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Authors: Joel Kotkin
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unless they happened to share his own religious opinions.” 23
Many potential allies who might have rallied to the old inclusive empire now turned against the regime. Some groups, including the Jews and even some Christian sects, actively assisted first the Persians and later the Muslims in hacking away pieces of the empire.
Other forces also worked to undermine the city and its dwindling empire. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, followed by the great plagues of the late sixth century A.D., wiped out one-third to one-half of Constantinople’s population and many of the smaller cities entirely. 24 Debilitated from disease and internal dissension, its population in decline, the empire was ill prepared to counter the rise of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Despite its many problems, the empire persisted—its greatest virtue, noted the historian Jacob Burckhardt, was its “tenacity”—but devolved increasingly into an archipelago of relatively small, perennially threatened armed fortresses. Byzantine defensive prowess, diplomacy, outright bribery, and dissension within the Muslim world all conspired to keep Constantinople safe from final conquest until it fell to the onslaught of Turkish cannons in A.D. 1453. 25
PART THREE
THE ORIENTAL EPOCH
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ISLAMIC ARCHIPELAGO
In 1325, Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta left his native city of Tangier and headed east, to begin his sacred hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Later, having performed his religious duty in Arabia, he traveled on for almost the next quarter century, sojourning at trading posts along the coast of East Africa, across the caravan towns of the Central Asian steppe, and to the gilded cities of India and the Silk Road.
For most of the journey, covering thousands of miles and scores of cultures, ibn Battuta felt at home almost everywhere. He encountered many different races, languages, and cultures, but most cities lived within the familiar bounds of Dar al-Islam, the house of Islam, a world embracing one God and the revelations of one man, the prophet Muhammad.
It had been nearly a millennium since Rome, and its vast urban network had suffered its final agonies of decline. The Eternal City’s successor, Constantinople, still survived behind its walls but was fatally weakened and surrounded by enemies. It now stood as the only European city among the twenty largest in the world; almost all the rest were part of the Oriental world, either in China or within Dar al-Islam. 1
Muslim primacy had contributed much to the weakening of European urbanism. By taking control of both the Mediterranean and the trade routes to the East, Muslims had cut off European commerce from critical sources of both wealth and knowledge. 2 “The Christians,” observed the Arab historian ibn Khaldun, “could no longer float a plank on the sea.” 3 Products like papyrus disappeared from European monasteries; wine long purchased from the Mediterranean now had to be grown locally. Only a trickle of luxury products, usually sold by Syrian and Jewish traders, appeared in Europe’s marketplaces and aristocratic courts. 4
In contrast, such goods crowded the bazaars in the often dazzling Muslim cities, from Toledo and Córdoba in Spain to Delhi in distant India. Muslim traders and missionaries now extended their influence to the islands of Southeast Asia and established colonies in the thriving coastal cities of China itself.
MUHAMMAD’S URBAN VISION
Islamic civilization rested upon a powerful vision of human purpose. Like the classical civilization it supplanted, it was at its core a profoundly urban faith. The need to gather the community of believers was a critical aspect of Islam. Muhammad did not want his people to return to the desert and its clan-oriented value system; Islam virtually demanded cities to serve as “the places where men pray together.” 5
The history of early Islam is one of urban dwellers. Muhammad was a
Many potential allies who might have rallied to the old inclusive empire now turned against the regime. Some groups, including the Jews and even some Christian sects, actively assisted first the Persians and later the Muslims in hacking away pieces of the empire.
Other forces also worked to undermine the city and its dwindling empire. Natural disasters, such as earthquakes, followed by the great plagues of the late sixth century A.D., wiped out one-third to one-half of Constantinople’s population and many of the smaller cities entirely. 24 Debilitated from disease and internal dissension, its population in decline, the empire was ill prepared to counter the rise of Islam in the seventh and eighth centuries.
Despite its many problems, the empire persisted—its greatest virtue, noted the historian Jacob Burckhardt, was its “tenacity”—but devolved increasingly into an archipelago of relatively small, perennially threatened armed fortresses. Byzantine defensive prowess, diplomacy, outright bribery, and dissension within the Muslim world all conspired to keep Constantinople safe from final conquest until it fell to the onslaught of Turkish cannons in A.D. 1453. 25
PART THREE
THE ORIENTAL EPOCH
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE ISLAMIC ARCHIPELAGO
In 1325, Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Battuta left his native city of Tangier and headed east, to begin his sacred hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca. Later, having performed his religious duty in Arabia, he traveled on for almost the next quarter century, sojourning at trading posts along the coast of East Africa, across the caravan towns of the Central Asian steppe, and to the gilded cities of India and the Silk Road.
For most of the journey, covering thousands of miles and scores of cultures, ibn Battuta felt at home almost everywhere. He encountered many different races, languages, and cultures, but most cities lived within the familiar bounds of Dar al-Islam, the house of Islam, a world embracing one God and the revelations of one man, the prophet Muhammad.
It had been nearly a millennium since Rome, and its vast urban network had suffered its final agonies of decline. The Eternal City’s successor, Constantinople, still survived behind its walls but was fatally weakened and surrounded by enemies. It now stood as the only European city among the twenty largest in the world; almost all the rest were part of the Oriental world, either in China or within Dar al-Islam. 1
Muslim primacy had contributed much to the weakening of European urbanism. By taking control of both the Mediterranean and the trade routes to the East, Muslims had cut off European commerce from critical sources of both wealth and knowledge. 2 “The Christians,” observed the Arab historian ibn Khaldun, “could no longer float a plank on the sea.” 3 Products like papyrus disappeared from European monasteries; wine long purchased from the Mediterranean now had to be grown locally. Only a trickle of luxury products, usually sold by Syrian and Jewish traders, appeared in Europe’s marketplaces and aristocratic courts. 4
In contrast, such goods crowded the bazaars in the often dazzling Muslim cities, from Toledo and Córdoba in Spain to Delhi in distant India. Muslim traders and missionaries now extended their influence to the islands of Southeast Asia and established colonies in the thriving coastal cities of China itself.
MUHAMMAD’S URBAN VISION
Islamic civilization rested upon a powerful vision of human purpose. Like the classical civilization it supplanted, it was at its core a profoundly urban faith. The need to gather the community of believers was a critical aspect of Islam. Muhammad did not want his people to return to the desert and its clan-oriented value system; Islam virtually demanded cities to serve as “the places where men pray together.” 5
The history of early Islam is one of urban dwellers. Muhammad was a
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