Mu‘awiya's Rule

What one might have expected to happen, though, was not that Byzantium and Persia would simply march in to take back their lands, but that the

Arab Empire would fragment into warring factions, as happened to many conquerors from the margins, such as the Turks in the late sixth century. Civil war did indeed afflict the Arabs on a number of occasions, but somehow they managed to stay together and maintain their hold over their newly acquired territories. To understand this achievement it is crucial to bear in mind that though nomadic tribes contributed essential raw fighting power, the conquest leadership was not drawn from men innocent of civilization. They were principally from Yemen, which had a history of statehood stretching back more than one and a half millennia, and from the oasis towns of central and northern west Arabia, which had had close ties with the provincial Roman/Byzantine world for centuries. Muhammad himself had participated in trading journeys to Syria and his tribe of Quraysh had numerous links to the Arab Christian tribes of that land. The conquerors were therefore no strangers to the business of government, even if they had not expected to find themselves in the driving seat.18

The first Arab ruler whose name is attested on coins, inscriptions, and documents, as well as in contemporary chronicles, is Mu'awiya, the founder of the Umayyad dynasty (661-750). So what do these sources tell us about his reign? In the first place, as one observer put it: “He refused to go to the seat of Muhammad,” that is, Medina, home to the Arab rulers before him, but preferred to make his capital at Damascus, where he had already been directing military operations for twenty years. Evidently he recognized that it was not feasible to rule such a far-flung empire from such a remote location. This sounds like an eminently practical decision, but it was very likely a contentious one, given that Medina was where Muhammad had established his community. One of the key promises of 'Abdallah ibn al-Zubayr, the principal challenger to the Umayyads in the 680s, was that he would place Mecca and Medina once more at the heart of the Arab Empire, a pledge that won over many to his cause. Mu'awiya’s decision might not, however, have been solely a pragmatic one. He perhaps regarded his rule as a new beginning, and his son Yazid would certainly appear to have held that view, for he took the surprising step at the outset of his reign of stamping on his coins “year one of Yazid” rather than using the hijra era that had become standard by his day, counting from the year in which Muhammad founded his community in Medina. It is very much in the tradition of ancient Middle Eastern kings and suggests that he did not see himself as a mere deputy of Muhammad.19

Second, Mu'awiya paid attention to the problem of asserting central control over the vast lands to the east of Syria, which would be a thorn in the Umayyads' side for a long time to come and eventually bring about their downfall. His solution was to entrust them to a couple of men who were very close to him: 'Abdallah ibn 'Amir, who was of the same tribe and was married to a daughter of his, and subsequently Ziyad, who was the son of a concubine of his father and whom Mu'awiya formally adopted as his brother. The names of these two men appear on the coinage of the east for the years ad 661—74 (ah 41—54). Ziyad's writ would seem to have extended particularly far, for he was able to have his coinage of 670—74 struck at more than twenty-four mints spread right across Iran, confirming the report of Muslim historians that he acted as Mu'awiya's viceroy over all the eastern territories. He was also the first to add religious slogans in Arabic to the coinage, inscribing the phrase “in the name of God my lord” (bismillah rabbi). His sons followed in his footsteps and between them this family ruled over a large portion of the east on behalf of Mu'awiya and his son Yazid for almost two decades.20

Third, Mu'awiya followed a laissez-faire policy toward the conquered peoples—“he allowed everyone to live as they wanted” as one contemporary noted—and sought to reassure them that he was not hostile to their religions. For example, in recognition of the fact that the majority of his new subjects were Christian, he made the deliberate decision to have a number of Arab chiefs swear the oath of allegiance to him as leader in Jerusalem, and while there “he went up and sat down on Golgotha and prayed there; he also went to Gethsemane and then went down to the tomb of the blessed Mary and prayed in it.” Moreover, Mu'awiya made efforts to win over the Christian Arab elite of Syria (the likes of Sharahil ibn Zalim whom we met in Chapter 1), who had invaluable experience of government. Many of them served as his senior advisors and administrators, such as the Mansur family of Damascus; Christian poets were frequent visitors to his court and quite a number of his tribal backers were Christian. He himself married Maysun, the daughter of the powerful

Christian chief of Kalb, and she bore him the future caliph Yazid. The latter went on to marry two noble women of Ghassan, one of them allegedly the daughter of the last Christian Ghassanid king.21 Mu'awiya did endeavor to implement a few pro-Muslim policies, in particular to remove the symbol of the cross from the coinage and to incorporate the church of St. John the Baptist in Damascus within the mosque, but when the Christians protested he apparently backed down.22

Finally, Mu'awiya gave some thought to the economy. The conquests had given the Arabs access to large amounts of cash from taxes, tribute, and booty, but most of it was simply recycled directly to the army in the form of stipends, which were paid not only to the soldiers but also to their families and dependents. In an account of the annual revenues and expenditure of southern Iraq in 670 we are informed that 60 million dirhams was collected in tax, of which 52 million went on stipends and rations to the military and their families. This amounts to 87 percent of total expenditure, which seems very high (modern estimates for Late Roman military expenditure range from a third to a half of state revenue), but certainly papyri from Umayyad Egypt give no indication of money being sent to the central treasury. So how did Mu'awiya cover the expenses of his household and how did he pay for the running of the state: the repair and maintenance of roads, bridges, and canals; the construction and manning of siege engines and ships; the manufacture and transport of equipment and goods? He had access to manpower from captives, slaves, and compulsory labor, but the papyri that record the requisitioning of labor for building projects and military campaigns show that in general wages were paid and that the raw materials were bought with cash too. So the question remains: how could Mu'awiya raise money? One source tells us that he posed exactly this question to his financial controller in Iraq, who, on consulting the local nobles, advised him to exploit the former Persian royal agricultural estates. These had not been subject to the standard land tax; rather those who managed them had paid a percentage of their yield directly to the Sasanian family. Mu'awiya decided to copy this practice and these properties, after the irrigation systems had been repaired, provided him with substantial revenue.23

He did the same with lands elsewhere that had been abandoned by their former owners, who in most cases had either fled or been killed or taken captive during the conquests. He either appropriated them for his own family or handed them out as rewards to kin and allies on the understanding that they would develop them. Contemporary Christian writers inform us about a few such ventures, like the one at Clysma in eastern Egypt where Christian captives worked under a Jewish foreman and another near the Dead Sea in the region of Zoara and Tetraphrygia, where public estates were worked by Cypriot captives, very probably those who had been taken prisoner in the raids on their island in 649—50. But it was not just the Umayyads and their supporters who were enriched by the conquests. In some seventh-century Arabic apocalypses Muhammad is made to predict that “wealth will abound among you to such an extent that were a man given a hundred gold coins he would be displeased and count it as little.” A good proportion of this wealth was directed toward conspicuous consumption, stimulating the wider economy, and this is recorded by a number of contemporary Christian writers, who say that trade doubled, prosperity and peace reigned, and public buildings, even churches, were restored.24

Many regions, however, would have had little day-to-day contact with the conquerors, for in the first few decades of Arab rule they were either on campaign or confined to the garrison towns; only in inland Syria, where there was already a substantial Arabic-speaking population, and in Khurasan were the newcomers settled among the indigenous people. For example, the contemporary papyri from Egypt show that during Mu'awiya's reign the village headmen, regional administrators (pagarchs), and even the provincial dukes were all Christians and very likely all native Egyptians. Only the governor, a few members of his senior staff, and the military were drawn from the ranks of the conquerors. In the archive of Papas, an aristocratic landowner and regional administrator in Upper Egypt of the 670s, there is little overt sign of the presence of the Arab rulers. His correspondence is conducted in Greek with secretaries (notarioi) of the same class and upbringing as himself. They share the same language of refined politeness: “my brother, admirable in all ways,” “my God-guarded master and brother,” “your honourable and admirable Friendship.” As a member of the curial class, which traditionally filled town councils, Papas often intervened to solve local disputes, and in a private capacity he dealt with basic legal matters, such as leases, mortgages, and loans against security. But behind the veneer of normality and continuity with the old, there is always in the background the shadow of the new regime, manifest in some of the letters to Papas in phrases like “I cannot disobey the order of our lords” and “the implacable command of our lord the emir.” Three complaints against the new rulers crop up time and time again. The first concerns taxes and delivery of goods for the upkeep of the Arab armies, which appear to have been very diligently enforced from on high. The second is about the requisition of men to serve on the Arab fleets, as carpenters, caulkers, oarsmen, and the like. The work was paid, but maritime travel was dangerous, and being involved in a battle at sea even more so, and few were keen to risk their lives in such a venture, especially against their Christian brothers from Byzantium. And the third relates to the phenomenon of enslavement. Church authorities received numerous enquiries from worried members of their flock: “How can one redeem one’s sins if, having been reduced to servitude or captured in war, one can no longer attend church, fast or observe a vigil freely and at will? What is one to say regarding Christian women who, as slaves and captives, have given themselves up to prostitution?”25 Being wrenched from one’s homeland and forced to serve foreign masters in a faraway land was a painful experience, and so unsurprisingly, stories about its importunities and hardships abound in our sources.