Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564
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failed, they had gravely weakened the order and resources of the
Moslem states. In Spain the Crusades had succeeded; there Islam had
been beaten back while its survivors were crowded into a Granada whose
doom was leisurely delayed. Sicily had been taken from Islam by the
virile Normans. But what were these wounds and amputations compared
with the wild and ruinous descent of the Mongols (1219-58) into
Transoxiana, Persia, and Iraq? City after city that had been a haven
of Moslem civilization was subjected to pillage, massacre, and fire-
Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh, Merv, Nishapur, Rayy, Herat, Baghdad....
Provincial and municipal governments were shattered; canals,
neglected, succumbed to the swirling sand; commerce was put to flight;
schools and libraries were destroyed; scholars and scientists were
scattered, slaughtered, or enslaved. The spirit of Islam was broken
for almost a century. It slowly revived; and then Timur's Tatars swept
across western Asia in a fresh desolation, and the Ottoman Turks cut
their way through Asia Minor to the Bosporus. No other civilization in
history has known disasters so numerous, so widespread, and so
complete.
And yet the Mongols, Tatars, and Turks brought their new blood to
replace the human rivers they had shed. Islam had grown luxurious
and supine; Baghdad, like Constantinople, had lost the will to live by
its own arms; men there were so in love with easeful life that they
half invited death; that picturesque civilization, too, as well as the
Byzantine, was ripe to die. But so rich had it been that- like ancient
Greece and Renaissance Italy- it was able, by its salvaged fragments
and memories, to civilize its conquerors. Persia under the Mongol
Il-Khans developed an enlightened government, produced good literature
and majestic art, and graced history with a noble scholar,
Rashidu'd-Din. In Transoxiana Timur built almost as impressively as he
had destroyed; and amid his ravages he paused to honor Hafiz. In
Anatolia the Turks were already civilized, and poets among them were
as plentiful as concubines. In Egypt the Mamluks continued to build
like giants; and in West Africa Islam fathered a philosopher-historian
beside whom the greatest pundits of contemporary Christendom were
midges snared and starved in the cobwebs of Scholasticism. And
meanwhile Islam was spreading through India to the farthest reaches of
the East.
I. THE IL-KHANS OF PERSIA: 1265-1337
-
When Marco Polo set out across Persia (1271) to see the China of
Kublai Khan, he found himself within the Mongol Empire almost all
the way. History had never before recorded so vast a realm. On the
west it touched the Dnieper in Russia; in the south it included the
Crimea, Iraq, Persia, Tibet, and India to the Ganges; in the east it
embraced Indochina, China, and Korea; in the north lay its original
home, Mongolia. Throughout these states the Mongol rulers maintained
roads, promoted commerce, protected travelers, and permitted freedom
of worship to diverse faiths.
Hulagu, grandson of Genghis Khan, after destroying Baghdad (1258),
established a new capital at Maragha in northwest Persia. When he died
(1265) his son Abaqa became khan or prince of Persia, loosely
subject to the distant Kublai Khan; so began the Il-Khan dynasty
that ruled Persia and Iraq till 1337. Greatest of the line was
Ghazan Khan. He was almost the shortest man among his troops, but
his will was stronger than their arms. He broke off allegiance to
the Great Khan in Mongolia or China, and made his state an independent
kingdom, with its capital at Tabriz. Envoys came to him from China,
India, Egypt, England, Spain.... He reformed administration,
stabilized the currency, protected the peasants from landlords and
robbers, and promoted such prosperity as recalled Baghdad in its
proudest days. At Tabriz he built a mosque, two colleges, a
philosophical academy, an observatory, a library, a hospital. He set
aside the revenues of certain lands in perpetuity to support these
institutions, and secured for them the leading scholars, physicians,
and scientists of the age. He was himself a man of wide culture and
many languages, apparently including Latin. `06301 For himself he
raised a mausoleum so majestic and immense that his death (1304)
seemed a triumphal entry into a nobler home.
Marco Polo described Tabriz as "a great and glorious city." Fra
Oderic (1320) pronounced it "the finest city in the world for trade.
Every article is found here in abundance.... The Christians here say
that the revenue the city pays to its ruler is greater than that which
all of France pays to its king." `06302 Clavijo (1404) called it "a
mighty city abounding in riches and goods," with "many fine
buildings," magnificent mosques, and "the most splendid bathhouses
in the world." `06303 He calculated the population at a million souls.
Uljaitu continued the enlightened policies of his brother Ghazan.
His reign saw some of the noblest architecture and illumination in
Persian history. The career of his chancellor, Rashidu'd-Din
Fadlu'llah, illustrates the prosperity of education, scholarship,
and literature at this time. Rashidu'd-Din was born in 1247 at
Hamadan, perhaps of Jewish parentage; so his enemies held, citing
his remarkable knowledge of Mosaic Law. He served Abaqa as
physician, Ghazan as premier, Uljaitu as treasurer. In an eastern
suburb of Tabriz he established the Rab-i-Rashidi, or Rashidi
Foundation, a spacious university center. One of his letters,
preserved in the Library of Cambridge University, describes it:
-
In it we have built twenty-four caravanserais [inns] touching the
sky, 1,500 shops surpassing pyramids in steadfastness, and 30,000
fascinating houses. Salubrious baths, pleasant gardens, stores, mills,
factories for cloth weaving and paper-making... have been
constructed.... People from every city and border have been removed to
the said Rab. Among them are 200 reciters of the Koran.... We have
given dwellings to 400 other scholars, theologians, jurists, and
traditionalists [ Hadith scholars] in the street which is named
"The Street of the Scholars"; daily payments, pensions, yearly
clothing allowances, soap money and sweets money have been granted for
them all. We have established 1,000 other students... and have given
orders for their pensions and daily pay... in order that they may be
comfortably and peacefully occupied in acquiring knowledge and
profiting people by it. We have prescribed, too, which and how many
students should study with which professor and teacher; and after
ascertaining each knowledge-seeker's aptness of mind and capability of
learning a particular branch of the sciences... we have ordered him to
learn that science....
Fifty skilled physicians who have come from the cities of Hindustan,
China, Misr [Egypt], and Sha'm [Syria] have all been granted our
particular attention and favor in a thousand ways; we have ordered
that they should frequent our "House of Healing" [hospital] every day,
and that every one should take ten students capable of learning
medicine under his care, and train them in the practice of this
noble art. To each of the opticians and surgeons and bonesetters who
work in... our hospital we have ordered that five of the sons of our
servitors should be entrusted so as to be instructed in the
oculist's art, in surgery and bonesetting. For all these men... we
have founded a quarter behind our hospital... their street is called
"The Street of the Healers." Other craftsmen and industrialists too,
whom we have transferred from various countries, have been
established, each group in a particular street. `06304
-
We must marvel at the industry of a man who, while actively
sharing in the administration of a kingdom, found time and knowledge
to write five books on theology, four on medicine and government,
and a voluminous history of the world. Moreover, an admiring Moslem
assures us, Rashidu'd-Din could give to his writing only the time
between morning prayer and sunrise; however, there are cloudy days
even in Azerbaijan. He labored seven years on his
Jami'ut-Tawarikh, or Compendium of Histories; he published it in
two tremendous volumes, which in English would make seven. Here were
substantial accounts of the Mongols from Genghis Khan to Ghazan; of
the various Mohammedan states and dynasties in Eastern and Western
Islam; of Persia and Judea before and after Mohammed; of China and
India, with a full study of Buddha and Buddhism; and a chasteningly
brief report on the doings and ideas of European kings, popes, and
philosophers. Those who have read these volumes- not yet translated
into a European tongue- pronounce them the most valuable and scholarly
work in all the prose literature of Persia. Not only did Rashidu'd-Din
use the archives of his own government; he engaged Chinese scholars to
secure for him Chinese treaties and other documents, and he appears to
have read these- and Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish, and Mongolian
authorities- in their original languages. `06305
To transmit this Compendium to posterity despite time and war,
Rashidu'd-Din sent copies to scattered libraries, had it translated
and disseminated in Arabic, and assigned revenues for making two
copies every year, one in Arabic, one in Persian, to be presented to
some city of the Moslem world. Nevertheless much of it has been
lost, along with his other works, and perhaps as the result of his
political disaster. In 1312 Uljaitu associated with him Ali-Shah as
co-chancellor of the exchequer. Under Uljaitu's successor, Abu
Sa'id, Ali-Shah spread divers charges against his colleague, and
persuaded the Khan that Rashidu'd-Din and his son Ibrahim had poisoned
Uljaitu, The historian was dismissed, and soon thereafter was put to
death (1318), at the age of seventy, along with one of his sons. His
properties were confiscated, his foundations were deprived of their
endowments, and the suburb Rab-i-Rashidi was plundered and destroyed.
Abu Sa'id made belated amends by appointing another son of the
historian his vizier. Ghiyathu'd-Din governed wisely and justly. After
Abu Sa'id's death a period of anarchy brought the dynasty of the
Il-Khans to an end, and their realm was divided into petty states
ravaged by war and redeemed by poetry.
II. HAFIZ: 1320-89
-
For in Persia every other man wrote verses, and kings honored
poets only next to mistresses, calligraphers, and generals. In Hafiz's
time a score of Persian poets won renown from the Mediterranean to the
Ganges and from Yemen to Samarkand. All of them, however, bowed to
Shamsu'd-Din Muhammad Hafiz, and assured him that he had surpassed the
melodius Sa'di himself. He agreed with this estimate, and addressed
himself reverently:
-
I have never seen any poetry sweeter than thine, O Hafiz,
I swear it by that Koran which thou keepest in thy bosom. `06306
-
Hafiz means rememberer; it was a title given to anyone who, like
our poet, had memorized the whole Koran. Born at Shiraz at a date
and of ancestry unknown, he soon fell into verse. His first patron was
Abu Ishaq, who had been appointed shah of Fars (southeastern Persia)
by Ghazan Khan. Abu Ishaq so loved poetry that he neglected
government. When warned that hostile forces were preparing to attack
his capital, Shiraz, he remarked what a fool a man must be to waste so
fair a spring on war. An insensitive general, Ibn-Muzaffar, captured
Shiraz, killed Abu Ishaq (1352), forbade the drinking of wine, and
closed every tavern in the town. Hafiz wrote a mournful elegy:
-
Though wine gives delight, and the wind distills the perfume
of the rose,
Drink not the wine to the strains of the harp, for the constable
is alert.
Hide the goblet in the sleeve of the patchwork cloak,
For the time, like the eye of the decanter, pours forth blood.
Wash the wine stain from your dervish cloak with tears,
For it is the season of piety, and the time of abstinence. `06307
-
Muzaffar's successor, finding prohibition impracticable, or having
discovered that wine-bibbers can be more easily ruled than puritans,
reopened the taverns, and Hafiz gave him immortality.
He followed Persian conventions in spending so many verses on
wine; at times he reckoned a glass of wine as "worth more than a
virgin's kiss." `06308 But even the grape grows dry after a thousand
couplets, and soon Hafiz found love, virginal or practiced,
indispensable to poetry:
-
Knowest thou what fortune is? 'Tis beauty's sight obtaining;
'Tis asking in her lane for alms, and royal pomp disdaining. `06309
-
No freedom now seemed so sweet as love's slavery.
-
Our stay is brief, but since we may attain
The glory that is love, do not disdain
To hearken to the pleadings of the heart;
Beyond the mind life's secret will remain.
-
Leave then your work and kiss your dear one now,
With this rich counsel I the world endow;
When spring buds lure, the wind deserts his mill
And gently glides to kiss the leafy bough....
-
Belle of Shiraz, grant me but love's demand,
And for your mole- that clinging grain of sand
Upon a cheek of pearl- Hafiz would give
All of Bokhara, all of Samarkand....
-
If I with Fate but once might throw the dice,
I'd try a throw, no matter what the price,
To have my breath, O Love, be one with yours;
What need would I have then for paradise?...
-
He who of gold and silk your tresses spun,
Who made the red rose and the white rose one,
And gave your cheek to them for honeymoon-
Can He not patience give to me, His son? `063010
-
He seems at last to have cooled into marriage; if we interpret his
subtle verses rightly, he found a wife, and had several children,
before he could quite make up his mind between woman and wine. In some
verses he seems to mourn her death:
-
My lady, that did change this house of mine
Into a heaven when that she dwelt therein,
From head to foot an angel's grace divine
Enwrapped her; pure she was, spotless of sin;
Fair as the moon her countenance, and wise;
Lords of the kind and tender glance, her eyes
With an abounding loveliness did shine.
-
Then said my heart: Here will I take my rest!
This city breathes her love in every part.
But to a distant bourne was she addressed,
Alas! he knew it not, alas, poor heart!
The influence of some cold malignant star
Has loosed my hand that held her; lone and far
She journeyeth that lay upon my breast. `063011
-
In any case he became domesticated, cultivated a quiet privacy,
and seldom stirred abroad; he would, he said, let his poems travel for
him. He was invited to many a royal court, and was moved for a
moment to accept Sultan Ahmad's offer of a home in the royal palace at
Baghdad. `063012 But his love for Shiraz kept him prisoner; he doubted
if paradise itself had streams as lovely, or roses as red. He
indited a laud, now and then, to the Persian kinglets of his time,
in hopes of a gift to ease his poverty; for there were no publishers
in Persia to launch one's ink upon public seas, and art had to wait,
hat in hand, in the antechambers of nobles or kings. Once, indeed,
Hafiz almost went abroad: an Indian shah sent him not only an
invitation but money for the trip; he set out, and reached Hormuz on
the Persian Gulf; he was about to board a ship when a tempest upset
his imagination and enamored him of stability. He returned to
Shiraz, and sent the shah a poem in lieu of himself.
The divan or collected poetry of Hafiz contains 693 poems. Most
are odes, some are quatrains, some are unintelligible fragments.
They are more difficult than Dante to translate, for they jingle
with multiple rhymes which in English would make doggerel, and they
teem with recondite allusions that tickled the wits of the time but
now lie heavy on the wings of song. Often he can be better rendered in
prose:
-
The night was about to fade when, drawn by the perfume of the roses,
I went down into the garden to seek, like the nightingale, balm for my
fever. In the shadow there gleamed a rose, a rose red as a veiled
lamp, and I gazed upon its countenance....
The rose is lovely only because the face of my beloved is lovely....
What were the fragrance of the greensward and the breeze that blows in
the garden were it not for the cheek of my beloved, which is like a
tulip?...
In the darkness of the night I sought to unloose my heart from the
bonds of thy tresses, but I felt the touch of thy cheek, and drank
of thy lips. I pressed thee to my breast, and thy hair enveloped me
like a flame. I pressed my lips to thine, and yielded up my heart
and soul to thee as in ransom. `063013
-
Hafiz was one of those blessed and harassed souls who, through
art, poetry, imitation, and half-unconscious desire, have become so
sensitive to beauty that they wish to worship- with eyes and speech
and fingertips- every fair form in stone or paint or flesh or
flower, and suffer in stifled silence as beauty passes by; but who
find, in each day's fresh revelation of loveliness or grace, some
forgiveness for the brevity of beauty and the sovereignty of death. So
Hafiz mingled blasphemies with his adoration, and fell into angry
heresies even while praising the Eternal One as the source from
which all earthly beauty flows.
Many have sought to make him respectable by interpreting his wine as
Spiritual Ecstasy, his taverns as monasteries, his flames as the
Divine Fire. It is true that he became a Sufi and a sheik, assumed the
dervish robe, and wrote poems of misty mysticism; but his real gods
were wine, woman, and song. A movement was begun to try him for
unbelief, but he escaped by pleading that the heretical verses were
meant to express the views of a Christian, not his own. And yet he
wrote:
-
O zealot! think not that you are sheltered from the sin of pride,
For the difference between the mosque and the infidel church is
but vanity, `063014
-
where infidel, of course, means Christian. Sometimes it seemed
to Hafiz that God was but a figment of man's hope:
-
And He who draws us in these flashing days,
Whom we adore, though we know whom He slays,
He well may sorrow, for when we are gone,
He too will vanish in that selfsame blaze. `063015
-
When he died his orthodoxy was so doubtful, and his hedonism so
voluminous, that some objected to giving him a religious funeral;
but his friends saved the day by allegorizing his poetry. A later
generation enshrined his bones in a garden- the Hafiziyya- flaming
with the roses of Shiraz, and the poet's prediction was fulfilled-
that his grave would become "a place of pilgrimage for the
freedom-lovers of all the world." On the alabaster tombstone was
engraved one of the master's poems, profoundly religious at last:
-
Where are the tidings of union? that I may arise-
Forth from the dust I will rise up to welcome thee!
My soul, like a homing bird, yearning for paradise,
Shall arise and soar, from the snares of the world set free.
When the voice of thy love shall call me to be thy slave,
I shall rise to a greater far than the mastery
Of life and the living, time and the mortal span.
Pour down, O Lord! from the clouds of thy guiding grace,
The rain of a mercy that quickeneth on my grave,
Before, like dust that the wind bears from place to place,
I arise and flee beyond the knowledge of man.
-
When to my grave thou turnest thy blessed feet,
Wine and the lute thou shalt bring in thine hand to me;
Thy voice shall ring through the folds of my winding-sheet,
And I will arise and dance to thy minstrelsy.
Though I be old, clasp me one night to thy breast,
And I, when the dawn shall come to awaken me,
With the flush of youth on my cheek from thy bosom will rise.
-
Rise up! let mine eyes delight in thy stately grace!
Thou art the goal to which all men's endeavor has pressed,
And thou the idol of Hafiz's worship; thy face
From the world and life shall bid him come forth and arise! `063016
III. TIMUR: 1336-1405
-
We first hear of the Tatars as a nomad people of Central Asia, kin
and neighbors to the Mongols, and joining these in European raids. A
Chinese writer of the thirteenth century describes the common run of
them much as Jordanes had pictured the Huns a thousand years before:
short of stature, hideous of visage to those unfamiliar with them,
innocent of letters, skilled in war, aiming their arrows unerringly
from a speeding horse, and continuing their race by an assiduous
polygamy. In trek and campaigns they took with them bed and board-
wives and children, camels, horses, sheep, and dogs; pastured the
animals between battles, fed on their milk and flesh, clothed