAKA
Parameshvara	1403-1414
Chinese suzerainty, 1409
Megat Iskandar Shâh	1414-1424
Shri Maharâjâ Sult.ân Muhammad Shâh	1424-1445
last Chinese fleet visit, 1433
Râjâ Ibrâhîm Shri Paramesvara Deva Shâh	1445-1446
Râjâ Qâsim Sult.ân Maz.affar Shâh	1446-1459
Râjâ 'Abdallâh Sult.ân Mans.ûr Shâh	1459-1477
Sult.ân 'Alâ' ad-Dîn Ri'âyat	1477-1488
Sult.ân Mah.mud Shâh	1488-1510, 1510-1528
Sult.ân Ah.mad Shâh	1510
Portuguese conquest, 1511; dynasty continues in Johor, 1528; Dutch, 1641; British, 1824

Islâm in Southeast Asia is the counterexample to the notion sometimes affirmed that the religion has never spread except by the sword. Instead, Islâm arrived in Malaya and Indonesia by sea and by trade. It took hold gradually against Hinduism and Buddhism, which had previously arrived by sea and by trade. One result of this was gradual and incomplete Islamicization, i.e. the previous civilization was not simply superseded and the social rigors of Islâmic law only adopted imperfectly. This can be seen in the very names of the Sult.âns of Malacca, which begin with Sanskrit, including titles like shri, râjâ, and maharâjâ, and shift over to Arabic and Persian, including titles like sult.ân and shâh. With the last three rulers before the Portuguese, the Sanskrit titles and names have disappeared entirely. The most remarkable name/title is undoubtedly deva, "god." This is familiar from an early date in India but would be absolutely anathema in Islâm -- its implication of polytheism would even be punishable by death under Islamic Law. Indeed, it only occurs once, and that with a ruler whose name otherwise seems to put more emphasis on the Indian elements.

At the beginning of the line of the Sult.âns of Malacca, it was Siam that exerted influence. But then in 1409 the Chinese arrived. Admiral Zheng He and his great fleets, projecting the new power of the Ming Dynasty, established a base at Malacca, and the Sult.ân became a tributary of China. He even sailed to China to pay homage to the Emperor. A Chinese cantonment protected, stored, and shipped goods from China and those obtained on the further expeditions into the Indian Ocean. On nearby Sumatra, a Chinese governor was installed at Palembang after a Chinese pirate was defeated, captured, and sent back to China for execution. In northern Sumatra (near Acheh), troops were put ashore to install one king and execute his rival. A king in Ceylon was defeated and sent to China, but then the Emperor returned him to his kingdom (thought he evidently was unable to recover his throne). Some of Zheng He's detachments went into the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, and even down the coast of Africa, perhaps as far as Zanzibar. This impressive exercise ended abruptly in 1433, when the xenophobic Confucian faction became dominant at the Chinese Court. China was cut off from the external world and began to lose its ability to deal with that world, either culturally, economically, or militarily.

Arriving next by sea and by trade would be the Portuguese (led by Afonso de Albuquerque), Dutch, and British, all of whom were also interested in secure bases for their activities. So Malacca became a European colony. Under the British, it became part of the Straits Settlements, which was a string of cities along, indeed, the Straits of Malacca, between Malaya and Sumatra. British Malaya was otherwise a group of client kingdoms, including some whose rulers were actually descendants of the Sult.âns of Malacca.

In 1972 I was looking through some books that were on sale at the University of Hawai'i bookstore. Among them I found two small pamphlets that looked like children's primers written entirely in the Arabic alphabet. I had no idea what these could be, or what they were doing in Hawai'i. They were, however, published in Singapore by the "Malaysia Press Ltd." This was the clue; for, as I soon learned, and as is generally characteristic in Mediaeval Islamic converts, the Arabic alphabet is adopted to write the local language, which was Malay. This grew up as a trade language of Malaya and Indonesia,

THE SULT.ÂNS OF ACHEH/ATJEH/ACEH
'Inâyat Shâh	c.1450-?
Muz.affar Shâh	d.1497
Shams ad-Dîn Shâh	?-c.1496
'Alî Mughâyat Shâh	c.1496-c.1530
S.alâh. ad-Dîn	c.1530-c.1537
Ri'âyat Shâh 'Alâ' ad-Dîn al-Qahhâr	c.1537-1571
appeals to Ottoman Sult.ân for aid against the Portuguese, 1563
'Alî/H.usayn Ri'âyat Shâh	1571-1579
Sultan Muda	1579
Sultan Shri 'Âlam	1579
Zayn al-'Âbidîn	1579
Mans.ûr Shâh 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1579-c.1586
'Alî Ri'âyat Shâh Râjâ Buyung	c.1586-c.1588
Ri'âyat Shâh 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	c.1588-1604
'Alî Ri'âyat Shah/Sultan Muda	1604-1607
Iskandar Muda Makota 'Âlam	1607-1636
Mughâyat Shâh, Iskandar Thânî 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1636-1641
S.afiyyat ad-Dîn Shâh Tâj al-'Âlam	1641-1675
Naqiyyat ad-Dîn Shâ'h Nûr al-'Âlam	1675-1678
Zakiyyat ad-Dîn Shâh 'Inâyat	1678-1688
Zînat ad-Dîn Kamâlat Shâh	1688-1699
Sharîf Hâ'shim Jamâl ad-Dîn Badr al-'Âlam	1699-1702
Perkasa 'Âlam Sharîf Lamtuy	1702-1703
Badr al-Munîr, Jamâl al-'Âlam	1703-1726
Amîn ad-Dîn Shâh, Jawhar al-'Âlam	1726
Shams al-'Âlam, Wandi Tebing	1726-1727
Ah.mad Shâh, Maharâjâ Lela Melayu, 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1727-1735
Jahân Shâh, Potjut Auk, 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1735-1760
Mah.mûd Shâh, Tuanku Raja	1760-1781
Muh.ammad Shâh, Taunku Muh.ammad, 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1781-1795
Jawhar al-'Âlam Shâh, 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1795-1824
Muh.ammad Shâh	1824-1836
Mans.ûr Shâh	1836-1870
Mah.mûd Shâh	1870-1874
capital at Kutaraja captured by Dutch, 1874
Muhammad Dawud Shah, 'Alâ' ad-Dîn	1874-1903
Dutch conquest of Acheh, 1903

a linga franca, like Swahili in East Africa and Hindi-Urdu in India. Like those languages, Malay has a strong element of Arabic in it, though this is often obscured by the pronunciation. Thus, a basic greeting in Malay is Apa kabar? This simply means "What's new?" Apa is a Malay word, but kabar is from Arabic khabar, "news, information, report." Malay is now the national language of Malaysia (Bahasa Malaysia), Indonesia (Bahasa Indonesia), and Singapore (Bahasa Melayu). The British and the Dutch introduced systems of Romanization -- e.g. "u" in Malaya was "oe" in Indonesia -- which now have been reconciled to a universal standard, with the Dutch idiosyncrasies eliminated. The use of the Arabic alphabet had been dying out, but not entirely.

As initially in Persian, it was necessary to introduce some extra letters into the alphabet to write all the sounds of Malay. These would be, most importantly, letters for the velar nasal "ng" and the palatal nasal "ny" (or "ñ"). A small problem arose with writing three dots over the "chair" for an "n" with "ny." In the final or independent position, the letter would be distinctive. Written initially or medially, however, the letter would look like the Arabic "th." Thus, in the initial or medial positions, the three dots for "ny" are written under rather than over the "chair." This, however, would then look like the Persian "p." Malay also needed a "p," so the "chair" of Arabic "f" was used, with three dots, for the "p." Otherwise, we get the variation that "g," borrowed from Persian, might be written with a dot rather than an extra line; and Arabic "w," pronounced "v" in Persian, could be left alone to mean "w" in Malay or written with a dot to mean "v." Otherwise, "ch" was also borrowed from Persian.

The way things are going in Islâm, it may well be that the use of the Arabic alphabet will increase; but little of it had been left in public life.

Acheh at the northern end of Sumatra, just across the Straits from Malacca, was a larger and more durable realm. We see less in the way of Sanskrit names and titles, though there are some local names and references, as with Ah.mad Shâh (1727-1735), who is called Maharâjâ Lela Melayu -- i.e. "the Malay." We also see something very unusual in Islam, a number of female rulers.

In 1563 Sult.ân Ri'âyat Shâh of Acheh wrote to the Ottoman Sult.ân, in this case no less than Suleiman the Magnificent, requesting help against the Portuguese. This episode reveals the extent of the Oecumene of Islâm, and the recognition of the common enemy. Turkey at the height of its power, and willing to help, nevertheless had some difficulty projecting that power as far as Indonesia. After a delay of some years, and not until after the death of Suleiman, an Ottoman fleet of 19 ships sailed from Egypt. Only two ships reached Acheh, however, the rest having been diverted to bolster Ottoman authority in Yemen. The aid finally delivered to Acheh was thus minimal and, as it happened, ineffective.

While it is tempting now to think of Indonesia as a unified realm, not only were there multiple sovereignties in earlier days, but their subjugation by the Dutch was a process that took some time. Thus, the last Sult.ân of Acheh held out for many years, and the Dutch conquest was not complete until 1903. We see much the same process in Bali, where Dutch conquest was not complete until 1906, amid scenes of great slaughter, something like 3600 Balinese falling.

Acheh entered the news late in 2004 with a great earthquake, magnitude 9.0, the largest on Earth in forty years, off the coast of Sumatra. This was bad enough, but the tsunami, , generated by the earthquake inundated coasts as far away as Sri Lanka and Thailand. The death toll overall is estimated up to 200,000 people.

We are thus unpleasantly reminded of the geological forces at work under Indonesia, where many great earthquakes and some of the largest volcanic eruptions in the geological record have occurred. For instance, the eruption of Mt. Tambora in 1815 put so much material into the atmosphere that it darkened the sky world wide and produced "the year without summer" in 1816. Not as large but better known was the eruption of Karakatoa (Krakatau, between Java and Sumatra) in 1883. This blew away the small island of Karakatoa itself, with a blast that was actually heard as far as 1000 miles away. There have been few such eruptions anywhere in historical times. Ice cores show a spike of volcanic gasses for 535 AD. It is not known if this was one of the Indonesian volcanoes, but they are the best candidates. It may even have been Karakatoa. It would have been an eruption as large or larger than Tambora. It did have some serious historical consequences. There is much comment in European records of the time about the dim sunlight of 536 AD and the failure of crops thereafter. The cooling may have precipitated the plague that arrived in Egypt in 541. The "Dark Ages Cooling" was thus another heavy blow against the diminishing Roman Empire.

Prehistorically, Sumatra may have been the place of the largest volcanic eruption in the history of the human species. When Mt. Toba erupted 74,000 years ago, it was perhaps 10,000 times the size of the Mt. St. Helens eruption in 1980. This could have caused a 5^o Celsius (9^o Fahrenheit) global drop in temperature around the world. The "year without summer" might have become months or years without summer. There is some evidence that this caused a "genetic bottleneck" in human evolution, which means a large portion of human beings may have died. This was before the advent of fully modern humans, about 30,000 years ago; so, literally, people like us have not seen its like.

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Copyright (c) 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

The State of at-Tababi'a
al-Harith ar-Raish	1230-1105 BC
Abrahah Dhul Manar	1105-922
Afrikis ibn Abrahah	922-758
al-'Abd Dhu al-Adh'ar	758-733
al-Hedhed ibn Sharahil	733-658
Balkis (Bilqis) bint al-Hedhed "Queen of Sheba"?	658-638
Nashir an-Ni'am	638-553
Shammar Yar'ish	553-516
Abu Malik	516-461
Tubba' ibn al-Akran	461-408
Dhu Jaychan	408-338
al-Akran ibn Abu Malik	338-175
Kalikarib	175-140
Ass'ad Abu Karib	140-20
Hassan ibn Tubba'	20 BC-50 AD
'Amr ibn Tubba'	50-113
'Abid Kilel	113-187
Tubba' ibn Hassan	187-265
Marthid ibn 'Abid	265-306
Wali'a ibn Marthid	306-343
Abrahah ibn as-Sabbah	343-416
Sahban ibn Muhrath	416-431
Hassan ibn 'Amr ibn Tubba'	431-488
Dhu Shanatir	488-515
Yusuf Ash'ar Dhu-Nuwas	King of Himyar, 515-525
convert to Judaism; Ethiopian invasion, 525-c.533
Dhu Jadan	525-533
Ethiopian rule, 533-575; to Himyar, 575-577; to Persia, 577-631; to Islam, 629

Yemen is an ancient and noteworthy center of civilization. It was long off the beaten track, at the entrance to the Red Sea, and rarely the focus, or the target, of major political events; but it certainly deserves more attention than it customarily receives. For instance, the recent and enormous (911 pages) Ancient History, from the First Civilizations to the Renaissance, by J.M. Roberts [Duncan Baird Publishers, London, 2004], contains nothing whatsoever about Yemen, and neither the name, nor "Saba," nor "Sheba," even appear in the index. This is a grotesque but not unusual oversight.

If there were no ruins or no records, this neglect might be expected; but there are both. South Arabia, indeed, has its own derived version of the alphabet, which survives today in its Ethiopian version. As for inscriptions and literature, Joan Copeland Biella says, in her Dictionary of Old South Arabic [Harvard Semitic Museum Studies 25, 1982]:

....thousands of texts in Sabaean, Minnaean, Qatabanian and H.ad.ramitic have been published, ranging in type from brief graffiti to substantial historical annals. [p.vii]

One would never know this from treatments of ancient history like Roberts' book.

The ruins are extensive and include unique structures, like the extraordinary Ma'rib Dam (Sadd Ma'rib in Arabic), built from cut stone in the Wadî Sadd (or Wadi Saba'). This was 1,800 feet long and was not alone, except in scale and fame, in the irrigation of the region. Much is left of the structure, including its spillway system. This should have rated as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Its final and catastrophic break, however, which entered into Islâmic legend, represented the definitive decline of the area and also the uncertainties of Yemeni history, since the event cannot be well dated -- just between the 5th and the 7th centuries AD.

The name of Yemen itself is of interest. The Romans called the area Arabia Felix, "happy" or "fortunate" Arabia, in contrast to Arabia Deserta, "desert" Arabia, and Arabia Petraea, "rocky" Arabia (where the Romans annexed the remarkable city of Petra). As it happens, Yemen in Arabic, Yaman, is from a verb, yamana, that can mean "to be lucky, fortunate." Yaman can also mean "right side or hand" and "south." This can be contrasted with shâm, which can mean "north," "Syria," and "Damascus" but from a root that can also mean "evil omen," "ominous," "calamity," and "misfortune." The actual word for left in Arabic is different, shamâl -- which can also mean north (we don't get the sinister associations with this root). Indeed, if one faces east, the south is on one's right and the north on the left. And Arabic is not the only language in which right (dexter) is lucky and left (sinister) threatening.

The only proper history book in print that I have found for South Arabia is Robert G. Hoyland's Arabia and the Arabs, From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam [Routledge, 2001]. For the historiography of South Arabia, he says:

....we are equipped with some ten thousand inscriptions. Unfortunately, however, these are not dated according to an absolute era until the first century AD and they almost never allude to events outside south Arabia. Scholars have tried to arrange them in chronological order according to the style of their script, but with hardly any firmly dated examples to provide a fixed point this method can offer no more than a rough indication. [p.36]

The legends, indeed, extend to the Old Testament. The kingdom of Saba' is the Biblical Sheba. Here the reign of Solomon is dated 970-931 BC. This antedates the beginning of either list here for Saba', and all the reasonable reigns even for at-Tababi'a -- though Balkis is the candidate for the Biblical "Queen of Sheba." Hoyland suspects that the reference to Sheba "may only have been slipped in at a later date" [p.39]. It was long doubtful that developed states even existed in that era; but Hoyland says that now it seems more likely that things were happening by Solomon's 10th century, though we don't have texts appearing until the 8th. The rulers of Saba' were kings (mlk, Arabic malik) or "unifiers" (mkrb, Arabized rendering mukarrib). It is not clear what the relationship was between these titles, and the mukarribs are often regarded as early priest-kings or as later "emperors." There are a couple of female rulers given in the lists, so it is conceivable that there was a Queen of Sheba as in the Biblical story. Her visit to Jerusalem, of course, is also part of Ethiopian legend, since her son by Solomon is supposed to have been Menelik, the founder of the Abyssinian state. There is little doubt that these stories, whatever their historicity, reflect the existence and development, even if in later periods, of sophisticated states in South Arabia and adjacent Africa.

The early development of Saba' and the other states in the area was on the inland slopes of the mountains. The wadî dammed at Ma'rib thus flows into a desert basin; and the city of Ma'rib itself, capital of the Sabaeans, is at the foot of the mountains. Development occurred in this way because the caravan routes headed up inland. Even from later history it is noteworthy that Mecca, a caravan center itself, is well in from the coast. In three voyages between 117 and 109 BC, however, Eudoxus of Cyzicus is supposed to have learned how to use the monsoons to sail all the way from (Ptolemaic) Egypt to India and back. One might have suspected South Arabians to have known about this already, but the evidence that they didn't may be that the seaports in the region only developed subsequently. The caravan routes continued, but a sea trade developed that continued into the modern era -- later the lifeblood of realms like Oman.

Toward the end of this period, or right at the end, depending on the chronology, the Roman Emperor Augustus is supposed to have sent an expedition down to Arabia Felix under Gaius Aelius Gallus. According to Strabo, this was launched in 26 BC, but was treacherously guided by the Nabataean Syllaeus. The Romans suffered in the desert and did not arrive until the year 24. They were sick and wasted but nevertheless captured some cities and began besieging the city of Marsiaba. Lack of water prevented success, however, and Gallus had to retreat. No effort was made again to project Roman power or impose Roman sovereignty -- until Justinian found an ally nearby.

Dhu-Raydan/Himyar
Haris ar-Ra'ish	c.120-c.90 BC
Zu-l-Karnain	c.90-?
Abrahah Zu-l-Mamur
Africis
Zu-l-Adjar	c.20 BC-10 AD
Sharah-bil
Bilkis
Shammar Zarash
Abu Malik
Yasir Yuhasdiq	c.80-c.100
Dhamar 'Ali Yuhabir I	c.100-c.120
Tharan Ya'ubb Yuhan'im
Shammar Yuharish I	?-c.160
To Saba, c.160-c.195
Laziz Yuhnaf Yuhasdiq	c.195-c.200
Yasir Yuhan'im I
Shammar Yuharish II
Kariba'il Yuhan'im
Tharan Ya'ubb Yuhan'im	c.230-c.250
Dhamar 'Ali Watar Yuhabir II
Amdan Bayin Yuhagbid
Yasir Yuhanim II
Shamir Yuhar'ish III	c.290

Kingdom of Himyar & Saba'
Nash'a-Karib Yamin Yuharhib	c.1 AD
Watar Yuhamin	Era of Himyar, year 1 = 110 BC = -109 AD
Yasir Yuhasdiq
Dhamar 'Ali Yuhabir I
Tharan Ya'ubb Yuhan'im
Dhamar 'Ali Yuhabir II
Dhamar 'Ali Bayin
Karib-il Watar
Halk-amar
Dhamar 'Ali Dharih
Yada'-il Watar	c.200-?
Il-Adhdh Naufan Yuhasdiq	c.245-?
Yasir Yuhan'im II
Shamir Yuhar'ish III	c.290
conquers Hadramawt; "King of Saba and Dhu Raydan and Hadramawt and Yamanat," 299 AD = 409 Era of Himyar
Yarim Yarhab
To Abyssinia, c.310-c.378
Ela Amida of Axum	c.340-c.378
Malik-Karib Yuhamin	c.378-c.385
Abi-Karib As'ad (Kamil ut-Tubba)	c.385-c.420
accepts Judaism
Warau-amar Ayman (Hasan Yuhan'im)	c.420-c.433
Sharah-bil Ya'fur	c.433-?
Ma'ad-Karib
'Abd-Kilal
Sharah-bil Yakuf	464-?
Nauf
Lahi-'Athra Yanuf
Marthad-ilan Yanuf	496-?
Ma'adi-Karib Ya'fur	c.500-c.517
invasion by Abyssinia
Masruq Dhu-Nuwas (Yusuf Ash'ar)	c.517-525
convert to Judaism, occupation by Abyssinia, 525-c.533
Sumu-Yafa' Ashwa' (Esimfey, Esimiphaeus)	526-c.533
Dhu Jadan of Himyar	525-533
Abrahah (al-Ashram) of Abyssinia	c.533-570
Era of Himyar 669, 559 AD, last dated South Arabian text
Yaksum	570-577
Masruq ibn Abraha (Ma'adi-Karib)	577-587
Sayf ibn Dhi-Yazan (Abu Murra)	587-599
installed by Persia; Persia rule, 599-629
Khorre-Khusrau	599-620
Badan	c.620-629
To Islam, 629

The kingdom of Saba' as the principal state of the area is followed by Himyar. However, according to Hoyland [p.47], Saba', in "strained circumstances", formed a "united monarchy" with the Himyarite Dhu Raydan. In the 2nd century AD, Saba' became the dominant state again, but then by the end of the 3rd had simply disappeared. This confused process is reflected in conflicting lists from Gordon, who says of Dhu-Raydan (Zu-Raidan) that it is, "An earlier core of Himyar. As with Saba above, this list is inconsistent with other sources for Himyar, and so I show both." His list for Dhu-Raydan ends with Shamir Yuhar'ish III, who can be found at a similar date (c.290 AD) in the list for Himyar. What we may have is one list of strictly Himyarite rulers, and another consisting of many from Saba', until with Shamir Yuhar'ish the Sabaean line is gone.

Shamir Yuhar'ish, indeed, appears to be the first fully historical ruler in the region, and we even get absolute dating in a Himyarite Era, whose Year 1 Benchmark would have been 110 BC. This also happens to be the era in which Abyssinia, centered at Axum, converts to Christianity (c.305 AD) and helps, at least, in ending the long running kingdom of Kushite Ethiopia (c.355). Indeed, Abyssinia begins to intervene in South Arabia itself. The list for Himyar notes an Abyssinian occupation c.310-c.378 AD.

We now begin to get political events on a larger scale that impact South Arabia. While Abyssinia, apparently, hardly needed encouragement to project its power, it got some anyway. Its own conversion to Christianity went along with a process in which tribes and domains in Arabia converted both to Christianity and to Judaism. A number of Yemeni Kings converted to Judaism. This was annoying to the distant Roman Emperor Justinian, who encouraged the Ethiopians to do something about it. The complaint was that the Yemenis were persecuting Christians, but then persecution often accompanied perceptions that Christian were agents of Rome. Who was initially to blame for this is anyone's guess. Under the Sassanids, Armenians and other Christians were often suspect also.

The Ethiopian Emperor Ella Asbeha responded by invading Yemen, 523-525. The occupation lasted a few years longer, and an Abyssinian governor, Abrahah, later established himself in his own right -- though Hoyland describes him as installed by the Himyarites and merely tributary to Ethiopia. Attracting distant Roman attention, Yemen even became an object of more distant Persian interest. According to Hoyland, discontent with Ethiopian rule (by the son of Abrahah), let to solicitations of the Sassanid Shâh Khusro II to intervene. Where Alexander the Great had planned to conquer Arabia by sea, Khusro actually did so. At first installing his own candidate, outright conquest and Persian governors then followed (599). With this wrapped up, Khusro (temporarily) occupied Syria, Egypt, and Asia Minor in a great (and foolish) war against Rome. While Heraclius defeated Khusro in the north, Persian domination in Yemen was brought to an end from a very different and portentous quarter -- the forces of the Prophet Muh.ammad.

No more profound a change would happen in the history of Yemen and South Arabia than would now happen. The language, the alphabet, the age old civilization of the happy South would disappear as the area would be assimilated to the ecumenical civilization of Islâm. Fortunately, much of what was distinctive would survive, under constant siege from Islâm, in the daughter civilization of Ethiopia. In its homeland, the Yemeni past would survive in legend, in ruins, and in some practices, but it would become something alien to the new values and beliefs.

In the final group of Yemeni Kings, the sequence of events narrated by Hoyland does not match very well the sequence in Gordon's king list. I have tried to tidy things up, but Hoyland's description isn't complete enough to know what all is going on in the list -- another case where I find myself frustrated and annoyed with historians who apparently don't think that their narrative histories need to be supplemented with chronological framework in tables or lists (or, when possible, genealogies). As already noted, Hoyland's opaque reference to "lists of Sabaean rulers" raises more questions than it answers.

The neglect this civilization still suffers is tragic. Part of the problem was the self-imposed isolation of the later Yemeni Kingdom, and then many years of political instability and civil war. Recently, however, a great deal of archaeology has been undertaken, and I have noticed much more about Yemen in documentaries at places like The History Channel than I have in accessible scholarly history books. Travel is now easier, despite some terrorism, and I have a friend who has inspected the ruins of the Ma'rib Dam. I trust that the archaeologists in the documentaries will eventually begin to fill in the gaps, clarify the uncertainties, and in general provide definitive histories of the area.

RASSIDS, 860-1226
al-Qâsim al-H.asanî ar-Rassî	d.860
al-H.usayn
Yah.yâ al-Hâdî ilâ 'l-H.aqq	897-911
Muh.ammad al-Murtad.â	911-913, d.922
Ah.mad an-Nâs.ir	913-934
Yah.yâ	934-956
Yûsuf al-Mans.ûr al-Dâ'î	968-998,d.1012
al-Qâsim al-Mansur	998-1003
al-H.usayn al-Mahdî	1010-1013
Ja'far	1022-1035
al-H.asan	1035-1040
Abu'l-Fath. al-Daylamî an-Nâs.ir	1045-1062?
S.an'â' captured by S.ulayh.ids, 1062
H.amza	?-1066
al-Fâd.il	1067-1068
Muh.ammad	?-1085
Yah.yâ	1117-1137
'Alî	1137-1138
Ah.mad al-Mutawakkil	1138-1171
Hamdânid occupation, 1171-1174, Ayyûbid occupation, 1174-1229
'Abdallâh al-Mans.ûr	1187-1217
Yah.yâ Najm ad-Dîn al-Hâdî ilâ'l-H.aqq	1217
Muh.ammad 'Izz ad-Dîn an-Nâs.ir	1217-1226
Rasûlids
Ah.mad al-Mahdî al-Mût.i'	1248-1258

The history of Yemen under Islâm, at first submerged in the triumphant Caliphates, assumes a distinctive form and enters into its own characteristic history as the result of the Shi'ite movement and the breakup of the Abbasid Caliphate. The Zaydî branch of Shi'ism held that Zayd, the brother of the Fifth Imâm, al-Bâqir, murdered by the Omayyad Caliph al-Hishâm, was the true Imâm. Zaydî doctrine, nevertheless, was that the proper Imâm was not necessarily a descendant of the Prophet, but was qualified by his own personal moral and spiritual qualities. Also, they did not believe that the Imâm possessed the divine spark and the intuition for authoritative doctrinal pronouncements that other Shi'ites believed was the mark of the Imâm.

Despite this egalitarian doctrine, the Zaydî sect in Yemen began with al-Qâsim al-H.asanî, who claimed descent from Alî's eldest son Hassan. During the reign of al-Ma'mûn (813-833), Al-Qâsim moved from Medina and established himself at S.a'da in northern Yemen. This became the center of the Zaydî Mission, whose work (for a while) was far ranging, and in time assumed secular authority in competition with other local rulers. Thus, the Imâms by no means dominated Yemen. Their rule became seriously compromised when the S.ulayh.id dynasty occupied S.an'â' (which has become the modern capital of Yemen) in 1062 and then the Hamdânids in 1171. After 1258, the line of Imâms continued without any political role. Nevertheless, the Imâms reemerged with secular authority in the later Qâsimid line. The name of his initial line, the Rassids, derived from ar-Rass in the Hijaz, is used more by Western scholars than by Yemenis.

I have not given the dynasty of Hamdânids here because their predominance is brief.

AYYÛBIDS
al-Mu'az.z.am Shams udDîn Tûrân Shâh	1173-1181 d. 1186/7
al-'Azîz Zahir udDîn Tughtigin	1181-1197
Mu'izz udDîn Ismâ'îl	1197-1202
anNâs.ir	1202-1214
alMu'az.z.am (alMuz.affar) Sulaymân	1214-1215 d. 1251/2
al-Mas'ûd S.alâh. adDîn Yûsuf	1215-1229

Just as they might have become established, Yemen suddenly became the target again of larger political events. Forces from the powerful Ayyûbid dynasty of Egypt now arrive and establish a Ayyûbid collateral line as Kings of Yemen -- though the Rassids continued to hold strategic positions, including S.an'â' itself. The genealogy of the Ayyûbid Kings of Yemen is given in a popup at the Ayyûbid entry, but for convenience I reproduce the link here. It will be noted that the affinity of the second to the last king is uncertain., and that last one, al-Mas'ûd, is a son of the Sult.ân of Egypt, al-Kâmil I -- his own son would be the last Ayyûbid Sult.ân of Egypt.

RASÛLIDS, at Ta'izz
al-Mans.ûr 'Umar I Nûr adDîn	1229-1250
al-Muz.affar Shams adDîn Yûsuf I	1250-1295
al-Ashraf Mumahhid adDîn 'Umar II	1295-1296
al-Mu'ayyad H.izabr adDîn Dâwûd	1296-1322
al-Mujâhid Sayf ad-Dîn 'Alî	1322-1363
al-Afd.al D.irghâm adDîn al-'Abbâs	1363-1377
al-Ashraf Ismâ'îl I	1377-1400
an-Nâs.ir Salâh. adDîn Ah.mad	1400-1424
al-Mans.ûr 'Abdallâh	1424-1427
al-Ashraf Ismâ'îl II	1427-1428
az-Z.âhir Yah.yâ	1428-1439
al-Ashraf Ismâ'îl III	1439-1442
al-Muz.affar Yûsuf II	1442-1450/1
al-Afd.al Muh.ammad	1442
an-Nâs.ir Ah.mad	1442
al-Mas'ûd Salâh. adDîn	1443-1454
al-Mu'ayyad al-H.usayn	1451-1454

Well before the fall of the Ayyûbids in Egypt (1252), they are replaced in Yemen. This is not done by a local dynasty, but by a Turkish deputy left in charge by al-Mas'ûd, who left for Syria. A genealogy was manufactured for al-Mans.ûr from the pre-Islamic Ghassânids, but his family had already come to notice as Seljuk envoys (rasûl) of the Abbasid Caliphs.

Although, like the Ayyûbids, the Rasûlids were Sunnis, and we might expect local opposition of a religious nature, they nevertheless endured more than two centuries with a prosperous and culturally productive realm. From the port of Aden trade extended as far as East Africa, India, and China. Indeed, we arrive at the era in which Chinese fleets sailed in the Indian Ocean (1405-1433), and a Rasûlid embassy to China itself is recorded. Chinese ships undoubtedly called at Aden. But the Chinese disappeared, soon to be followed by an equally unexpected power.

The chronology of the Rassids is from Clifford Edmund Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996, p.96]. The subsequent Islâmic dynasties are given by Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies, which were initially transcribed but are here corrected and supplemented (as with diacritics) from Bosworth. The New Islamic Dynasties gives many other local dynasties, but here I have tried to confine things to a central succession.

T.ÂHIRIDS, at al-Miqrâna and Juban
az-Z.âfir 'Âmir I Salâh. adDîn	1454-1460
al-Mujâhid 'Alî Shams adDîn	1454-1478
al-Mans.ûr 'Abd al-Wahhâb Tâj adDîn	1478-1489
az-Z.âfir 'Âmir II Salâh. adDîn	1489-1517
to Mamlûks, 1517, then Ottomans, 1517-1635

 
The Rasûlids are ultimately overthrown by a local, but still Sunni, family, the T.âhirids, a name that recalls an important family of the early days of the Abbasids. The T.âhirids now witness the epic arrival of the Portuguese in the Indian Ocean (1498). Afonso d'Albuquerque sieged Aden in 1513. This alarmed the Mamlûks, who realized that their trade monopoly from the Mediterranean to India had been bypassed. They began moving against Yemen in 1515 and had occupied most of the country by 1517. Some T.âhirid princes survived in fortresses until 1538. However, it was not to be the Mamlûks who eliminated the holdouts. Just as the Mamlûks completed their conquest in South Arabia, Egypt itself was conquered by the Ottoman Sult.ân Selim I, "the Grim." Equally alert to the Portuguese threat, the Ottomans inherited the Mamlûk position in Yemen and, for a while, vigorously enlarged it. This also included intervention in the Horn of Africa, where the Portuguese had made contact with the long isolated Christian Emperors of Ethiopia. Portuguese firearms, delivered after an appeal for help by the Emperor Lebna Dengel in 1535, enabled the Emperor Galawedos to defeat and kill the Imâm of Harer, Ah.mad ibn Ibrahim, at the battle of Lake Tana in 1543. Like Ella Asbeha and Justinian many centuries earlier, in reverse, Ah.mad had been encouraged and supported by Süleymân the Magnificent to move against Ethiopia. After this epic event, Ottoman interest began to wane and the Turkish grip in Yemen slacken -- though they only entered S.an'â' itself in 1547.

QÂSIMIDS
al-Qâsim I al-Mans.ûr	c.1592/97-1620
Muh.ammad I al-Mu'ayyad	1620-1644
S.an'â' occupied, 1629; Ottomans ejected, 1635
Ismâ'îl al-Mutawakkil	1644-1676
Ah.mad I al-Mahdî	1676-1681
Muh.ammad II al-Mutawakkil	1681-1686
Muh.ammed III an-Nâs.ir al-Hâdi	1686-1718
al-Qâsim II al-Wutawakkil	1718-1727
al-H.usayn al-Mans.ûr	1727-1748
al-'Abbâs I al-Mahdî	1748-1775
'Alî I al-Mans.ûr	1775-1806
Ah.mad II al-Mahdî	1806-1808
Ah.mad III al-Mutawakkil	1808-1816
'Abdallâh I al-Mahdî	1816-1835
'Alî II al-Mans.ûr	1835-1837, 1844-1845, 1849-1850, 1857
'Abdallâh II an-Nâs.ir	1837-1840
Muh.ammed IV al-Hâdî	1840-1844
Muh.ammed V al-Mutawakkil	1845-1849
Ottoman attack on S.an'â', 1849
'Abbâs II al-Mu'ayyad	1850
Ghâlib al-Hâdî	1850-1857
Civil War, 1857-1871; to Ottomans, 1871-1918
Muh.ammed VI al-Mans.ûr	1890-1904
Yah.yâ al-Mutawakkil	1904-1948
Independent Kingdom, 1918
'Abdallâh (III) al-Hâdî	1948
Ah.mad (III) an-Nâs.ir	1948-1962
Muh.ammad al-Mans.ûr al-Badr	1962, d. 1996
the United Arab Republic, 1958-1961; Civil War, 1962-1970; Republic, 1962-present

Thus, we get the return of the Zaydî Imâms. At first this was as vassals of the Turks, but in short order (1635) the conquerors were ejected and Yemen achieved independence. However, this would be an obscure and isolated independence. Distant power again returned when the British seized Aden in 1839 to put down pirates and the slave trade. Aden remained a British possession until 1967, and gradually a British Protectorate was extended inland and to the east. Yemen lost its coast on the Indian Ocean.

As with the early days of Sheba, there is a conflict between sources for some of the Qâsimi Imâms. Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996, p.96-97] leaves out several rulers given by Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies -- but also adds a few. Where Gordon does not give diacritics or honorifics (laqab, like "al-Mans.ûr"), and Bosworth creates confusion by only giving the first year of a reign, I have followed the Oxford Dynasties of the World by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002, p.194], which may in fact be Gordon's source, but does give diacritics and honorifics. I have retained one feature in Bosworth, that there are two Ah.mads between 1806 and 1816, not just one.

By the middle of the 19th century there are serious problems. The Turks, despite their general lethargy, are back, and the Wahhâbîs, no doubt taking strong objection to Yemeni Shi'ism, are intervening also. Between civil war and invasion, the Ottomans end up annexing the country again by 1871. But, again, their rule tends to lapse into local control, and the Imâms, whose hold on the countryside had never been entirely broken, reemerged, at least as vassals, in 1890. This was the situation when World War I shattered Ottoman power at its source. Yemen was simply cut loose, and the Imâm becomes the King of Yemen.

After another bit of conservative and Tibetan isolation, the winds of change arrive again. Yemen joined the Arab League in 1945 and then the United Arab Republic, with Egypt and Syria, in 1958. Meanwhile, the substantial Jewish population of Yemen, under increasing persecution, largely decamped to Palestine and then Israel. The King withdrew from the UAR in 1961 but then was overthrown by the Nassarite army the following year. As before, this did not break the power of the dynasty, and a long civil war followed, with the King supported by Saudi Arabia and Jordan and the Nassarites by, naturally, the Egypt of Gamal Abdel Nasser. Nasser died in 1970, but, with 150,000 dead, the King gave up and went into exile. Meanwhile, things got more complicated when the British left Aden in 1967. The new People's Republic of South Yemen soon lapsed into civil war itself and was restyled the People's Democratic Republic of Yemen when the more radical Marxists, i.e. the Communists, won the war in 1970. Bubbling with violence, the radicals kept attacking the Yemen Arab Republic, to which 300,000 refugees, disillusioned with Marxism, fled, and war broke out between them in 1979. In 1990 this got resolved by the actual unification of North and South -- now simply known as the Republic of Yemen. The unification came apart in another brief civil war, 1994-95, but things got patched back together again. Although now friendly with the West, the country became the scene for one of the Islamist terror attacks leading up to 9/11 -- the bombing of the United States destroyer Cole on 12 October 2000 in Aden harbor. Where the "Democratic Republic" had invited Soviet troops in during the 1970's, American forces now help hunt down al-Qaeda members.

Index of Mesopotamian and Ancient Middle Eastern History

Hellenistic Index

Islâmic Index

Philosophy of History

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Copyright (c) 2005 Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved

MODERN ISLÂM

The Sultans of Brunei, 1405-present The Rajahs of Sarawak, 1841-1946 The Shâhs of Irân, 1501-1979 Qâsimids Imâms of Yemen, 1597-1962 The Shihâbî Amîrs of Lebanon, 1697-1842 AD The House of Sa'ûd, 1735-present Afghanistan, 1747-1973 The Sult.âns of Oman and Zanzibar, 1754-present The House of Muh.ammad 'Alî in Egypt, 1805-1953 AD The Sanûsî Amîrs & Kings of Libya, 1837-1969 AD The Hâshimites, 1827-present The 'Alawid Sharîfs, Sult.âns, & Kings of Morocco, 1640-present The H.usaynid Beys of Tunisia, 1705-1957 Prime Ministers & Presidents of Pakistan Islâmic Fascism and Satyagraha in Palestine

"Modern Islam" here means Ottoman successor regimes in the Central Islamic lands, with some states that were never Ottoman (like Oman) but rode out the Colonial period into significant contemporary roles. Iran is listed separately, though it definitely falls into the latter category. Morocco alone of the Arab world retains a genuinely Mediaeval monarchy.

SULT.ÂNS OF OMAN AND ZANZIBAR
Ah.mad ibn Sa'îd		c. 1754-1783
Sa'îd ibn Ah.mad		1783-1786
H.âmid ibn Sa'îd		1786-1792
Sult.ân ibn Ah.mad		1792-1806
Treaty with British East India Company, 1798
Sâlim ibn Sult.ân		1806-1821
Sa'îd ibn Sult.ân		1806-1856
OMAN		ZANZIBAR
Thuwaynî ibn Sa'îd	1856-1866	Majîd ibn Sa'îd	1856-1870
Sâlim ibn Thuwaynî	1866-1868
'Azzân ibn Qays	1868-1870
Turkî ibn Sa'îd	1870-1888	Barghash ibn Sa'îd	1870-1888
Fays.al ibn Turkî	1888-1913	Khalîfa ibn Barghash	1888-1890
		British Protectorate, 1890
		'Alî ibn Sa'îd	1890-1893
		H.âmid ibn Thuwaynî	1893-1896
		H.ammûd ibn Muh.ammad	1896-1902
		'Alî ibn H.ammûd	1902-1911
Taymûr ibn Fays.al	1913-1932	Khalîfa ibn Kharûb	1911-1960
Sa'îd ibn Taymûr	1932-1970
		'Abdallâh ibn Khalîfa	1960-1963
		Jamshîd ibn 'Abdallâh	1963-1964
		Independent, 1963; Sult.ân Overthown in Coup, 1964
End of British Protection, 1967		linked to Tanganyika as Republic of Tanzania, 1964-present
Qâbûs ibn Sa'îd	1970-present

The Âl Bû Sa'îd dynasty, of Muscat, Zanzibar, and Oman, essentially exercised Arab sea power in the Indian Ocean until the domination of Europe became overwhelming. After fighting off the Portuguese and Dutch, the Omani position was strengthened by an alliance with Britain -- which lasted until Britain withdrew from commitments East of Suez in 1967. Sa'îd ibn Sult.ân came to dominate the east coast of Africa south of Mogadishu, and mostly ruled from Zanzibar after 1827, permanently after 1840. After his death the Sult.ânate was divided. The British connection proved the ultimate undoing of this empire, since Britain began to suppress the slave trade, which was the principal business of the Arabs in East Africa, and both Britain and Germany began to annex the mainland areas (Kenya and Tanganyika). Reduced to British "protection," the Sult.âns of Zanzibar then did survive until independence, but after that were promptly overthrown. Zanzibar was then absorbed with Tanganyika into the socialist republic of Julius Nyerere (1962-1985), a darling of the Left, whose harebrained economics managed to dig the country further and further into poverty all the years of his rule, despite (more like because of) some of the highest levels of foreign aid in the world. Meanwhile, Oman was eventually cut loose by the British and emerged from Mediaeval isolation with the Sult.ân still in charge. Qâbûs ibn Sa'îd is now the last Sult.ân in the Middle East, and the last in Islâm apart from Brunei.
 

BRUNEI, Bendaharas
Muhammad	c.1514
Ahmad	c.1521
Sharif 'Ali	c.1526
Sulaiman
Bolkiah
Abdul Qahhar	d.1578
Saif ur-Rijal	c.1578-c.1590
Shah Brunei	c.1590
Raja Ghafur	c.1600
Muhammad Hassan	regent, 1601-1617
Abdul-Jalil Akbar	1617-c.1637
Abdul-Jalilul Jabbar	c.1637-c.1642
Haji Muhammed 'Ali	c.1642-c.1648
Abdul Hakk Mubin	c.1648-1655
Muhyid-Din	1655-c.1670
Nasrud-Din Husin Kamaluddin	1670-1680
Muhammad Aliud-Din	c.1680-c.1690
civil war, c.1690-c.1750
Omar 'Ali Saif ud-Din I	c.1750-1780, d.1795
Muhammed Tajud-Din	1780-1792, 1793-1806
Muhammed Jamal ul-'Alam	1792-1793
Muhammed Khanzul Alam	1806-1822
Raja Api	1822
Omar 'Ali Saifud-Din II Djamal ul-Din	1822-1852
Abdul-Mumin	1852-1885
Hashim Jalilul 'Alam Akam ud-Din	1885-1906
British Protectorate, 1888-1984, British Resident, 1906
Muhammed Jamalul 'Alam II	1906-1924
Ahmad Tajud-Din	1924-1941, 1945-1950
Japanese occupation, 1941-1945
Sir Omar 'Ali Saifud-Din III	1950-1967, d. 1986
Sir Hassanul-Bolkiah	1967-present

A sultanate on the northeast coast of Borneo, and one of the wealthiest states on Earth, due to oil revenues. Formerly in control over much of the island, it became a British Protectorate 1888-1984. The present Sultan, one of the richest men in the world, is well known, if not infamous, for his luxuriant lifestyle. Good looking foreign girls and women recruited for innocent sounding jobs have reported some bad experiences.

Some details here are from Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies, but the list is largely based on Clifford Edmund Bosworth's The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996].

One of the stranger domains in the British Empire, perhaps the fantasy of many English boys in the 1890's. Sarawak was granted by the Sultan of Brunei to a British adventurer, James Brooke, the "White Rajah of Sarawak," who used it as a base from which to eradicate piracy in the South China Sea and headhunting in the interior. His successors continued as Rajahs until after the World War II, with a domain that ended up larger than the original Sultanate of Brunei.

Then, since the place had been so thoroughly trashed by the Japanese, C.V. Brooke ceded it to Britain. Although the Brookes were not Moslems, their subjects were, and Sarawak eventually became part of the very Moslem country of Malaysia.

The list is from Bruce R. Gordon's Regnal Chronologies and Chester L. Krause and Clifford Mishler, the Standard Catalog of World Coins [Colin R. Bruce II, editor, Krause Publications, Iola, Wisconsin, 1982, p.1227].

Islâmic Index
 

The Hashemites, 1827-present

When I lived in Beirut in 1969-70, one of the principal locations in the city was a large square downtown. It was a transportation hub. Busses and taxis left from there for Damascus and elsewhere. The place itself was commonly called the "Bourj," which means "tower." There was no tower, but evidently there had been, and the name had stuck. The official name was the "Places des Martyrs," which at the time seemed to be about something else equally non-existent, since my fellow students and I could not imagine what kind of "martyrs" there ever could have been in Lebanese history. As it turned out, there were indeed martyrs, but it was not just in Lebanese history. On August 21, 1915, eleven suspected Arab nationalist leaders were hung on that very site in Beirut, oddly called "Liberty Square" at the time, by the Turkish military authorities, under Jemal Pasha. On May 6, 1916, the Turks executed twenty-one others, seven in Damascus and fourteen in Beirut. On hearing the news of the latter, Prince Fays.al, son of the Sharîf H.usayn of Mecca, who was visiting near Damascus, is supposed to have thrown down his headress and exclaimed, "Death has become sweet, Oh Arabs!" Fays.al returned to Mecca, and the Arab Revolt against the Turks, long in preparation by Fays.al's father, commenced on the 5th of June.

Prince Fays.al and the Sharîf H.usayn were Hashemites, i.e. were supposed to be descendants of the Prophet Muh.ammad. At right is the complete genealogy of this descent, as reported by the family itself. I have derived this from a curious source, a book called A Prince of Arabia, the Amir Shereef Ali Haider, by George Stitt [George Allen & Unwin, London, 1948 -- this is from the personal historical library of my friend Tom Dunlap]. Ali Haider was from the senior or Zaidi branch of the Hashemite family, who had supplied most of the Amirs or Sharifs of Mecca until 1882, when the junior or 'Awni branch took over. When H.usayn revolted against the Turks in 1916, Ali Haider was appointed in his place by the Ottoman Sultân. Ali Haider was never able to go to Mecca and exercised no real authority under the Turks. His son did end up marrying the granddaughter of the Ottoman Sultân Murad V (1876). Histories of the period or the area rarely mention him. Unfortunately, the book about him from 1948 uses Anglicized versions of the Arabic names. I have not supplied the proper transcriptions for all the names. Other information here is from Clifford Edmund Bosworth, The New Islamic Dynasties [Edinburgh University Press, 1996], and from George Antonius, The Arab Awakening [1946, Capricorn Books, New York, 1965].

The romance of the Arab Revolt, with Lawrence of Arabia and all, and its success in sweeping all the way to Damascus, as the British advanced into Palestine, came to be fully balanced by bitterness at the British betrayal of assurances for Arab independence after the war. The British had made promises elsewhere, to the French and to the Zionists, and not a lot of care had been taken in the desperate days of the war to keep all these undertakings consistent with each other. Initially, the worse betrayal seemed to be over Syria. With Fays.al in possession of Damascus, he was elected King of Syria in 1920; but in short order the French, to whom the British had handed control of Lebanon, as they had honestly warned the Arabs they would, moved in force to occupy Damascus and the rest of Syria, which the British had agreed with them, but not with the Arabs, that they could do. Fays.al was tossed out. The French commemorated this victory by carving a stele in the rock at the Nahr al-Kalb (the Dog River) in Lebanon, joining earlier stelae by the Egyptians, Assyrians, and others. After the Vichy French were overthrown in Lebanon and Syria, in turn, in World War II, the stele naturally was attacked and mutilated beyond recognition.

The Hâshimites, 1827 AD-present
Mecca and H.ijâz
'Abd al-Mut.t.alib	Sharîf of Mecca, 1827, 1851-1856, 1880-1882
Muh.ammad	1827-1851, 1856-1858
'Abdullâh	1858-1877
al-H.usayn	1877-1880
'Awn al-Rafîq	1882-1905
'Alî	1905-1908
H.usayn	1908-1916
	Arab Revolt against Turkey, 1916-1918
	King, 1916-1925
	Caliph, 1924-1925, d. 1931
'Ali	King, 1925, d. 1934
Overthrown by Ibn Sa'ûd
"Greater Syria"
Fays.al	King, 1920
Overthrown by France
Iraq, British Mandate
Fays.al I	King, 1921-1933
Independence, end of British Mandate, 1932
Ghâzî	1933-1939
Fays.al II	1939-1958
pro-German coup suppressed, 1941; King overthrown & killed in Coup, 1958
Transjordan, British Mandate
'Abdullâh I	Amîr, 1921-1946
	End of British Mandate, 1946
	King, 1946-1951, assassinated
Arab Legion enters Palestine, 1948; Kingdom of Jordan, annexation of the West Bank, 1949
T.alâl	1951-1952, d. 1972
H.usayn	1952-1999
Six Day War, Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, 1967; "Black September," Palestinian guerrillas ousted from Jordan, 1970; peace treaty with Israel, 1994
'Abdullâh II	1999-

The British sense of fair play in such circumstances manifested itself as a desire to compensate individuals. There was rarely a sense in British policy that popular sentiment might be something to reckon with. Thus, Fays.al was personally compensated with the throne of Iraq, which for a decade was maintained as a British Mandate. This may or may not have reconciled Fays.al to all that had happened. But it certainly did not reconcile his father, the old Sharîf of Mecca, now King of the H.ijâz, H.usayn. Nothing could reconcile H.usayn to what had happened, and his attitude resulted in a dangerous break with the British -- very dangerous for H.usayn because his ambitious neighbor, Ibn Sa'ûd, remained on good terms with the British and was supported by subsidies.

One of H.usayn's other sons, 'Abdullâh, even led a small force north, evidently to contest Syria with the French. However, before 'Abdullâh crossed the French border, he was persuaded that perhaps he should stay where he was, just across the Jordan River, in a area of vague jurisdiction. This was at the time considered part of Syria, but the French evidently had no use for it, and its proximity to Palestine put it more or less in the British sphere of influence. So 'Abdullâh settled down as the Amîr of the Transjordan, filling in the space between British Palestine and British Iraq.

This did not improve the humor of 'Abdullâh's father, whose leadership turned out to be not much better than his diplomacy. When Kemal Attatürk abolished the Ottoman Caliphate in 1924 (the Sult.ânate had already been abolished in 1922), H.usayn decided that if it was anyone's business to be Caliph, it was his. Indeed, the last bona fide Abbasid Caliph had been carted off to Constantinople in 1517, and it was only after three hundred years or so that the Ottoman Sult.âns began to claim that the office had been passed on to them. This unlikely and irregular transmission, however, eventually came to be accepted by many Moslems, and the abolition of the office left Islâm without somebody to claim it for the first time in Islâmic history. From a dynasty that had served as the Guardians of the Holy Cities for some time, and which was accepted as belonging to the Hashimite clan of the Prophet himself, it must have seemed quite reasonable to H.usayn, as it still seems fairly reasonable in retrospect, that the office should fall to him.

At the time, however, nobody was buying this, and H.usayn's reputation was badly damaged. Ibn Sa'ûd and his Wahhabi fundamentalists began protesting and threatening, and H.usayn had put himself in no good position to resist them. When consensus is so important in the tradition of Islâmic Law, H.usayn would have been better advised to first solicit opinions from respected jurists about whether there needed to be a Caliph, who would be appropriate for it, etc. In 1925 he abdicated in favor of his eldest son 'Alî, but this did not stop Ibn Sa'ûd. The H.ijâz soon joined the Sa'ûdî central Arabian domain of Najd in the new Kingdom of Sa'ûdî Arabia. Then Ibn Sa'ûd's British subsidies soon gave way to income of a different sort, when vast oil reserves were discovered under the Arabian sands. But H.usayn and 'Alî could only flee to the welcome of 'Abdullâh's court in the Transjordan to live out the rest of their lives.

Britain's other conflicting promises, over Palestine, prepared the way for the most dangerous and intractable problem in all of 20th Century politics, diplomacy, and war, as Jewish colonists sought, and achieved, the creation of a Jewish State, Israel, in Palestine. The best showing by an Arab army in the 1948 war was, ironically, the British commanded Arab Legion of 'Abdullâh, at that point King of the Transjordan. Yet 'Abdullâh had no particular animus against either Jews or Zionists, and rumor maintains that in a secret meeting with Golda Meir he actually proposed some kind of condominium over Palestine between the Zionists and himself. This was rejected, but then 'Abdullâh subsequently annexed the Palestinian territory that he ended up occupying, creating simply the Kingdom of (the) Jordan. Since the Palestinian fire-eaters were all ready to found their own radical Palestinian republic in the land preserved from Israel, this move earned 'Abdullâh his own assassination. Now, ironically, by conquering Jordanian Palestine in 1967, the Israelis have ended up with the fire-eaters in their own house, setting off bombs.

The throne of Jordan soon passed over 'Abdullâh's mentally incompetent son T.alâl to his grandson H.usayn. In 1999, H.usayn, having endured every war, revolution, and upheaval since, died after a long fight with cancer. Thus passed a man of astonishing durability in the merciless politics of the Middle East, although hated by many Arabs for his suppression of armed Palestinian organizations in Jordan (in "Black September"). H.usayn, the namesake of his great-grandfather and eyewitness to his grandfather's assassination, was the last living link to the Arab Revolt. Although he was long denigrated as a reactionary, who wasn't in tune with all the great new Marxist Arab Nationalism of the 50's, 60's, and 70's, H.usayn survived into a era when it is hard to tell the Marxists from the Mujâhidûn (Islâmic fighters in the Holy War), and where the folly of each is, or should be, fairly obvious. To everyone's surprise, H.usayn had, just a couple weeks before his death, disinherited his brother H.assan, the Crown Prince for 34 years, and left the Throne to his son 'Abdullâh, who thus becomes King 'Abdullâh II of Jordan. (One hopes this was not entirely a surprise to H.assan.) H.usayn's second cousin, King Fays.al II of Iraq, unfortunately, was overthrown and murdered in 1958, sending Iraq down a path to a despotism which it was doomed to long endure. Only now, in 2003, after three wars, has the dictator of Iraq, Saddam Hussein, been overthrown, thanks to an American and British invasion of the country.

The 1st Gulf War was initiated by Hussein in 1980, hoping to seize the east bank of the Shatt-al-'Arab (the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates) from Irân, whose military had been weakened by purges of the Shah's officers. By 1982 the Iranians managed, with suicidal "human wave" attacks, to throw Hussein back, and he was willing to call it quits; but the Ayatollah Khomeini refused to let up. It didn't do much good, and, even though Khomeini said he would rather "drink poison," he finally accepted a ceasefire in 1988. The 2nd Gulf War was initiated by Hussein in 1990, invading and occupying Kuwait. Just a year later a coalition of American, Arab, and European forces threw Hussein out of Kuwait. Although warned that it might precipitate a global ecological disaster, Hussein ordered the torching of over 600 oil wells as Iraqi forces retreated from Kuwait. Fortunately, although it was a terrible mess, the disaster was of more limited consequence. Iraqi territory itself was not occupied, and revolts by Shi'ites in the south of Iraq and Kurds in the north were brutally suppressed by Hussein. Iraq subsequently was under UN sanctions until the destruction of its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs could be certified. American and British air power patrolled "no fly zones" in the north and south of the country. This didn't really make much difference in the south, but in the north it protected what had become an autonomous Kurdish domain. UN inspectors could not certify that Hussein had destroyed his unconventional weapons, and they even left the country in 1998 after Iraqi non-cooperation. In 2003, the 3rd Gulf War was initiated by the United States and Britain, principally, with the determination, apparently, that it was simply high time to resolve the matter and get rid of Hussein -- especially after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Hussein was overthrown, later captured, tried, and finally executed -- shamefully taunted at his hanging by Shi'ite executioners.

Iraq itself, however, although now (2007) with a democratically elected government, in which all groups managed to participate, nevertheless is a place of constant violence. The Sunni minority, with Baathist diehards, began an "uprising" rather than live under governments dominated by the Shi'ite majority. Although this is portrayed, often by Western sympathizers, as a national struggle against American occupation, most of the casualties have been civilian victims of suicide bombers and car bombs. There have also been attacks against Islamic sites, like the Golden Mosque in Samara, which was associated with Shi'ism. These tactics in part are the inspiration of al-Qa'ida and effected by an influx of foreign Jihadists. Substantial parts of the Sunni community are now tiring of this, especially since the Shi'ites have answered in kind, with help from the Shi'ite motherland, Iran. Since the Shi'ites and Iran have little more sympathy for America than they do for the Sunnis, American (and British) forces tend to get caught in the middle. Nevertheless, it is the interest of the West, the International Community, and Iraq that neither Sunnis nor Shi'ites have an outright victory, and the only way to prevent that and mediate a settlement is for a third party (the Americans) to maintain the balance. Meanwhile, the Kurds, although provoking Turkey by supporting Kurdish terrorists there, have been relatively safe and prosperous in their part of Iraq -- now behind a dike to inhibit terrorist infiltration. They have even paid for commercials on American television with thanks for American efforts. With many in American politics cynically and opportunistically hoping to benefit from a defeat in Iraq, however, as they benefited from defeat in Vietnam (along with Isolationists and simple anti-American Leftists), those efforts may not continue much longer. Meanwhile, all the major communities seem to have joined in an ethnic purge of Iraqi Christians, the Syrian Orthodox and Catholics, Chaldeans and Assyrians. As with the persecution of Christians anywhere, this draws little attention from the Western Press (whose template is that Christians are as bad as Muslim Jihadists), and the numbers of Iraqi Christians are too small to figure in most geopolitical calculations.

Note on the modern Assyrians

The whole area around the Bourj in Beirut was destroyed in the Lebanese civil war of the 70's and 80's. Plenty of new martyrs were created, though it is not clear what the cause was supposed to be when the Lebanese largely destroyed their own country and slaughtered each other, opening the door to a Syrian occupation of much of the country, something that no Lebanese of any faction really wanted. After some years of relative peace, chaos has returned as Syria evidently continues to promote its interests (starting with key assassinations) and both radicalized Shi'ites and Sunni Jihadists display little desire to live peaceful, ordinary lives.

Islâmic Index

Modern Morocco and Tunisia
1640-present

The 'Alawid Sharîfs, Sult.âns, & Kings of Morocco
Muh.ammad ash-Sharîf	1631-1659
Muh.ammad I	1635-1664
ar-Rashîd	1666-1672
Ismâ'îl	Sult.ân, 1672-1727
Ah.mad	1727-1728, 1728-1729
'Abd al-Malik	1728
'Abd Allâh	1729-1734, 1736, 1740-1741, 1741-1742, 1743-1747, 1748-1757
'Alî	1734-1736
Muh.ammad II	1736-1738
al-Mustad.î'	1738-1740, 1742-1743, 1747-1748, d.1760
Zayn al-'Abidîn	1741
Muh.ammad III	1757-1790
Yazîd	1790-1792
Hishâm	1792-1798, d.1799
Sulaymân	1798-1822
'Abd ar-Rahmân	1822-1859
Muh.ammad IV	1859-1873
al-H.asan I	1873-1894
'Abd al-'Azîz	1894-1908, d.1943
'Abd al-H.âfiz.	1908-1912, d.1937
French Protectorate, 1912-1956
Yûsuf	1912-1927
Muh.ammad V	1927-1953, 1955-1957, King, 1957-1961
Muh.ammad VI	1953-1955, d.1976
al-H.asan II	1961-1999
Muh.ammad VII	1999-present

Morocco continues more or less as it had from the Middle Ages, even exerting some influence south of the Sahara. As the Turkish presence waned in Algeria and Tunisia, the area lapsed into a chaos of small states, whose principal business became piracy and slaving. This provoked the occasional sharp response from the European powers, but nothing got settled until in 1830 the French arrived to subdue Algeria. This ended the piracy and makes Algeria the most important French colony for the next 132 years, with a large population of French colonial farmers, the pieds noirs. While colonialism became the bête noire of Marxism,

The H.usaynid Beys of Tunisia
H.usayn I	1705-1735
'Alî I	1735-1756
Muh.ammad I	1756-1759
'Alî II	1759-1782
H.amûda	1782-1814
'Uthmân	1814
Mah.mûd	1814-1824
H.usayn II	1824-1835
Mus.t.afâ	1835-1837
Ah.mad I	1837-1855
Muh.ammad II	1855-1859
Muh.ammad III as-S.âdiq	1859-1882
French Occupation, 1881-1883; Protectorate, 1883-1956
'Alî III	1882-1902
Muh.ammad IV	1902-1906
Muh.ammad V	1906-1922
Muh.ammad VI al-H.abîb	1922-1929
Ah.mad II	1929-1942
Muh.ammad VII al-Muns.if	1942-1943, d.1948
Muh.ammad VIII	1943-1957, d.1962
Rashâd al-Mahdî	King, 1957
Republic of Tunisia, 1957-present

the problem of these French colonials wracked France, brought down the Fourth Republic, and provoked an attempted coup against the founder of the Fifth Republic, Charles de Gaulle.

From the colonial foundation of Algeria, France began to lean on Morocco and Tunisia. As Britain embarked on a long term occupation of Egypt in 1882, France, which had backed off joining the British move, consolidated control over Tunisia instead. The H.usaynid Beys then lasted, as French clients, all the way to independence. Briefly, it looked like the dynasty might survive independence, but the nationalist leader, Habib Bourgiba (H.abîb Bû Ruqayba), in the tradition of many other familiar dictators, did not need a tradtionalistic rival to his authority.

The Moroccan experience was different. While France moved steadily to consolidate its influence, this was not without complaint from other European powers. World War I nearly started early with the Agadir incident in 1911, as Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II offered hope that Germany would dispute any French designs on the Sultânate. As it happened, the War waited a couple more years and a French Protectorate was nevertheless imposed in 1912. Morocco then later became the scene of the mythic presence of "Rick" in the classic movie Casblanca, not far from the real life drama of American troops landing in November 1942, to precipitate French North Africa back into World War II against Germany. The Germans chased out, Morocco became the first French possession to regain independence, not in the dangerous grip of nationalist ideology, but still under the control of the traditional monarchy, the only such traditional national monarchy surviving in the Arab world from the Middle Ages.

Morocco and Tunisia now look like islands of bliss in comparison to Algeria, where dictatorship was supposed to end with elections, but then, when the elections went to Islâmic fundamentalists, the army set them aside in favor of a more moderate dictatorship. The result has been a particularly nasty kind of civil war, in which whole villages have been massacred by forces that don't even acknowledge which side they are fighting for. This frightening and perplexing dilemma is beginning to seem all too common in the Islâmic world, where the most vicious radicals nevertheless seem to command genuine popularity and prestige. It is thus an example of the challenge of Islamic Fascism that is beginning to characterize our era.

These tables are based on both The New Islamic Dynasties by Clifford Edmund Bosworth [Edinburgh University Press, 1996] and the Oxford Dynasties of the World by John E. Morby [Oxford University Press, 1989, 2002]. The 'Alawid Sharîfs and H.usaynid Beys are treated by both sources. Morby has a clearer presentation, but Bosworth also has a brief discussion of the history.
 
Islâmic Index

The House of Su'ûd & Saudi Arabia,
1735-present

The House of Su'ûd
Su'ûd ibn Muh.ammad	Amîr of Dir'iyya, d.1735
Muh.ammad I	1735-1765
'Abd al-'Azîz I	1765-1803
Su'ûd I	1803-1814
'Abdallâh I	1814-1819
Egyptian Occupation, 1818-1822
Turkî	1822-1834
Mushârî	1834
Fays.al I	1834-1838, 1843-1865
Egyptian Occupation, 1838-1843
Khâlid I	Vassal of Egypt, 1838-1841
'Abdallâh II	Vassal of Egypt, 1841-1843
'Abdallâh III	1865-1871, 1874?-1887
	governor, 1887-1889
Su'ûd II	1871-1874
Muh.ammad II	1887
Conquest and rule by Rashîdîs, 1887-1902
'Abd al-Rah.mân	governor, 1889-1891
Muh.ammad III	governor, 1891
Direct rule by Rashîdîs, 1891-1902
'Abd al-'Azîz II	Amîr, 1902-1926; King of Najd and H.ijâz, 1926-1932; King of Sa'ûdî Arabia, 1932-1952
Su'ûd III	1952-1964
Fays.al II	1964-1975
Khâlid II	1975-1982
Fahd	1982-2005
'Abdallâh IV	2005-

The central lands of the Arabian peninsula, the Najd ("highland, upland"), is not a place of much significance in world history -- until recently. The House of Su'ûd has made it significant. At first this was just for religious reasons. The amirs allied themselves with a fundamentalist religious movement, the Wahhâbîs; and at the beginning of the 19th century, they began to trouble the Ottoman authorities at Mecca and Medina for the insufficient orthodoxy and purity of their institutions. Since the Wahhabis did not believe that graves should be marked, lest individuals receive respect and devotion that is only owing to God, even the Prophet's Tomb in Medina was not above suspicion. The threat became so serious that the Sult.ân asked Muh.ammad 'Alî of Egypt to intervene. The Su'ûdîs were sharply defeated and driven out of the Hijaz (1818). The job, however, had to be done all over again twenty years later (1838). This time the Egyptians maintained indirect control for a few years subsequently. Freed from Egyptian control, the Su'ûdis soon were more permanently subordinated to other Arabian princes, the Rashîdîs.

The realm was permanently liberated from outside control by a formidable ruler, 'Abd al-'Azîz (II) ibn Su'ûd. In his long reign (1902-1952), 'Abd al-'Azîz transformed the fortunes of his realm, by diplomacy, by war, and by extraordinary good fortune. Thus, a cash subsidy from the British meant that he was in the right place and at the right time to take advantage of the falling out between the British and the new king H.ussayn of the Hijaz, the erstwhile leader of the Arab revolt against the Turks in World War I. By deposing H.usayn in 1925, 'Abd al-'Azîz was soon able to unify the central Arabian Peninsula from the Persian Gulf right across to the Red Sea. This then became the Kingdom of Sa'ûdî Arabia. Before long the British subsidies were no longer necessary, since the discovery of vast oil reserves in the Persian Gulf soon brought in wealth such as the bare lands of Arabia had never seen before. The Najdi capital of Riyadh was at first so miserable that foreign embassies had been confined to Jiddah. Now "Arab" became a byword for "wealth."

Despite incredible wealth, kicked into overdrive by the Arab oil boycott in 1973, Sa'ûdî Arabia remained deeply conservative and religiously fundamentalist, as in the early days of the Wahhâbîs. Alcohol is prohibited in the Kingdom. Women cannot drive cars without the company of a man. Nor can women work in mixed company or appear on television without a veil. The full rigors of Islâmic law mean that fornication (let alone adultery) can be punished by death (beheading) and theft by the amputation of a hand. A special religious police force looks after moral improprieties, including even excessive laughter in one's home.

The rigors of Islâm, however, did not necessarily strike other Arabs as the most objectionable thing about Sa'ûdî Arabia. Revolutions in Iraq, Syria, and especially Egypt, with promulgation of ideologies like Nasser's "Arab socialism," led to the desire and expectation that the "reactionary regimes," i.e. monarchies and pro-Western governments, would eventually all be swept away. The Sa'ûdîs had some natural advantages against this. 'Abd al-'Azîz begat literally dozens of children, and this formed a tight family corporation for the control of the country. At the same time, the Nasserites and socialists, by their close association with the Soviet Union, handed the Sa'ûdîs a powerful card:  the atheism of the Communists, of no particular concern to Nasser, was anathema to the fundamentalists. For many years beyond the time it made the slightest bit of sense, the Kingdom always linked Israel and the Soviets as the twin pillars of Communist atheism.

In more institutional terms, since a military coup was always the most serious threat to a Middle Eastern state, the Sa'ûdîs created two entirely separate military establishments, the regular military and a national guard, that could serve as checks on each other. The Kingdom thus rode out the high tide of Arab revolution. As Egypt and Jordan made peace with Israel, and then Iraq threatened the Sa'ûdîs with a surprise conquest of Kuwait (another "reactionary" Emirate), the Kingdom found itself in a grand alliance of Egypt, Syria, Britain, France, and the United States to liberate Kuwait. Meanwhile, a threat to the Sa'ûdîs had come from a very different kind of revolution, the Iranian upheaval of the Ayatollah Khomeini. With the beginning of the Islamic year 1400, in December 1979, Iranian inspired fanatics took over the Great Mosque in Mecca, which houses the Ka'aba, the House of God, built by Abraham, the most sacred place in all of Islâm. A bloody firefight, damaging the building, was necessary to defeat the fanatics. Henceforth, Iranians were closely watched and controlled while on pilgrimage (nothing new, actually, in Orthodox Mecca, where Richard Burton, impersonating a Moslem, observed much the same thing in the 19th century).

In 2001, the Sa'ûdîs, still ruled by sons of 'Abd al-'Azîz (he had 43 of them, from 1900 to 1947), seemed secure enough. When OPEC drives up oil prices, the Kingdom wins browny points with the West (and makes extra money) by underselling Cartel prices. Conservative Islâm is under no threat from any non-Western sources, though the occasional wild Prince, like the one with the nude statuary with painted pubic hair at his house in Beverly Hills, must be intensely embarrassing. I always wonder about the Sa'ûdî girls I knew in Beirut in 1969-1970, who used to change into see-through blouses on the flights from Jiddah to Beirut. Either they live a private life secure from the religious police (police invasions of domestic privacy common in the West would provoke serious bloodshed in Arabia), or they have moved to the West. As conservative guardians of the Holy Cities of Islâm, Sa'ûdî Arabia is probably in an ideologically position stronger than for most of the 20th century. Islâm everywhere has tended to gravitate toward the Wahhâbî positions, rather than away from them.

The terrorist attacks against the United States on 9/11/2001 put conservative Islâm in a somewhat different light. Sa'ûdî subsidies to Islamic schools in countries like Pakistan have helped breed a generation of fanatics with a great hatred of modernity and the West. The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, Osama ben Ladin, was himself a Sa'ûdî millionaire, stripped of his citizenship, who had created a state-within-a-state in T.âlibân Afghanistian. T.âlibân itself ominously means "students," i.e. students from the Pakistani Islâmic schools. The Sa'ûdîs are (officially) mortified by all this; but many Americans, particularly but not exclusively those sympathetic to Israel, are suddenly suspicious of a presumably friendly regime whose consistent actions have tended, not surprisingly, to promote anti-Americanism. There is undoubtedly an inner inconistency in Sa'ûdî policy, which is overtly friendly, indeed dependent (with American troups stationed in the country), with the country whose culture represents the whole threat of freedom and modernity to Wahhâbî conservatism and the theocratic aspect of the Sa'ûdî state. Where previously the threat to the Sa'ûdî state had been from the Left, things like Nasser's "Arab Socialism," now the threat may be from the Right, from people who view any remnant of secular pragmatism and Realpolitik in Sa'ûdî policy as irreligious -- the people who have created the present ideology of Islamic Fascism. This is an unusual position for the House of Su'ûd, and it may force some unpleasant choices upon them.

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