Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

theology, where he thinks it unwise to be original. While writing a

major work of philosophy he pronounces philosophy dangerous, and

advises his readers to let it alone; `063074 probably he meant

metaphysics and theology rather than philosophy in its wider sense

as an attempt to see human affairs in a large perspective. At times he

talks like the simplest old woman in the market place; he accepts

miracles, magic, the "evil eye," the occult properties of the

alphabet, divination through dreams, entrails, or the flight of

birds. `063075 Yet he admires science, admits the superiority of the

Greeks to the Moslems in that field, and mourns the decline of

scientific studies in Islam. `063076 He rejects alchemy, but

acknowledges some faith in astrology. `063077

Certain other discounts must be made. Though Ibn-Khaldun is as broad

as Islam, he shares many of its limitations. In the three volumes of

the Muqaddama he finds room for but seven pages on Christianity.

He makes only casual mention of Greece, Rome, and medieval Europe.

When he has written the history of North Africa, Moslem Egypt, and the

Near and Middle East, he believes that he has narrated "the history of

all peoples." `063078 Sometimes he is culpably ignorant: he thinks

Aristotle taught from a porch, and Socrates from a tub. `063079 His

actual writing of history falls far short of his theoretical

introduction; the volumes on the Berbers and the Orient are a dreary

record of dynastic genealogies, palace intrigues, and petty wars.

Apparently he intended these volumes to be political history only, and

offered the Muqaddama as a history- though it is rather a general

consideration- of culture.

To recover our respect for Ibn-Khaldun we need only ask what

Christian work of philosophy in the fourteenth century can stand

beside the Prolegomena. Perhaps some ancient authors had covered

part of the ground that he charted; and among his own people al-Masudi

(d. 956), in a work now lost, had discussed the influence of religion,

economics, morals, and environment on the character and laws of a

people, and the causes of political decline. `063080 Ibn-Khaldun,

however, felt, and with some reason, that he had created the science

of sociology. Nowhere in literature before the eighteenth century

can we find a philosophy of history, or a system of sociology,

comparable in power, scope, and keen analysis with Ibn-Khaldun's.

Our leading contemporary philosopher of history has judged the

Muqaddama to be "undoubtedly the greatest work of its kind that

has ever yet been created by any mind in any time or place." `063081

Herbert Spencer's Principles of Sociology (1876-96) may compare

favorably with it, but Spencer had many aides. In any case we may

agree with a distinguished historian of science, that "the most

important historical work of the Middle Ages" `063082 was the

Muqaddama of Ibn-Khaldun.

CHAPTER XXXI: Suleiman the Magnificent: 1520-66

I. AFRICAN ISLAM: 1200-1566

-

IT is hard for us, pigeonholed in Christendom, to realize that

from the eighth to the thirteenth century Islam was culturally,

politically, and militarily superior to Europe. Even in its decline in

the sixteenth century it prevailed from Delhi and beyond to

Casablanca, from Adrianople to Aden, from Tunis to Timbuktu.

Visiting the Sudan in 1353, Ibn-Batuta found there a creditable

civilization under Moslem leadership; and a Negro Mohammedan,

Abd-er-Rahman Sa'di, would later write a revealing and intelligent

history, Tarik-es-Sudan (c. 1650), describing private libraries of

1,600 volumes in Timbuktu, and massive mosques whose ruins attest a

departed glory.

The Marini dynasty (1195-1270) made Morocco independent, and

developed Fez and Marraqesh into major cities, each with august

gateways, imposing mosques, learned libraries, colleges squatting amid

shady colonnades, and wordy bazarres where one could buy anything at

half the price. In the thirteenth century Fez had some 125,000

inhabitants, probably more than any city in Europe except

Constantinople, Rome, and Paris. In its Karouine Mosque, seat of

Morocco's oldest university, religion and science lived in concord,

taking eager students from all African Islam, and- in arduous

courses of three to twelve years- training teachers, lawyers,

theologians, and statesmen. Emir Yaqub II (r. 1269-86), ruling Morocco

from Fez or Marraqesh, was one of the most enlightened princes of a

progressive century, a just governor, a wise philanthropist, tempering

theology with philosophy, shunning bigotry, and encouraging friendly

intercourse with Europeans. The two cities received many refugees from

Spain, and these brought a new stimulus to science, art, and industry.

Ibn-Batuta, who had seen nearly all of vast Islam, called Morocco

the earthly paradise.

On the way from Fez to Oran the modern traveler is surprised to find

at Tlemcen the modest remnant of what in the thirteenth century was

a city of 125,000 souls. Three of its once sixty-four mosques- the

Jama-el-Kebir (1136), the mosque of Abul Hassan (1298), and that of

El-Halawi (1353)- are among the finest in the Mohammedan world; marble

columns, complex mosaics, brilliant mihrabs, arcaded courts, carved

wood, and towering minarets survive to tell of a splendor gone and

almost forgotten. Here the Abd-el-Wahid dynasty (1248-1337, 1359-1553)

maintained for three centuries a relatively enlightened rule,

protecting Christians and Jews in religious freedom, and providing

patronage to letters and arts. After the Turks captured the city

(1553) it lost its importance as a center of trade, and declined

into the shadows of history.

Farther east, Algiers flourished through a mixture of commerce and

piracy. Half-hidden in a rock-bound semicircular bay, this picturesque

port, rising in tier upon tier of white tenements and palaces from the

Mediterranean to the Casbah, provided a favorite lair for

"privateers"; even from Pompey's days the corsairs of that coast had

preyed upon defenseless shipping. After 1492 Algiers became a refuge

for Moors fleeing from Spain; many of them joined the pirate crews,

and turned with vengeful fury upon what Christian shipping they

could waylay. Growing in number and audacity, the pirates manned

fleets as strong as national navies, and raided the North

Mediterranean coasts. Spain retaliated with protective expeditions

that captured Oran, Algiers, and Tripoli (1509-10).

In 1516 a colorful buccaneer entered the picture. The Italians

called him Barbarossa from his red beard; his actual name was Khair

ed-Din Khizr; he was a Greek of Lesbos, who came with his brother

Horush to join the pirate crew. While Khair ed-Din raised himself to

command of the fleet, Horush led an army against Algiers, expelled the

Spanish garrison, made himself governor of the city, and died in

battle (1518). Khair ed-Din, succeeding to his brother's power,

ruled with energy and skill. To consolidate his position he went to

Constantinople, and offered Selim I sovereignty over Tripoli, Tunisia,

and Algeria in return for a Turkish force adequate to maintain his own

authority as vassal governor of these regions. Selim agreed, and

Suleiman confirmed the arrangement. In 1533 Khair ed-Din became the

hero of Western Islam by ferrying 70,000 Moors from inhospitable Spain

to Africa. Appointed first admiral of the entire Turkish fleet,

Barbarossa, with eighty-four vessels at his command, raided town after

town on the coasts of Sicily and Italy, and took thousands of

Christians to be sold as slaves. Landing near Naples, he almost

succeeded in capturing Giulia Gonzaga Colonna, reputed the loveliest

woman in Italy. She escaped half clad, rode off with one knight as her

escort, and, on reaching her destination, ordered his death for

reasons which she left to be inferred.

But Barbarossa aimed at less perishable booty than a beautiful

woman. Landing his Janissaries at Bizerte, he marched against Tunis

(1534). The Nefsid dynasty had ruled that city reasonably well since

1336; arts and letters had flourished under their patronage; but Muley

Hassan, the current prince, had alienated the people by his cruelties.

He fled as Barbarossa approached; Tunis was taken bloodlessly; Tunisia

was added to the Ottoman realm, and Barbarossa was master of the

Mediterranean.

It was another crisis for Christendom, for the unchallenged

Turkish fleet could at any moment secure a foothold for Islam in the

Italian boot. Strangely enough, Francis I was at this time allied with

the Turks, and Pope Clement VII was allied with France. Fortunately,

Clement died (September 2 1534); Pope Paul III pledged funds to

Charles V for an attack on Barbarossa, and Andrea Doria offered the

full co-operation of the Genoese fleet. In the spring of 1535

Charles assembled at Cagliari, in Sardinia, 400 vessels and 30,000

troops. Crossing the Mediterranean, he laid siege to La Goletta, a

fort commanding the Gulf of Tunis. After a month's fighting, La

Goletta fell, and the Imperial army marched on to Tunis. Barbarossa

tried to stop the advance; he was defeated and fled. Christian

slaves in Tunis broke their chains and opened the gates, and Charles

entered the city unresisted. For two days he surrendered it to pillage

by his soldiers, who would otherwise have mutinied; thousands of

Moslems were massacred; the art of centuries was shattered in a day or

two. The Christian slaves were joyously freed, and the surviving

Mohammedan population was enslaved. Charles reinstated Muley Hassan as

his tributary vassal, left garrisons in Bona and La Goletta, and

returned to Europe.

Barbarossa escaped to Constantinople, and there, with Suleiman's

funds, built a new fleet of 200 ships. In July 1537, this force

effected a landing at Taranto, and Christendom was again besieged. A

new "Holy League" of Venice, the papacy, and the Empire took form, and

gathered 200 vessels off Corfu. On September 27 the rival armadas,

at the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf, fought an engagement almost

in the same waters where Antony and Cleopatra had met Octavian at

Actium. Barbarossa won, and again ruled the seas. Sailing east, he

took one after another of the Venetian possessions in the Aegean and

Greece, and forced Venice to a separate peace.

Charles tried to win Barbarossa to his service by gifts and an offer

to make him vassal king of North Africa, but Khair ed-Din preferred

Islamic bait. In October 1541, Charles and Doria led an expedition

against Algiers; it was defeated on land by Barbarossa's army, and

at sea by a storm. Barbarossa returned the call by ravaging Calabria

and landing, unhindered, at Ostia, the port of Rome. The great capital

shivered in its shrines, but Paul III was at that time on good terms

with Francis, and Barbarossa, allegedly out of courtesy to his ally,

paid in cash for all that he took at Ostia, and departed

peacefully. `06311 He sailed up to Toulon, where his fleet was

welcomed by the matter-of-fact French; he asked that the church

bells should suspend their ringing while Allah's vessels were in the

harbor, for the bells disturbed his sleep, and his request was law. He

joined a French fleet in taking Nice and Villefranche from the

Emperor. Then, seventy-seven, the triumphant corsair retired with full

honors to die in bed at eighty (1546).

Bona, La Goletta, and Tripoli fell back to Islam, and the Ottoman

Empire reached from Algiers to Baghdad. Only one Moslem power dared to

challenge its predominance in Islam.

II. SAFAVID PERSIA: 1502-76

-

Persia, which had enjoyed so many periods of cultural fertility, was

now entering another epoch of political vitality and artistic

creation. When Shah Ismail I founded the Safavid dynasty (1502-1736)

Persia was a chaos of kinglets: Iraq, Yazd, Samnan, Firuzkuh,

Diyarbekir, Kashan, Khurasan, Qandahar, Balkh, Kirman, and

Azerbaijan were independent states. In a succession of ruthless

campaigns Ismail of Azerbaijan conquered most of these principalities,

captured Herat and Baghdad, and made Tabriz again the capital of a

powerful kingdom. The people welcomed this native dynasty, gloried

in the unity and power it gave their country, and expressed their

spirit in a new outburst of Persian art.

Ismail's rise to royalty is an incredible tale. He was three years

old when his father died (1490), thirteen when he set out to win

himself a throne, still thirteen when he had himself crowned Shah of

Persia. Contemporaries described him as "brave like a young

gamecock" and "lively as a faun," stout, broad-shouldered, with

furious mustaches and flaming red hair; he wielded a mighty sword with

his left hand, and with the bow he was another Odysseus, shooting down

seven apples in a row of ten. `06312 We are told that he was

"amiable as a girl," but he killed his own mother (or stepmother),

ordered the execution of 300 courtesans at Tabriz, and massacred

thousands of enemies. `06313 He was so popular that "the name of God

is forgotten" in Persia, said an Italian traveler, "and only that of

Ismail is remembered." `06314

Religion and audacity were the secrets of his success. Religion in

Persia was Shi'a- i.e., "the party" of Ali, son-in-law of Mohammed.

The Shi'a recognized no rightful caliphs but Ali and his twelve lineal

descendants- "imams" or holy kings; and since religion and

government were not distinct in Islam, each such descendant had, in

this doctrine, a divine right to rule both church and state. As

Christians believed that Christ would return to establish His

kingdom on earth, so the Shi'ites believed that the twelfth imam-

Muhammad ibn-Hasan- had never died, but would someday reappear and set

up his blessed rule over the earth. And as Protestants condemned

Catholics for accepting tradition, along with the Bible, as a guide to

right belief, so the Shi'ites denounced the Sunnites- the orthodox

Mohammedan majority- who found the sunna or "path" of

righteousness not only in the Koran but also in the practice of

Mohammed as handed down in the traditions of his companions and

followers. And as Protestants gave up praying to the saints and closed

the monasteries, so the Shi'ites discountenanced the Sufi mystics

and closed the cloisters of the dervishes, which, like the monasteries

of Europe in their prime, had been centers of hospitality and charity.

As Protestants called their faith the "true religion," so the Shi'ites

took the name al-Ma-minum, "true believers." `06315 No faithful

Shi'ite would eat with a Sunnite; and if a Christian's shadow passed

over a Shi'ite's meal, the food was to be discarded as unclean. `06316

Ismail claimed descent from the seventh imam. Safi-al-Din ("Purity

of the Faith"), from whom the new dynasty was named. By proclaiming

Shi'a as the national and official religion of Iran, and as the sacred

standard under which he fought, Ismail united his people in pious

devotion against the Sunnite Moslems who hemmed Persia in- the

Uzbeks and Afghans on the east, the Arabs, Turks, and Egyptians on the

west. His strategy succeeded; despite his cruelties he was worshiped

as a saint, and his subjects so trusted in his divine power to protect

them that some refused to wear armor in battle. `06317

Having won this fervent support, Ismail felt strong enough to

challenge his neighbors. The Uzbeks who ruled Transoxiana had spread

their power into Khurasan; Ismail took Herat from them, and drove them

out of Persia. Secure in the east, he turned west against the

Ottomans. Each faith now persecuted the other with holy intensity.

Sultan Selim, we are unreliably told, had 40,000 Shi'ites in his

dominions killed or imprisoned before going forth to war (1514), and

Shah Ismail hanged some of the Sunnites who formed a majority in

Tabriz, and compelled the rest to utter daily a prayer cursing the

first three caliphs as usurpers of Ali's rights. Nevertheless, in

battle at Chaldiran, the Persians found Shi'a helpless before the

artillery and Janissaries of Selim the Grim; the Sultan took Tabriz,

and subdued all northern Mesopotamia (1516). But his army mutinied, he

retreated, and Ismail returned to his capital with all the glory

that shrouds a martial king. Letters declined during his hectic reign,

but art prospered under his patronage; he protected the painter

Bihzad, and rated him as worth half of Persia. `06318 After

twenty-four years of rule Ismail died at thirty-eight, leaving the

throne to his ten-year-old son (1524).

Shah Tamasp I was a faithless coward, a melancholy sybarite, an

incompetent king, a harsh judge, a patron and practitioner of art, a

pious Shi'ite, and the idol of his people. Perhaps he had some

secret virtues which he hid from history. The continuing emphasis on

religion disturbed as well as strengthened the government, for it

sanctioned a dozen wars, and kept the Islam of the Near and Middle

East divided from 1508 to 1638. Christendom benefited, for Suleiman

interrupted his assaults upon the West by campaigns against Persia;

"only the Persian stands between us and ruin," wrote Ferdinand's

ambassador in Constantinople. `06319 In 1533 the Grand Vizier

Ibrahim Pasha led a Turkish army into Azerbaijan, took fortress

after fortress by bribing Persian generals, and finally captured

Tabriz and Baghdad without striking a blow (1534). Fourteen years

later, during an armistice with Ferdinand, Suleiman led another army

against "the rascally Red-heads" (the Turkish name for the

Persians), took thirty-one towns, and then resumed his attacks upon

Christendom. Between 1525 and 1545 Charles repeatedly negotiated

with Persia, presumably to co-ordinate Christian and Persian

resistance to Suleiman. The West rejoiced when Persia assumed the

offensive and captured Erzerum; but in 1554 Suleiman returned,

devastated great stretches of Persia, and forced Tamasp to a peace

in which Baghdad and Lower Mesopotamia fell permanently under

Turkish rule.

More interesting than these dismal conflicts were the venturesome

journeys that Anthony Jenkinson made into Transoxiana and Persia in

search of an overland trade route to India and "Cathay." In this

matter Ivan the Terrible proved amiable; he welcomed Jenkinson in

Moscow, sent him as his ambassador to the Uzbek rulers at Bokhara, and

agreed to let English goods enter Russia duty free and pass down the

Volga and across the Caspian. After surviving a violent storm on

that sea, Jenkinson continued into Persia and reached Qasvin (1561).

There he delivered to Tamasp letters of salutation from a distant

queen who seemed to the Persians a minor ruler over a barbarous

people. They were inclined to sign a trade agreement, but when

Jenkinson confessed himself a Christian they bade him depart; "we have

no need of friendship with infidels," they told him; and as he left

the Shah a servant spread purifying sand to cover the Christian

footprints that had polluted the Shi'a court. `063110

The death of Tamasp (1576) concluded the longest but one of all

Mohammedan reigns, and one of the most disastrous. It was not

distinguished by any literature lovingly cherished in Persian

memory, unless we include the fascinating memoirs of the expatriated

Babur. But Safavid art, though its zenith would come later, already in

these two reigns began to pour forth works of that grandeur,

brilliance, and refinement which for twenty-two centuries have

marked the products of Persia. In Isfahan the mausoleum of

Harun-i-Vilaya displayed all the finesse of classic Persian design,

and the best color and cutting of mosaic faience; and a complex

half-dome crowned the portal of the great Friday Mosque. Another

Masjid-i-Jami rose in this age at Shiraz, but time has swallowed it.

In many instances the delicate work of the illuminators and

calligraphers has outlasted the architectural monuments, and has

justified the care that made the book, in Islam, almost an idol of

loving reverence. The Arabs, proud of everything, were forgivably

enamored of their alphabet, which lent itself to lines of sinuous

grace. The Persians above all made that script an art in adorning

the mihrabs and portals of their mosques, the metal of their

weapons, the clay of their pottery, the texture of their rugs, and

in transmitting their Scriptures and their poets in manuscripts that

many generations would cherish as delights to eye and soul. The

Nastaliq or sloping script, which had flourished under the Timurids at

Tabriz, Herat, and Samarkand, returned to Tabriz under the Safavids,

and went with them to Isfahan. As the mosque brought together a

dozen arts, so the book employed poet, calligrapher, miniaturist,

and binder into a collaboration quite as dedicated and devout.

The art of illumination continued to flourish at Bokhara, Herat,

Shiraz, and Tabriz. The Boston Museum of Fine Arts has a lordly

manuscript of Firdausi's Shah-nama signed by Arraji Muhammad

al-Qawam of Shiraz (1552); the Cleveland Museum has another

illuminated by Mushid-al-Kiatib (1538); and the Metropolitan Museum of

Art in New York has one of the finest examples of Tabriz

illumination and calligraphy in the title page from a copy (1525) of

Nizami's Khamsu. The center of Mohammedan illumination moved to

Tabriz when Bihzad chose it for his residence (c. 1510). During the

campaign of Chaldiran Shah Ismail hid Bihzad and the calligrapher

Mahmud Nishapuri in a cave as his most precious possessions. `063111

Bihzad's pupil Aqa Mirak painted at Tabriz one of the master

miniatures of this period, the Khosru and Shirin Enthroned (1539),

now in the British Museum. Mirak in turn taught the art to Sultan

(Prince) Muhammad Nur. Born of a rich family, Muhammad ignored the

fact that he had the means to be worthless; he became the "pearl

without price" at the court of Shah Tamasp, for he surpassed all his

contemporaries in calligraphy and illumination, and in designing

book covers and rugs. Between 1539 and 1543 he copied and

illustrated the Khamsu of Nizami; a magnificent page in the

British Museum shows King Khosru, mounted on a pink horse, peering

through foliage of green, brown, and gold at Shirin bathing, half

naked, in a silver pool. Even more brilliant in color is a painting of

the Prophet riding through the skies on his winged horse Buraq to

visit heaven and hell. The figures are grace incarnate, but

deliberately and religiously without individualized features; the

artist was interested in decoration rather than representation, and

valued beauty, which, subjective, is sometimes attainable, more than

truth, which, objective, always escapes. In these miniatures Persian

illumination reached the apex of its elegance.

The same loving care and delicate designs went into textiles and

rugs. No textiles survive from these reigns, but the miniatures

picture them. In rugs the Safavi designers and artisans were

supreme. The carpet seemed an essential of civilization in Islam.

The Moslem sat and ate not on chairs but on a floor or ground

covered with a rug. A special "prayer rug," usually bearing

religious symbols and a Koranic text, received his prostrations in his

devotions. Rugs were favored as gifts to friends or kings or

mosques; so Shah Tamasp sent twenty large and many small carpets of

silk and gold to Selim II on the latter's accession as Ottoman

Sultan (1566). Some dominating feature of design classified the rugs

as of the garden, floral, hunting, vase, diaper, or medallion type;

but around these basic forms were meandering arabesques, Chinese cloud

configurations, symbols conveying secret meanings to the initiate,

animals lending the pattern life, plants and flowers giving it a

Durant W. The Reformation. A History of European Civilization from Wyclif to Calvin: 1300-1564

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